2:00PM Water Cooler 8/2/2022 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Affected person readers, I’m going so as to add some extra beneath Politics, as a result of if I don’t catch up now, I by no means will! –lambert UPDATE Completed. I received absorbed and doubtless added an excessive amount of…

Chicken Track of the Day

Purple Martin, Georgia, United States. Recording made in 1955! One other species of songbird.

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the best of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“That they had realized nothing, and forgotten nothing.” –Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

“When the going will get bizarre, the bizarre flip professional.” –Hunter Thompson

Biden Administration

“Opinion: Nancy Pelosi: Why I’m main a congressional delegation to Taiwan” [WaPo]. No suspense within the Publish “newsroom,” I see:

At present, America should do not forget that vow. We should stand by Taiwan, which is an island of resilience. Taiwan is a frontrunner in governance: at present, in addressing the covid-19 pandemic and championing environmental conservation and local weather motion. It’s a chief in peace, safety and financial dynamism: with an entrepreneurial spirit, tradition of innovation and technological prowess which are envies of the world.

But, disturbingly, this vibrant, strong democracy — named one of many freest on the earth by Freedom Home and proudly led by a girl, President Tsai Ing-wen — is beneath risk.

In recent times, Beijing has dramatically intensified tensions with Taiwan. The Individuals’s Republic of China (PRC) has ramped up patrols of bombers, fighter jets and surveillance plane close to and even over Taiwan’s air protection zone, main the U.S. Protection Division to conclude that China’s military is “seemingly making ready for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by pressure.”

The PRC has additionally taken the battle into our on-line world, launching scores of assaults on Taiwan authorities businesses every day. On the similar time, Beijing is squeezing Taiwan economically, pressuring international firms to chop ties with the island, intimidating international locations that cooperate with Taiwan, and clamping down on tourism from the PRC.

Within the face of the Chinese language Communist Celebration’s (CCP) accelerating aggression, our congressional delegation’s go to ought to be seen as an unequivocal assertion that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic associate, because it defends itself and its freedom.

Our go to — one in every of a number of congressional delegations to the island — by no means contradicts the long-standing one-China coverage, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the U.S.-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances. The US continues to oppose unilateral efforts to alter the established order.

Our go to is a part of our broader journey to the Pacific — together with Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan — centered on mutual safety, financial partnership and democratic governance.

Shouldn’t we lose the conflict in Ukraine first? In the meantime:

RT @YuanTalks: #Chinese #military will maintain workout routines close to #Taiwan on Aug 4 – 7, reported official Xinhua Information Company late Tue after US Home of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan. pic.twitter.com/PahwgD7fSz

— COT-Report (@COTReport_de) August 2, 2022

Oh, look. A cauldron.

* * *

Higher than nothing. However late. And Fb?!

Tomorrow @SenSanders is holding on-line occasion w/ White Home COVID-19 Response Coordinator @AshishKJha46!

Sanders is searching for inquiries to ask! Add them under. Nice alternative to flag want for masks mandates & different COVID prevention efforts & extra! https://t.co/vwrvjM80ZO

— MandateMasksUS (@mandatemasksus) August 1, 2022

Right here is the hyperlink to the Fb web page.

2022

* * *

PA: Does Dr. Oz have a marketing campaign workers? Do they not have media patrons in New Jersey?

Fb advert spending in #PASen, Could 1 – Current:

🔵 @JohnFetterman: $533,719
🔴 @DrOz: $0

Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/tJJ3QVulVn

— FWIW (@FWIWnews) August 1, 2022

PA: On the path, although maybe not very:

Elizabeth’s Riverfest Parade to help the hearth division 🚒❤️‍🔥 pic.twitter.com/ZmyyWQ3rql

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) July 30, 2022

WI: “A Democrat who dropped out of the Wisconsin Senate race is giving the get together a $600,000 shock reward” [NBC]. “The Milwaukee Bucks government who dropped out of the Wisconsin Senate race this week is in a giving temper. After he instantly threw his help behind fellow Democrat Mandela Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor, Alex Lasry is now providing one other reward to spice up his former rival. Lasry stated he’ll use $584,000 price of beforehand bought airtime to run assault advertisements towards Republican Sen. Ron Johnson.” • This doesn’t occur on a regular basis?

