2:00PM Water Cooler 4/12/2024 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Fowl Track of the Day

American Goldfinch, Spherical Valley Recreation Space, Hunterdon, New Jersey, United States.

Politics

“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in reality a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

2024

Lower than a yr to go!

RCP Ballot Averages, April 5

★ Right here this Friday’s RCP ballot. Trump continues to be up in all of the Swing States (extra right here), however nonetheless main with one exception: PA. I’ve highlighted it once more, (1) as a result of BIden is now up there, and (2) it’s an outlier, has been for weeks. Why isn’t Trump doing effectively there? (I’ll work out a greater method to do that, however for now: Blue dot = transfer towards Biden; pink dot = transfer towards Trump. No dot = no change (presumably as a result of state polls aren’t that quite a few so removed from election day).

* * *

Trump (R): “America is bored of Trump. He received’t win the election” [Isaac Schorr, The Telegraph]. ” Trump could have a bonus on substance, however it’s a certainty that he lacks the self-discipline essential to capitalise absolutely on that benefit and fairly potential that he’s missing sufficient in that division to blow it completely. Worst of all for the presumptive Republican nominee, he isn’t some new determine voters can challenge their hopes onto whereas hand-waving away the lunacy. His antics are not a bizarrely refreshing style of one thing new, they’ve change into part of America’s stale political tradition.” • I dunno. Trump can learn a room and he’s extremely adaptive. I say extra Chick-Fil-A visits! (The East Palestine go to, allow us to keep in mind, was not simply good media, it signaled a turnaround. So what you’ll about Trump’s marketing campaign staff in 2016, he was on the market, assembly folks, practising his riffs, doing his A/B testing. If Trump’s present skilled staff isn’t scheduling that type of factor for him, it ought to.)

* * *

Biden (D):

* * *

Kennedy (I): Shanahan visits the border (i.e., one of many objects in Harris’s portfolio):

Final week, I used to be down in Yuma on the Arizona-Mexico Border. In 2021, underneath 94 govt orders, our authorities has enabled the migration of an estimated 10M to cross our borders with out papers.

With no steering from the federal authorities, the border cities have been (and nonetheless are)… pic.twitter.com/dVbxWORtKJ

— Nicole Shanahan (@NicoleShanahan) April 12, 2024

She’s not carrying Nina McLemor. Then again, she’s not carrying Nina McLemor.

Kennedy (I):

“Election spoiler? How President Biden’s allies hope to cease Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” [USA Today]. “Kennedy’s present double-digit standing is greater than sufficient to swing outcomes in battleground states…. ‘If I have been a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. each single time over Biden as a result of he’s frankly extra consistent with Democrats,’ Trump stated in a video launched by his marketing campaign Thursday. ‘I do imagine that RFK Jr. will do very effectively, and I do imagine he’s going to take a number of votes away from crooked Joe Biden.’” • Hmm.

Kennedy (I): Hotez throws down the gauntlet:

1/n Each RFK Jr and Nicole Shanahan are mistaken. Within the ebook about my daughter I element the proof displaying vaccines don’t trigger autism and the way autism begins in early fetal mind growth method earlier than kids obtain their first vaccine. pic.twitter.com/kg8I80QIZO

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) April 4, 2024

* * *

Spook Nation

“A Terrorist Warning From the FBI” [Wall Street Journal]. • What a shock.

“Home lastly passes surveillance invoice after three stumbles” [Politico]. “One other dramatic flip got here simply forward of the invoice’s remaining passage, with a proposal to require warrants when looking international information collected by the surveillance program for data associated to Individuals failed on 212-212 tie. The Biden administration and members of the Intelligence Committee waged an intense lobbying effort forward of the vote; Legal professional Common Merrick Garland was calling members on Friday to induce their help, in response to an individual acquainted with the conversations who was granted anonymity to talk candidly.” All the time good to see liberal Democrats prolong the fitting hand of excellent fellowship to Republicans when the article is gutting the Fouth Modification. Extra: “In a bid to get his holdouts on board, Johnson shortened the reauthorization interval for this system from 5 years to 2 years — which triggered heartburn in some corners of the Biden administration and would put the subsequent wiretapping combat in a possible second Trump time period, if the GOP’s standard-bearer wins in November…. Johnson, a former member of the Judiciary Committee, has defended his change, saying he’s had entry to extra intelligence data since changing into speaker late final yr.” • Yeah, that’s how they suck you in.

