By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Affected person readers, extra on the day’s fireworks shortly. The New Yr begins with a bang! –lambert
Chicken Tune of the Day
In honor of the New Yr, I’m going to shift mimidae from Mockingbirds to Thrashers.
Brown Thrasher,Libertytown; Audrey Carroll Wildlife Sanctuary, Frederick, Maryland, United States. “Brown thrashers have been again on this space solely 4-6 days.”
In Case You Would possibly Miss…
- Mangione decide, protection fund.
- WSWS on managing illness via permitting an infection.
- Populism and the Wizard of Oz.
Politics
“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are actually a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Trump Transition
“Islamic State-inspired driver expressed need to kill earlier than lethal New Orleans rampage, Biden says” [Associated Press]. “The FBI recognized the motive force as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, and stated it was working to find out any potential associations with terrorist organizations…. “We don’t consider that Jabbar was solely accountable,” FBI Assistant Particular Agent in Cost Alethea Duncan stated at a information convention. Investigators discovered a number of improvised explosives, together with two pipe bombs that had been hid inside coolers and wired for distant detonation, in response to a Louisiana State Police intelligence bulletin obtained by The Related Press.”
“Julian Assange and Wikileaks New Cables Bombshell: ISIS Created By CIA” [Yahoo News]. • From 2016, nonetheless germane. I grant you possibly can’t inform the gamers and not using a scorecard, however sheesh.
* * * “Fireworks, fuel tanks and tenting gasoline utilized in Tesla Cybertruck explosion outdoors Las Vegas Trump Resort” [CNN]. “Authorities consider fireworks, fuel tanks and tenting gasoline had been linked to a detonation system managed by the motive force within the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outdoors a Trump Resort in Las Vegas Wednesday morning, in response to a regulation enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The FBI is working to find out whether or not the incident was a terrorist act, Jeremy Schwartz, performing particular agent in cost for the FBI’s Las Vegas workplace, stated Wednesday. The company believes it was an remoted incident and there’s no additional hazard to the general public, Schwartz famous. There may be one particular person useless contained in the Cybertruck, the place the physique stays as authorities proceed their investigation… ” • “The physique” (allegedly) being Matthew Livelsberger.
“Matthew Livelsberger Comparability With Luigi Mangione Takes Off On-line” [Newsweek]. “A social media video posted on-line by the creator Nimay Ndolo evaluating the Cybertruck explosion suspect with the alleged UnitedHealthcare shooter Luigi Mangione has gone viral. She then says: ‘America spent all final month creating class consciousness. Additionally they spent final month creating an murderer kink.’ ‘So this Vegas pyromaniac higher have a fats a*** and a thick manifesto as a result of oh my God.’” • Properly, that’s useful.
* * * Massive if true (1):
BREAKING: Cybertruck which exploded at Trump Resort in Las Vegas and truck utilized in New Orleans assault had been each rented via carsharing app Turo – AP
— BNO Information (@BNONews) January 1, 2025
Massive if true (2):
Has anybody observed that the CEO of Turo, the automobile renting app accountable for the 2 autos concerned in terror actions yesterday, is Andre Haddad who’s an Arab from Lebanon initially. Notice, the NOLA assault has ISIS connection and Vegas assault is apparent suicide bombing.
— William Barrell (@bomber6b) January 2, 2025
Massive if true (3):
Surrounded by the billionaire class is Haddad, from Lebanon, tapped alongside his entire particular life. Tesla’s and Turo go hand in hand. Haddad and Elon go manner again. So many connections right here, it is getting ridiculous. pic.twitter.com/0hGYU8BlP4
— Wyatt Washburn (@WyattWashburn2) January 2, 2025
I can’t discover the tweet, however the concept was that again within the day, our false flags was actually slick. Now they’re clumsy and silly. Was it so improper that the very first thought that popped into my thoughts was “Reichstag hearth”?
* * * There’s a cui bono buried on this assertion:
🚨 BREAKING: Donald Trump releases new assertion pic.twitter.com/r7rpOV9FrB
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 2, 2025
Cui bono being the assertion one ought to at all times ask, even when the reply isn’t at all times clear.