WY: “WATCH: Liz Cheney’s unpopularity grows, referred to as ‘a humiliation’ by Wyoming voters” [The Gazette]. “‘Can I cuss? Hell no,’ stated Wyoming resident Sharon Tuggle bluntly earlier than noting Cheney’s work on the Jan. 6 committee. ‘She’s carried out us soiled.’ In 2020, former President Donald Trump received round 70% of the vote in Wyoming. He stays in style within the state. ‘Have a look at how [Cheney’s] carried out Trump,’ Tuggle stated. ‘She’s presupposed to be supporting him. She’s a Republican, for crying out loud.’” • I’m picturing a kind of Mike and Joe scenario on MSNBC, besides with Liz Cheney and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

2024

“Trump beats Biden, Harris in hypothetical 2024 match-up: ballot” [The Hill]. “Former President Trump leads President Biden and Vice President Harris in hypothetical 2024 presidential match-ups, in keeping with a brand new Harvard CAPS-Harris Ballot survey launched completely to The Hill on Monday. The ballot discovered that if the 2024 election had been held in the present day, 45 p.c of respondents would vote for Trump in a race towards Biden, who attracted the help of 41 p.c of respondents, whereas 14 p.c had been uncertain or didn’t know. In a hypothetical Trump-Harris match-up, Trump’s lead expands to 7 proportion factors. Forty-seven p.c stated they’d help Trump, in comparison with 40 p.c for Harris and 13 p.c who had been uncertain or didn’t know. Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Ballot survey, famous how Biden could be a weaker candidate in a race towards Trump in the present day than he carried out in 2020.” • Ah, Mark Penn, reviled by Clintonites, even perhaps justly. In fact, all that is earlier than the hassle to make Biden appear Churchillian. Go the victory gin. Liberal Democrat: “However Trump is a criminal!” And–

““I’ve Delivered”: New Disclosures Demolish President Biden’s Denials on Hunter Dealings” [The Hill]. “New disclosures are demolishing the continued denials of President Biden that he had no data and nothing to do along with his son’s enterprise pursuits. The emails (reviewed by Fox and The Each day Mail) embrace exchanges with at the very least 14 of Hunter Biden’s enterprise associates whereas Joe Biden was vp…. There are emails of Ukrainian and different international shoppers thanking Hunter Biden for arranging conferences along with his father. There are photographs from dinners and conferences that tie President Biden to those figures, together with a 2015 dinner with a bunch of Hunter Biden’s Russian and Kazakh shoppers. Individuals apparently had been informed to keep away from immediately referring to President Biden. In a single electronic mail, Tony Bobulinski, then a enterprise associate of Hunter’s, was instructed by Biden affiliate James Gilliar to not converse of the previous veep’s connection to any transactions: “Don’t point out Joe being concerned, it’s solely when u [sic] are nose to nose, I do know u [sic] know that however they’re paranoid.” As a substitute, the emails apparently confer with President Biden with code names similar to “Celtic” or “the massive man.” In a single, “the massive man” is mentioned as presumably receiving a ten p.c lower on a cope with a Chinese language power agency; different emails reportedly confer with Hunter Biden paying parts of his father’s bills and taxes.” • ”Say a prayer for the widespread foot soldier.” In any case, what track amongst us has grown as much as be their father’s bagman?

“Donald Trump’s Nice Escape: How The Former President Solved His Debt Disaster” [Forbes]. “he day Donald Trump left the White Home, his enterprise was dealing with $900 million of debt coming due within the subsequent 4 years. Working by way of these loans would have been a major endeavor for any agency, however the Trump Group was contending with extra challenges. Deutsche Financial institution, Trump’s longtime lender, was reportedly trying to finish its relationship with the true property mogul. Two different monetary establishments, Signature Financial institution and Skilled Financial institution, had unfold the phrase that they had been slicing ties within the wake of January 6, 2021. In the meantime, the Manhattan district legal professional was getting near charging the Trump Group with a collection of monetary crimes, together with falsifying enterprise data, conspiracy and fraud. Quickly loads of folks had been trumpeting the tip of an period.” The partitions had been closing in! Extra: “Within the final 15 months, the Trump Group—beneath indictment, with its founder characterizing the costs as a part of a “political Witch Hunt by the Radical Left Demo­crats”—has managed to transform virtually all $900 million of the debt it had coming due. Two of its most troublesome Deutsche Financial institution loans, totaling $295 million, are actually off the books. The previous president offered his money-losing resort in Washington, D.C., to an funding store linked to former Main League Baseball star Alex Rodriguez and retired boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, thanks to assist from a agency tied to pc billionaire Michael Dell. Trump additionally refinanced $125 million of debt towards a Miami golf resort and reworked a $100 million mortgage at Trump Tower. Trump’s enterprise nonetheless has loads of debt—an estimated $1.1 billion in all—however now most of it doesn’t come due till 2028 or later. Two loans that haven’t been refinanced—a $13 million mortgage towards a property on Third Avenue in Manhattan and a $45 million mortgage towards a tower in Chicago—mature in 2024. However neither of these ought to be too tough to pay again. In any case, Trump now has an estimated $375 million in money readily available, greater than thrice the sum he had at any level throughout his presidency, because of the spate of dealmaking.” • You gotta respect the grift!