Democrats en Déshabillé

I discovered this transcript of one in all FDR’s “Hearth Chats” (i.e, radio, then a brand new mass medium). From September 6, 1936:

I’ve been on a journey of husbandry…. I noticed drought devastation in 9 states.

I talked with households who had misplaced their wheat crop, misplaced their corn crop, misplaced their livestock, misplaced the water of their effectively, misplaced their backyard and are available by means of to the top of the summer time with out one greenback of money assets, going through a winter with out feed or meals—going through a planting season with out seed to place within the floor.

I shall always remember the fields of wheat so blasted by warmth that they can’t be harvested. I shall always remember subject after subject of corn stunted, earless and stripped of leaves, for what the solar left the grasshoppers took. I noticed brown pastures which might not hold a cow on fifty acres.

However on the finish he empowers his listeners:

Within the drought space individuals are not afraid to make use of new strategies to fulfill adjustments in Nature, and to right errors of the previous. If overgrazing has injured vary lands, they’re keen to scale back the grazing. If sure wheat lands needs to be returned to pasture they’re keen to cooperate. If timber needs to be planted as windbreaks or to cease erosion they may work with us. If terracing or summer time fallowing or crop rotation is known as for, they may carry them out. They stand prepared to suit, and to not combat, the methods of Nature.

That is so crisp, clear, and — dare I say — empathetic (with not a hint of schmaltz. He understands their scenario). It’s arduous to think about a politician of ant social gathering delivering a sequence of speeches like this right now — and having folks imagine them; certainly, sit up for them, and pay attention avidly.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Why No Labels Didn’t Stick” [Slate]. “No Labels was merely the newest iteration of a Beltway parlor trick that’s as previous as time. In 2012 it was referred to as Individuals Elect, and in 2008 it was Unity08. The core is a type of institutional McCainism: the concept Democrats and Republicans are too excessive and that what the nation wants is a 3rd social gathering that represents centrism, bipartisanship, and compromise. And on a sure stage you’ll be able to perceive the pondering; Individuals proceed to specific summary help for bipartisanship even because the nation has descended into elite-driven gridlock and resentment. … A protracted-running Gallup survey [shows] that almost all of Individuals would favor that politicians compromise somewhat than ‘sticking to their beliefs.’…. The difficulty with these sorts of survey outcomes is that they’re extraordinarily smooth and sometimes don’t survive contact with real-world conditions. Telling a pollster that you simply help compromise within the summary is simple, however most voters don’t need it to be their very own facet doing the giving. The precise demand facet of the equation for institutional bipartisanship is subsequently fairly small. The opposite downside with the No Labels operation is that . For higher or for worse, that social gathering continues to be the house of practically the entire remaining ‘institutionalists’ in U.S. politics, and social gathering management has repeatedly, over the previous decade, handed up alternatives to interact in retaliatory procedural maneuvering in response to GOP constitutional hardball, preferring as a substitute to face up for a long-vanished consensus politics that has just about no help on the opposite facet of the aisle. President Joe Biden not solely leads that institutionalist social gathering, however he’s additionally its most vocal and profitable backer of bipartisanship as a governing and political philosophy.”

Pandemics

“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 Sources, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; contains many counties; Wastewater Scan, contains drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide information). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Common 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 crops. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!

Sources, 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 stories); 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 (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Sources, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).

Sources, 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, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Keep secure on the market!

Transmission: H5N1

Carrying fomite transmission just a little too far:

Chopping down timber to cease Avian Flu.

Perhaps we might simply construct extra scarecrows as a substitute.