Realignment and Legitimacy
The Chronicle]. “U.S. Justice of the Peace Choose Katharine Parker, who’s presiding over Mangione’s federal pretrial hearings, graduated cum laude from Duke with a Bachelor of Arts in historical past in 1989. Because the pretrial decide, she oversees preliminary hearings relating to the usage of proof however isn’t anticipated to preside over Mangione’s trial…. Parker was elected a fellow of The School of Labor and Employment Attorneys and named on the Greatest Attorneys in America record for seven consecutive years. She has additionally served as chair of the Incapacity Regulation Committee for the New York Metropolis Bar and acquired quite a few awards for professional bono work and charitable service. sIn 2016, Parker was appointed to her present position as federal Justice of the Peace decide for the U.S. District Court docket of the Southern District of New York. Parker’s husband, Bret Parker, served as vp and assistant normal counsel of Wyeth Prescribed drugs from 2004 till 2009. When Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer, a multinational pharmaceutical firm, he retained a transitional position on the firm till 2010, in response to a LinkedIn web page beneath his title.”
“Protection fund established by supporters of suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione tops $200K” [ABC]. “A number of on-line protection funds have been created for Mangione by nameless folks, together with one on the crowdfunding web site GiveSendGo that as of Tuesday morning had raised over $200,000. The GiveSendGo protection fund for the 26-year-old Mangione was established by an nameless group calling itself “The December 4th Authorized Committee,” apparently in reference to the day Mangione allegedly ambushed and gunned down Thompson in Midtown Manhattan as the chief walked to his firm’s shareholders convention on the New York Hilton resort.”
Syndemics
“I’m in earnest — I can’t equivocate — I can’t excuse — I can’t retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Assets, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; consists of many counties; Wastewater Scan, consists of drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide information). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Basic Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).
Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be happy to contact me on the deal with given with the vegetation. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!
Assets, United States (Native): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater experiences); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Assets, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).
Assets, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tricks to useful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Keep protected on the market!
Elite Maleficence
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
Lambert here: A little more orange and red around Ohio; no rise at JFK, EWR, ORD, LAX.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC December 16 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC December 21 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC December 21 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| New York[5] New York State, data December 27: | National [6] CDC December 26: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens December 23: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic December 14: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC December 9: | Variants[10] CDC December 9 |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) A little uptick.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Slow and small but steady increase.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.
[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.
[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “Initial jobless claims in the US slumped by 9,000 from the previous week to 211,000 in the last week of 2024, contrasting sharply with the expected increase to 222,000, to mark the lowest amount of initial claims in eight months.”
Manufacturing: “Jet crash disaster in South Korea marks another setback for Boeing” [Associated Press]. “Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines who is now a consultant, said it would be inappropriate to link the incident Sunday to two fatal crashes involving Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jetliner in 2018 and 2019. In January this year, a door plug blew off a 737 Max while it was in flight, raising more questions about the plane. The Boeing 737-800 that crash-landed in Korea, Price noted, is a very proven airplane. ‘It’s different from the Max …It’s a very safe airplane.’” And the Max isn’t. What horrible messaging.
Manufacturing: “Boeing’s terrible year is ending with the worst aviation tragedy of 2024” [CNN]. Every setback an excuse for a roundup like this one. Nevertheless: “The Jeju Air plane’s landing gear appeared not to be extended as it attempted to land. There had been reports of a bird strike causing the plane’s pilots to issue a distress call as it upon approached the airport in Muan, South Korea…. A 15-year-old plane, like the one that crashed Sunday, is unlikely to have problems caused by a design flaw or production problems attributed to Boeing. But it is too soon to say why the Jeju Air plane’s landing gear was not extended.” •
Manufacturing: “Boeing on track to be 2024’s biggest loser in Dow Jones Index” [Reuters]. “U.S. planemaker Boeing, opens new tab is on track to be the biggest loser of 2024 in the Dow Jones Index, tumbling 32% as it bounced from one crisis to another.” • Well, I suppose bouncing is better than crashing….
Manufacturing: “Intel’s Grim Lesson for Boeing: Sometimes Mr. Fix-It Is Too Late” [Wall Street Journal]. “Since the 2000s, both [Boeing and Intel] became too narrowly focused on present profitability, despite operating in sectors in which big spending is essential to maintain a competitive edge decades down the line. Dividend payouts and share repurchases jumped and company cultures moved away from technical talent to rewarding managers based on financial metrics instead. Investors eventually saw the folly of this approach.” Yes, after planes crashed into the ground. More: “His true test will come in a few years, when a replacement for the 737 MAX starts being developed. Almost two decades will have elapsed since the first flight of Boeing’s last clean-sheet model, the 787. Without a bold, expensive attempt to push aircraft manufacturing forward, however, the risk will be larger than ever that airlines could shop at Airbus for their next-generation jets. Yet, with much of Boeing’s old engineering talent now gone and investors hungry to recoup some of their losses, the temptation to play it safe will be strong.” • I haven’t seen a firm statement from anybody (e.g. Leeham, last I checked). Of course, Boeing can stay it the repair business for a long time; see the B-52. And maybe less air travel is good for the planet, unless your policy goal is depopulation through the spread of airborne pandemics, of course.