“The Memo: No, actually — What if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez runs for president?” [The Hill]. “Ocasio-Cortez has conspicuously declined to decide to endorsing Biden for a second time period. In a CNN interview final month, she informed Dana Bash, ‘We’ll cross that bridge once we get to it.’ The New York congresswoman, who shot to fame in 2018 when she defeated then-Rep. Joseph Crowley in a Democratic major, is already a fundraising juggernaut. She may simply increase the funds to run a aggressive marketing campaign. She additionally has an unlimited social media following — greater than 13 million followers on Twitter alone. Pollsters have begun testing her title amongst different much more seasoned figures and, whereas the degrees of help are modest for now, she is plainly within the combine. An Echelon Insights ballot this month, asking Democratic-leaning voters who they’d help if Biden eschewed a second time period, put her in sixth place — however in a tightly bunched group of candidates, solely 2 proportion factors behind third-placed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Vice President Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg led that ballot…. Two different elements recommend an Ocasio-Cortez marketing campaign shouldn’t be written off out of hand. First: Sure, she is sufficiently old to run. The minimal age to be president is 35. Ocasio-Cortez will have fun her thirty fifth birthday roughly three weeks earlier than Election Day 2024. The second is that she has lengthy leveled a broad critique of the Democratic Celebration management in Washington — in abstract, that it’s too cozy with wealthy, highly effective pursuits and never responsive sufficient to the wants of its personal voters.” • A “broad critique” by Beltway requirements, I feel. Nonetheless, wouldn’t the Democrat gerontocracy’s intracranial splatterfest be enjoyable?

Democrats en Déshabillé

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Celebration (“the Democrat Celebration is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated publish, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “reside” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Celebration is, in actual fact, a tough downside. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Celebration is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Celebration didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working components of the Celebration reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Celebration (ka-ching, however not totally) these components comprise a community — a Flex Web? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with property within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.

Notice, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is restricted by different lessons; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

“Mainstream Democrats Picked Henry Cuellar. Look The place It Bought Them” [Teen Vogue]. “Final week, Cuellar was referred to as out for co-sponsoring a invoice earlier in July which many see as a weakening of the Truthful Labor Requirements Act of 1938, alongside two Republicans. The so-called ‘Employee Flexibility and Alternative Act‘ amends the act, and establishes ‘employee flexibility agreements’ which serve to exempt gig employees from the federal minimal wage, preempting state- or city-level legal guidelines that enshrine a minimal wage. This might have disastrous penalties for American employees. As defined by Jacobin columnist Liza Featherstone, ‘The invoice creates complete new methods for employers to get out of paying minimal wage and additional time, extending the gig financial system’s stress and chaos to hundreds of thousands extra employees.’” • It received them precisely the place they needed to be: As soon as they’d two rotating villains: Manchin and Sinema. Now that Manchin is turning into a face as a substitute of a heel, he must be changed: Therefore, Cuellar.

“Slice of Earnings From North Carolina On line casino Goes to Kin of Politicians” [Wall Street Journal]. “An organization taking advantage of a brand new North Carolina tribal on line casino gave shares to politicians’ members of the family and high-profile political figures because the on line casino’s backers had been searching for federal approval for the venture, in keeping with interviews and paperwork reviewed by The Wall Road Journal. One of many stakes is held by John B. Clyburn, a brother of Rep. James Clyburn, the highly effective South Carolina Democratic congressman who launched a invoice in Congress final 12 months that smoothed the best way for the brand new Catawba Two Kings On line casino. Different stakes went to Michael Haley, husband of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican who served within the Trump administration as ambassador to the United Nations; Butch Bowers, a lawyer who has represented each Ms. Haley and former President Donald Trump; and Patti Solis Doyle, a Democratic political operative who helped handle campaigns in 2008 for Hillary Clinton and then-vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, in keeping with the paperwork. The stakes, held not directly by way of one other entity, gave every of the recipients a slice of a slot-machine leasing firm referred to as Kings Mountain Gear Provide LLC, whose main shareholders embrace monetary backers of the on line casino or their associates, in keeping with the paperwork. The corporate will get 20 cents of each $1 in income the on line casino generates from tons of of slot machines. The shareholdings are small—far lower than 1% possession for every recipient, the paperwork present. These concerned deny any quid professional quo.” • I don’t suppose folks like Clyburn turned what they’re in the present day by turning down something, irrespective of how “small.” Why take shares in any respect, for pity’s sake?