“U.S. dairy farmers to ban guests, chop timber.”https://t.co/f8tq17j5Vf

— Jammer🦈 (@AcrossTheMersey) April 11, 2024

Why chop timber down when you can simply wash them?

TABLE 1: Each day Covid Charts

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new right now; all others aren’t up to date.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution picture, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Home windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open picture in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (Biobot) Our curve has now flattened out at a stage far above valleys underneath Trump. Not an amazing victory. Be aware additionally the world “underneath the curve,” moreover taking a look at peaks. That space is bigger underneath Biden than underneath Trump, and it appears to be rising steadily if inconsistently.

[2] (Biobot) No backward revisons….

[3] (CDC Variants) As of Might 11, genomic surveillance information will likely be reported biweekly, primarily based on the provision of constructive check specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring each two weeks. 2. occurring twice every week; semiweekly.” Seems like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to fret about. Time will inform.

[4] (ER) CDC appears to have killed this off, for the reason that hyperlink is damaged, I believe in favor of this factor. I’ll attempt to affirm. UPDATE Sure, depart it to CDC to kill a web page, after which announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC ought to clarify the place to go to get equal information, if any. I appreciated the ER information, as a result of it appeared actually arduous to sport.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Seems like a really gradual leveling off to a non-zero baseline, to me. I suppose to a tame epidemiologist it seems like “endemicity,” however to me it seems like one other tranche of lethality.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Nonetheless down. “Maps, charts, and information supplied by CDC, updates weekly for the earlier MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Division Visits, Take a look at Positivity) and weekly the next Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland) Flattening.

[9] (Vacationers: Posivitity) Now up, albeit within the rear view mirror.

[10] (Vacationers: Variants) JN.1 dominates totally.

[11] Seems just like the Instances isn’t reporting demise information any extra? Perhaps I would like to return to The Economist….

Stats Watch

There aren’t any official statistics of curiosity right now.

“Why I Misplaced Religion in Kagi” [d-shoot]. “Between absolutely the blase angle in the direction of privateness, the 100% dedication to AI being the way forward for search, and the utterly misguided use of the corporate’s restricted funds, I truthfully can’t see Kagi as one thing I might ever advocate to folks. Is the search good? I imply…it’s not likely significantly better than some other search, it closely leverages Bing like DDG and the opposite indie search platforms do, the one actual killer function it has to me is the flexibility to dam domains out of your outcomes, which I can presently solely do in different search engines like google and yahoo by way of a consumer script that doesn’t assist me on cellular. However what good is filtering out the entire AI generated spamblogs on a search platform that desires to spit extra AI generated bullshit at me straight?” • Fairly a rant, however I can’t consider in some way. Readers?

At present’s Concern & Greed Index: 46 Impartial (earlier shut: 58 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 62 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Apr 12 at 1:48:00 PM ET.

Information of the Wired

“First languages of North America traced again to 2 very totally different language teams from Siberia” [PNAS]. “Nichols’ methods contain using linguistic typology, a subject that includes evaluating languages and organizing them primarily based on shared standards. To be taught extra about early North American languages, she compiled lists of language traits and utilized them to all recognized languages. She then scored every of the languages primarily based on the revealed qualities. This allowed her to check the languages as a approach to discover resemblances amongst them and spot patterns. Nichols discovered that she might hint the languages spoken in early North America again to simply two lineages, each of which originated in Siberia. They got here, she notes, with the individuals who made their method throughout land bridges throughout Ice Age glaciation occasions. These two essential teams she discovered advanced into totally different languages as folks moved to totally different areas—she targeted most particularly on 60 of them. She discovered that a lot of these languages have been additionally impacted by a number of waves of Siberians arriving in North America. She concludes that among the traits of the unique languages have been retained by means of the years and at the moment are within the present linguistic inhabitants.”

Contact data for crops: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a test if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photos of crops. Greens are advantageous! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! In order for you your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it initially 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 TH:

TH writes: “This Bodhi tree lives on the Sherman Library and Gardens (Corona Del Mar/Newport Seaside, California).”

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