Manufacturing: “China steps up drive to break Boeing and Airbus grip on plane market” [Financial Times]. “China is stepping up its push to break the grip of Boeing and Airbus on the aircraft market, as the state-run maker of the country’s first homegrown passenger jet seeks certifications for it to fly beyond the country’s shores. Comac’s heavily subsidised C919, which made its maiden commercial flight in 2023, is already flown on domestic routes by China’s three big state-owned carriers: Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines. From this month, China Eastern will fly the C919 between Hong Kong and Shanghai, its first regular commercial route outside China’s mainland.” And: “Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, said building ‘elaborate product support facilities in export markets is very hard and expensive work, and a necessary precondition for competing with Airbus and Boeing.’ While several carriers in Asia have expressed interest in the C919, some executives say privately that they remain hesitant. ‘Maintenance support is the main issue,’ said a person close to Indonesia’s TransNusa, which has already received three of Comac’s smaller ARJ21 aircraft and is considering flying the C919.” • Can’t they outsource it? Maybe Comac could built a plant in Renton, hire all those fired Boeing workers.
Manufacturing: “China’s Export Crackdown Hits Boeing, Lockheed Martin And More” [Benzinga]. “China also added 10 companies to its Unreliable Entity List for participating in arms sales to Taiwan. Those companies are prohibited from doing any business in China and their executives may not enter or live in the country. Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., General Dynamics Corp. and RTX Corp. are among the companies affected. Andrew Gilholm, a China expert at the consulting firm Control Risks, told the New York Times that China has taken similar actions on these companies before. ‘Most of this is probably at the symbolic level because so many of these entities were already subject to sanctions,’ Gilholm said.” The move is seen as retaliation to recent U.S. measures including the Biden administration’s restrictions on exports of advanced memory chips and chipmaking machinery to 140 Chinese companies and the addition of Chinese firms to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List.”
Tech: “Meta’s Big Bet on Bots Why AI friends are coming to Facebook and Instagram” [New York Magazine]. “The idea of introducing AI characters into Meta’s platforms is in some ways distinct and new — we’re talking about not just automating content curation and promotion here but, in some cases, actual creation — but can also be understood as a way to rebrand an effective but alienating overhaul that’s been a decade in the making. With many AI products — from ChatGPT to a customer-support bot — the performance of personhood, which is a bit of a misleading magic trick even when done carefully, is at least as important as raw capabilities. Meta can claim it’s building technology to create social-media agents that can exist on its platforms “in the same way that accounts do,” and maybe it’ll turn out to be right. But Meta’s AI characters are also a way to slap a more friendly, humanlike face on a long, bloodless campaign of social automation.” • A platform of all bots chittering to themselves…. Every tech bros wet dream, no? Goes with my theory that there will be a quiet return to the blogosphere; there really is something to be said for online spaces were something like authenticity is actually possible. Of course, this latest idea from The Zuckerberg™ could also go belly up. Remember the metaverse, with the avatars that — highly symbolically! — had literally nothing below the waist.”
Tech: Make up your mind:
AP stands for Associated Propaganda pic.twitter.com/kh8rTuwlPK
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2025
“Congress shall make no regulation… abridging the liberty of speech, or of the press.”
Right now’s Worry & Greed Index: 26 Worry (earlier shut: 27 Worry) [CNN]. One week in the past: 33 (Worry). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jan 2 at 1:24:36 PM ET.
E-book Nook
“A Very Personal Life – Nikolai Tolstoy Remembers Patrick O’Brian We glance again on the lifetime of the ‘best historic novelist of all time’” [Unseen Histories]. That is very lengthy, most likely greatest for O’Brian stans (of which I’m one). “What would a working day be like for Patrick? Was he a morning particular person? Was he very inflexible in his time-keeping? NIKOLAI TOLSTOY: Sure, inflexible. He would go straight down after breakfast. In Collioure, he had a wierd, tiny place which was a lot, a lot smaller than this. It was like a cave. They’d a winery happening and sloping fairly steeply from the home. They’d a terrace or balcony and beneath it, there was a niche and that’s the place Patrick did his writing like The Naval Chronicle and issues like that. He didn’t have many books round him.” • Ah, workflow. And that’s the ticket: A cave.
Gallery
Snow scene:
White Frost, 1875 #artbots #monet pic.twitter.com/3Jh7TCCAGl
— Claude Monet (@artistmonet) January 2, 2025
Class Warfare
News of the Wired
I am not feeling wired today.
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From DG:
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