“How AIPAC Betrayed Its Former Assist for Democracy” [Tikkun]. “I’m gone my years of cooperating with AIPAC. However, I defended it on at the very least one event. In early 2019, when Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted that help for Israel is ‘all concerning the Benjamins,’ I joined those that condemned her assertion as antisemitic (she later apologized). With respect to AIPAC, the implicit goal of her tweet, many issues could have gone awry however not the truth that it had by no means endorsed or contributed to a marketing campaign.” Tediously literal-minded! Extra: “This was all the time a degree of delight with the group. They had been there to teach. The ‘PAC’ within the title stood for ‘Public Affairs Committee,’ not ‘Political Motion Committee.’ There have been no Benjamins concerned. That each one modified this 12 months when AIPAC based the United Democracy Undertaking (UDP) to endorse candidates and channel darkish cash to help them.”

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Do We Get the Authorities We Deserve?” [Wisdom of Crowds]. “The fact is that even in superior democracies similar to our personal, it turns into difficult to consider in small-d democracy beneath circumstances of duress. We, as Individuals, are at present residing beneath such circumstances. By this I imply one thing fairly particular. When electoral outcomes appear personally threatening, as a result of a lot (or an excessive amount of) is at stake, then it turns into simpler for one to place apart his or her supposed dedication to democracy. We’re seeing a model of this with a Republican Celebration that, to numerous levels, has indicated discomfort with—or outright opposition to—an election end result in 2020 that was to not its liking. I don’t suppose Democrats would have been almost as unhealthy, however I do suppose that the counterfactual historical past of a Trump victory in 2020 would have created some extent of political instability, pushed by the shortcoming of tens of hundreds of thousands of Democrats to return to phrases with the legitimacy of a second-term Trump presidency.”• Not controversial, on condition that the Democrat response to 2016 was RussiaGate.

“RNC hyperlinks up with ‘Cease the Steal’ advocates to coach ballot employees” [Politico]. • What actually frosts me about this type of story is that’s begins and ends with the aghastitude. Why or why don’t Democrats compete on this turf? What’s holding them up?

#COVID19

As readers know, I stan for nasal sprays and vaccines:

“Evaluating the efficacy and security of a novel prophylactic nasal spray within the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 an infection: A multi-centre, double blind, placebo-controlled, randomised trial” [ScienceDirect]. “This research stories the event of a prophylactic nasal spray focused to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that’s easy to supply and simply reasonably priced…. The nasal spray was administered 3 occasions every day over a forty five day course…. The check agent considerably diminished SARS-CoV-2 an infection in healthcare employees, with 62% fewer infections when in comparison with placebo. It was discovered to be protected and properly tolerated and gives a novel therapy possibility for prophylaxis towards SARS-CoV-2 an infection.” • I’ve to say, “Don’t do this at house,” however listed below are the elements (although not, naturally, their proportions):

The elements of the check spray embrace sterile water, polyethylene glycol 400, poloxamer 188, xylitol, disodium hydrogen phosphate, sodium chloride, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, ginger oil, eucalyptus oil, basil oil, clove oil, sodium hydrogen carbonate, potassium dihydrogen phosphate, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, sodium hyaluronate, calcium chloride dihydrate, benzalkonium chloride, magnesium chloride hexahydrate, potassium chloride, glycerol, and zinc chloride.

Ring any bells with our extra medically aggressive readers? Your complete piece is properly price a learn, as a result of it has comparability to different research of nasal sprays. It’s principally written in English (not jargon).

“Subsequent Technology Covid Vaccine Replace: Intranasal & Different Mucosal Vaxes” [Hilda Bastian, Absolutely Maybe]. Bastian’s periodically up to date listing. “There are 88 mucosal vaccines on this publish with preclinical and/or medical trial outcomes, or registered trials—16 greater than in my final publish…. There may be nonetheless only one mucosal Covid vax rolled out—the Razi Cov Pars vaccine in Iran. However a number of vaccines have superior.” •

“Three Urgent Questions About Monkeypox: Unfold, Vaccination, Remedy” [New York Times]. Provided that smallpox vaccines work for monkeypox: “In 2018, the F.D.A. authorized a drug to deal with smallpox referred to as tecovirimat, or TPOXX, based mostly on information from animal research. There are solely restricted information on its use in folks. Provide shouldn’t be a problem: The nationwide stockpile holds about 1.7 million doses. But the drug has been tough to amass, and that has meant that ambiguities about how properly and for whom the drug works have persevered at the same time as case counts rise. As a result of tecovirimat shouldn’t be authorized particularly to deal with monkeypox, it may possibly solely be prescribed by way of a cumbersome “investigational drug protocol” that, till just lately, required medical doctors to ship the C.D.C. detailed stories, a journal maintained by the sufferers to report their progress and images of the lesions. With so many hurdles, many clinics didn’t supply tecovirimat in any respect; even physicians at well-funded establishments had been managing to deal with solely two or three sufferers per day.” • Groundpox Day.

Our new monkeypox Czar:

Daskalakis is, naturally, a droplet goon–

“Monkeypox: Avoiding the Errors of Previous Infectious Illness Epidemics” [Demetre Daskalakis, R. Paul McClung, Leandro Mena, et al, Annals of Internal Medicine]. “Monkeypox virus an infection will be transmitted by way of cutaneous routes throughout shut or intimate contact with an individual whose lesions will not be but crusted over and healed, by way of fomites which have had contact with an individual with monkeypox, and by respiratory droplets amongst folks with shut, sustained face-to-face contact.” However as we linked to yesterday:

So, apparently, Monkeypox is airborne (“unfold by way of the air after they cough, sneeze, “). Now, I’ve very robust priors on airborne transmission, as readers know. So I’m not making a powerful declare, right here (i.e., I haven’t seen that Monkeypox fills a room like cigarette smoke). However once more, I really feel like I’ve seen this film earlier than: Blended messaging at the most effective, no actual idea of transmission that the general public can perceive and act upon, and no investigation besides by out-of-paradigm outsiders. (It’s not referred to as “droplet dogma” for nothing.) How I wish to be mistaken!

Maskstravaganza: Useful response to “masks don’t work”:

“This DIY field helps clear indoor air of the coronavirus. Why aren’t extra folks utilizing them?” [Los Angeles Times]. “‘Individuals aren’t embracing any of the opposite issues that may avert catastrophe on this pandemic,’ stated LeVine, a 49-year-old hashish firm government with {an electrical} engineering diploma who began constructing trippy do-it-yourself filtration containers as a pastime. ‘Perhaps I can create a method to clear the air that individuals need in the midst of the room.’ Because the pandemic drags on, not only for aerosol scientists and epidemiologists, however for a seize bag of involved residents like LeVine.” • To reply the query, extra folks aren’t utilizing Corsi-Rosenthal containers as a result of Dr. Jill Biden by no means went on the At present Present and assembled one, within the midst of some adoring faculty youngsters. This isn’t onerous.

“Consultants help this DIY venture to guard your post-COVID-19 lungs throughout wildfire season” [Loma Linda University]. • Simple-to-follow instructions for constructing a CR field.

One other ardour venture:

Do what thou wilt shall be the entire of the regulation, or, Aleister Crowley as Ur-Libertarian:

In the event you missed it, right here’s a publish on my queasiness with CDC numbers, particularly case rely, which I (nonetheless) contemplate most necessary, regardless of what Walensky’s psychos at CDC who invented “neighborhood ranges” suppose. However these are the numbers we’ve got.

Case Depend

Case rely for the US:

Lambert right here: This tapewatcher is barely befuddled by the case information. Put aside the worrying assumption that the curves for actual circumstances are the identical form because the curves for reported circumstances, though there’s nothing to show this. However circumstances are not going by way of the roof, at the very least when it comes to case reporting. Knowledge artifact? “Vaccine wall”? Why this sluggish, sawtooth sample when BA.5 is understood to be very infectious? Talking of immunity partitions:

• “Immunity partitions” [Eric Topol, Ground Truths]. “There have been marked variations for a way the inhabitants of various international locations reply to the Covid pandemic, maybe greatest exemplified within the BA.5 variant wave…. The “immunity wall” of a inhabitants is an mixture of many elements that embrace demographics similar to age and comorbidities, like weight problems or diabetes. Age is very necessary given immunosenescence, the much less potent immune response typically mounted with superior age. For the pandemic, of explicit word, it consists of prior infections, vaccines, boosters, mixed infections and boosters (hybrid immunity) and waning of the immunity from vaccines or infections over time. … With that background, let’s probe deeper into why the patterns are so completely different between New Zealand, Australia vs South Africa, US, and plenty of different international locations…. To summarize, the affect of BA.5 that I’ve described because the worst variant of the pandemic by its biologic properties is seen clinically the place there are much less intact immunity partitions, principally as a operate of prior infections and the kind (foremost variant underpinning) of infections. Our immunity wall in the US has helped present a lesser hit of BA.5, now beginning to present a plateau of hospitalizations at a degree under that of different international locations in Europe, though our vaccination and booster charge within the US is considerably decrease than these international locations.” • I’m not the one tape-watcher….

Keep in mind that circumstances are undercounted, one supply saying by an element of six, Gottlieb considering we solely decide up one in seven or eight.) Therefore, I take the case rely and multiply it by six to approximate the true degree of circumstances, and draw the DNC-blue “Biden Line” at that time. The earlier rely was ~125,000 At present, it’s ~125,000 and 125,000 * 6 = a Biden line at 750,000 per day. That’s moderately a whole lot of circumstances per day, when you concentrate on it. At the very least we’ve got affirmation that the extraordinary mass of case anecdotes we’ve seen have a foundation in actuality. (Bear in mind these information factors are weekly averages, so every day fluctuations are smoothed out.) The black “Fauci Line” is a counter to triumphalism, because it compares present ranges to previous crises.

Regional case rely for 4 weeks:

The South:

A sluggish upswing in the remainder of the south, beneath the Florida and Texas gyrations.

The South (minus Texas and Florida):

North Carolina and Georgia haven’t any information in the present day (therefore the gaps within the chart).

The West:

California drives the nationwide drop. This huge drop is supported by yesterday’s Walgreens positivity information (though not by wastewater. The populations for these two populations don’t essentially overlap, nevertheless.) However I’m simply undecided I can belief California information. For instance, right here is San Diego wastewater:

What do California readers suppose?

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s check positivity tracker, July 31:

-0.4%. (I’m wondering if there’s a Keynesian Magnificence Contest impact, right here; that’s, if folks encounter a sympotomatic individual, whether or not of their social circle or in regular exercise, they’re extra more likely to get a check, as a result of they consider, appropriately, that it’s extra seemingly they are going to be contaminated.) What we’re seeing right here is the steepest and largest acceleration of positivity on Walgreen’s chart.

Lambert right here: See Water Cooler of seven/29 for oddities with the chart on that day (like no worth in any respect for New York). We do see a fast change in slope from 7/27 to in the present day, 7/31. Nonetheless, such adjustments will not be unprecedented at a peak. Someone who is aware of the mathematics of Keynesian magnificence contests can inform me: If one individual identified to be contaminated in a social circle causes a number of folks to get examined, wouldn’t adjustments within the an infection charge, whether or not up or down, get amplified within the testing charge?

Transmission

NOTE: I shall most definitely not be utilizing the CDC’s new “Community Level” metric. Because CDC has combined a leading indicator (cases) with a lagging one (hospitalization) their new metric is a poor warning sign of a surge, and a poor way to assess personal risk. In addition, Covid is a disease you don’t want to get. Even if you are not hospitalized, you can suffer from Long Covid, vascular issues, and neurological issues. For these reasons, case counts — known to be underestimated, due to home test kits — deserve to stand alone as a number to be tracked, no matter how much the political operatives in CDC leadership would like to obfuscate it. That the “green map” (which Topol calls a “capitulation” and a “deception”) is still up and being taken seriously verges on the criminal. Use the community transmission immediately below.

Here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to community transmission. This is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you. For July 21, 2020:

Established order, i.e. it’s a very not-over pandemic.

Lambert right here: After the transfer from the CDC to the laughingly named ‘https://healthdata.gov,” this discover appeared: “Efficient June 22, 2022, the Group Profile Report will solely be up to date twice every week, on Wednesdays and Fridays.” So now the administration has belatedly come to the conclusion that we’re in a BA.5 surge, and but important information for making our private danger assessments is just accessible twice every week.

NOT UPDATED Fast Riser information, by county (CDC), July 29:

Enhancements in all places!

Earlier Fast Riser information:

NOT UPDATED Hospitalization information, by state (CDC), July 29:

Extra inexperienced. Good!

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how sluggish the variant information is. I seemed for extra charts: California doesn’t to a BA.4/BA.5 breakdown. New York does but it surely, too, is on a molasses-like two-week cycle. Does no one within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and all people will get the outcomes from them? Extra sources from readers welcome [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk].

NOT UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (Walgreens), July 14:

Variant information, nationwide (CDC), July 16 (Nowcast off):

BA.5 shifting alongside properly.

Wastewater

Wastewater information (CDC), July 29:

I discovered this chart onerous to learn, so I filtered the output to the best (pink) and next-highest (orange) ranges (considerably like Fast Riser Counties, see on right here). What’s seen is that a whole lot of cities are in hassle; however that protection is admittedly patchy. Illinois, for instance, has all the time had a whole lot of protection, however the dots cease on the Illinois border. This chart works a bit like fast riser counties: “This metric reveals whether or not SARS-CoV-2 ranges at a web site are at present greater or decrease than previous historic ranges on the similar web site. 0% means ranges are the bottom they’ve been on the web site; 100% means ranges are the best they’ve been on the web site.” So, there’s a bunch of pink dots on the West Coast. That’s 100%, so meaning “ranges are the best they’ve ever been.” Not damaged down by variant, CDC, good job.

Deaths

Dying charge (Our World in Knowledge):

Whole: 1,055,576 1,054,422. It’s curious that deaths are fiddling and diddling similar to circumstances. Suggests the impact in circumstances is actual, regardless of the precise degree of an infection.I’ve added an anti-triumphalist Fauci Line. It’s good that for deaths I’ve a pleasant, easy, every day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, in contrast to all the things else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

Stats Watch

Employment State of affairs: “United States Job Openings” [Trading Economics]. “The variety of job openings within the US fell by 605,000 from a month earlier to 10.7 million in June of 2022, the bottom in 9 months and under market expectations of 11 million. It was the third consecutive drop in job openings after a report degree in March. The most important decreases in job openings had been in retail commerce (-343,000), wholesale commerce (-82,000), and in state and native authorities training (-62,000).”

Retail: “SPAM goes on lockdown attributable to inflation in NYC” [New York Post (jr)]. “It’s the nation’s crises in a can. Inflation and crime have gotten so unhealthy in Gotham that even low-cost meat like Spam needs to be locked up. At Duane Reade’s retailer within the Port Authority bus depot, the shelf-stable product — solely $3.99 a can — is now being stocked in plastic, anti-theft circumstances. ‘I’ve by no means seen that earlier than!’ one cashier laughed whereas utilizing a magnet to take away a can of Spam from its cage. The cashier was among the many workers, vacationers and retailer regulars surprised that the long-lasting blue-and-yellow cans are actually being saved beneath lock-and-key — some even poking enjoyable on the sight as ‘a kind of Jeff Koons homage,’ per one viral tweet.”

Tech: “Courtroom Rejects Google’s Try and Dismiss Rumble’s Antitrust Lawsuit, Making certain Huge Discovery” [Glenn Greenwald]. “A federal district court docket in California on Friday denied Google’s movement to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the Silicon Valley big is violating federal antitrust legal guidelines by stopping truthful competitors towards its YouTube video platform. The lawsuit towards Google, which has owned YouTube since its 2006 buy for $1.65 billion, was introduced in early 2021 by Rumble, the free speech competitor to YouTube. Its central declare is that Google’s abuse of its monopolistic stranglehold on serps to destroy all rivals to its numerous different platforms is illegitimate beneath the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which makes it illegal to ‘monopolize, or try to monopolize…any a part of the commerce or commerce among the many a number of States, or with international nations.’ It’s uncommon for antitrust fits towards the 4 Massive Tech company giants (Google, Fb, Apple and Amazon) to keep away from early motions to dismiss. Friday’s choice towards Google ensures that the swimsuit now proceeds to the invention stage.” • Yowza!

At present’s Worry & Greed Index: 42 Worry (earlier shut: 39 Worry) [CNN]. One week in the past: 35 (Worry). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Aug 2 at 1:43 PM EDT.

Rapture Index: Closes up one on Earthquakes. “A Lethal Quakes strikes the Philippines” [Rapture Ready]. Report Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 189. (Keep in mind that bringing on the Rapture is good.) I’ve been ready for the Rapture Index to hit the all time excessive once more. Now it has.

The Conservatory

Perhaps I ought to have put this beneath “Zeitgeist Watch”:

I realized about “Frequent Individuals” from alert reader Petal again in 2019, IIRC. Catchy tune. Right here’s a reside model:

The Gallery

The way it began (1):

The way it’s going (1):

The way it began (2):

The way it’s going (2):

I don’t even play an artwork historian on TV, but when Louise Bourgeois orginated “punk pasteup” that might be superior. Bourgeois is terrific, even the enormous spiders.

Zeitgeist Watch

“Why So Many Supercars Have Montana License Plates” [Bloomberg]. • Regulatory arbitrage, our most distinctive competence as a rustic after bloated weaponry.

Police State Watch

“Simple Cash: How Counties Are Funneling Covid Reduction Funds Into New Jails” [The Nation]. “All through the nation, counties are dipping into funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Coronavirus Support, Reduction, and Financial Safety (CARES) Act to construct and develop jails and prisons. At the very least 20 counties in 18 states are utilizing, or need to use, Covid aid cash this manner. The issue is, their choice to take action violates the spirit, and sure the letter, of the principles governing how aid cash can be utilized. These guidelines, finalized by the US Treasury earlier this 12 months, ban jurisdictions from utilizing Covid aid cash to construct or develop correctional services. But that hasn’t stopped native officers in quite a lot of counties from pushing their initiatives by way of, spending their ARPA and CARES Act windfalls like successful lottery tickets for long-sought expansions.”

“Worry of Rampant Crime Is Derailing New York Metropolis’s Restoration” [Bloomberg]. “Maybe nowhere has the notion of rampant crime overpowered the fact greater than in New York Metropolis, the place the homicide charge has definitely elevated in recent times however is nowhere close to the place it was within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. Fears of violence have now surpassed Covid issues in relation to why employees say they received’t return to their Manhattan workplaces or experience on public transit within the monetary capital of the world. Apart from the affect on the residents of New York, there are far-reaching implications for the vacationers, buyers and different individuals who deliver enterprise and capital to the town’s financial system. A part of the outsized notion will be traced to the town’s new mayor, Eric Adams, whose give attention to crime helped propel the 22-year veteran of the New York Metropolis Police Division into the job. As soon as in workplace, he staked his administration on the concept he’s uniquely suited to offer a fast repair to the advanced downside of eradicating violence within the metropolis. Crisscrossing the town to indicate up at crime scenes huge and small, he turned well-known for delivering sermon-like admonitions in apocalyptic phrases. “We’re in an actual scary place,” Adams stated in a Could police briefing the place he likened the NYPD’s work to conflict deployment.”

Class Warfare

“Socioeconomic standing and public well being in Australia: A wastewater-based research” [Environment Internationa]l. From the Summary: ” On this research, fifteen wastewater samples masking 27% of the Australian inhabitants had been collected throughout a inhabitants Census. The samples had been analysed with a workflow using liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry and chemometric instruments for non-target evaluation. Socioeconomic traits of catchment areas had been generated utilizing Geospatial Data Techniques software program….. Markers of public well being (e.g., cardiac arrhythmia, heart problems, anxiousness dysfunction and sort 2 diabetes) had been recognized within the wastewater samples by the proposed workflow. They had been positively correlated with descriptors of drawback in training, occupation, marital standing and revenue, and negatively correlated with descriptors of benefit in training and occupation. As well as, markers of polypropylene glycol (PPG) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) associated compounds had been positively correlated with housing and occupation drawback. Excessive constructive correlations had been discovered between separated and divorced folks and particular medicine used to deal with cardiac arrhythmia, heart problems, and melancholy. Our strong non-targeted methodology together with Census information can determine relationships between biomarkers of public well being, human behaviour and way of life and socio-demographics of complete populations.” • Wastewater actually appears to be having a second nowadays.

Information of the Wired

Out of field considering:

I’m wondering if we may course of a whole lot of media the identical method; maybe a change in “the present factor” would equate to a sudden change in tone or texture. This would definitely be faster than really listening to all of it.

The timeline Sluggo is in, is the most effective timeline….

… as any economist will let you know. If that had been a actual fifty-dollar invoice, someone would have already got picked it up.

Contact info for vegetation: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a examine in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photos of vegetation. Greens are high-quality! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! If you’d like your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it at first of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize by utilizing your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From IM:

IM writes: “That is from the continental divide, up in Yoho park in BC. There’s a nurse log beneath the foliage. Cool forest greens for the recent summer time days.” Attractive mild. Definition of “nurse log”; museum-grade nurse logs.

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Right here is the display screen that may seem, which I’ve helpfully annotated:

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