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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Fowl Music of the Day
Say’s Phoebe, Mount Falcon Park, Morrison Trailhead, Jefferson, Colorado, United States.
Politics
“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in truth a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
The Constitutional Order
“Former federal decide rips Washington Submit over 14th Modification editorial” [The Hill]. “Former federal decide Michael Luttig ripped The Washington Submit’s Monday op-ed towards invoking the 14th Modification to disqualify former President Trump from the 2024 election, calling it “maybe essentially the most journalistically incompetent and irresponsible” piece he has ever learn on the U.S. Structure.” • Right here is Luttig’s tweet storm:
I apology for the size of this rejoinder. A “Letter to the Editor” appeared futile for the wants and functions of this tweet. Thank goodness for Twitter!
— @judgeluttig (@judgeluttig) October 2, 2023
* * * “The Sweep and Power of Part Three” [William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, University of Pennsylvania Law Review]. I extremely advocate this piece (and the following dialogue at NC, beginning right here). As a former English main and a fan of shut studying, I’m not averse to “originalism,” of which Baude and Paulsen present a magisterial instance, within the sense that understanding the legislation as a textual content should start with understanding the plain, public which means of the phrases used when the textual content was written. That’s how I learn Shakespeare, or Joyce, so why not the Structure? Simply so long as understanding doesn’t finish there! In any case, I’m working by way of it. One factor I discover is that there do appear to have been relatively loads of rebellions and insurrections, not simply the Civil Conflict. To me, that is parallel to at least one lesson I drew from Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast (episode 1): There are relatively loads of revolutions, too. Alert reader Pensions Man summarizes Baude and Paulsen as follows:
The authors undergo an exhaustive textual and originalism evaluation of Part Three, and their Federalist Society leanings don’t deter them from reaching their conclusion that officers in each State who’re charged with figuring out candidate {qualifications} ought to conclude that Donald Trump is disqualified from being on ballots due to the oath he took on Inauguration Day 2017 and subsequently violated by way of his position within the revolt that came about on January 6, 2021.
Taking “revolt” as learn (I must do extra studying), this has been extra of my persevering with protection of Part Three.
Capitol Seizure
“January 6 Was Not an Tried Coup” [The American Conservative]. “[T]he occasions of January 6 exhibited nearly not one of the traits of the handfuls of profitable or unsuccessful coups all over the world over the previous seven a long time. If this actually was an tried coup, it will need to have been organized by Monty Python…. The obvious defect was that Trump and the opposite alleged plotters didn’t even make an try and shut down a notoriously hostile information media, together with most notably, the tv networks…. A second pervasive characteristic of real coups is the position of army items trusted wholeheartedly by these individuals making a bid to overthrow the present political order…. A last coup characteristic lacking from the January 6 episode had been sizable, ongoing pro-coup demonstrations, particularly as soon as violence erupted on the Capitol…. Individuals who robotically insist that January 6 was a failed coup want to clarify why the episode didn’t have any of the foremost options that dozens of profitable and unsuccessful coups in different nations have exhibited. It’s way more doubtless that the dysfunction was merely a riot {that a} handful of pissed off, right-wing coverage zealots waged. Such violence can’t be tolerated, and the perpetrators should be prosecuted—as a whole bunch have been. However it’s incorrect to conflate a riot (nevertheless nasty) with an organized revolt.” • Yep.
Biden Administration
“Congress dodged a authorities shutdown. Listed here are the winners and losers from a messy combat.” [USA Today]. “The ‘clear’ persevering with decision noticeably omits President Joe Biden’s request for extra U.S. support to Ukraine, which has bipartisan assist. McCarthy, who has needed to placate all corners of his convention, left Ukraine funding out of the persevering with decision in a win for some opponents to funding the Ukraine struggle effort. Enmity towards U.S. support to Ukraine amongst Home Republicans has appeared to develop because the struggle drags on. Practically half of Home Republicans voted to strip $300 million in Ukraine support from an annual protection spending invoice final week.” • Stripping Ukraine funding appears to be, oddly, an afterthought in many of the protection, and never framed as a victory for Gaetz (depicted as a loser). Nevertheless it’s onerous to see how Democrats, no matter what they are saying, wouldn’t think about it an actual loss. In any case, it’s their struggle.
2024
Time for the Countdown Clock!
* * * “Donald Trump’s Fraud Trial in New York” [Wall Street Journal]. “In feedback on the courthouse, Mr. Trump known as it a “witch hunt,” and he has a degree. But the investigation additionally appears to have caught some typical Trumpian deception…. Decide Engoron acknowledged that this asset puffery doesn’t appear to have created losses for the collectors: ‘Defendants appropriately assert that ‘the file is devoid of any proof of default, breach, late cost, or any criticism of hurt.” The decide stated, nevertheless, that legally talking that is ‘fully irrelevant.’ Whether or not he’s right below New York legislation is a doable topic of enchantment…. However the lenders weren’t naifs and needed to know Mr. Trump’s penchant for mendacity. Mr. Trump seems to imagine he may declare something, so long as he tacked on a disclaimer. ‘They name it ‘nugatory clause,” he stated in a deposition, ‘as a result of it makes the assertion ‘nugatory.”…. But Mr. Trump is true that Ms. James is a partisan Democrat who campaigned on going after him. The evening she gained the AG’s race in November 2018, she proclaimed: ‘I will probably be shining a vibrant mild into each darkish nook of his actual property dealings.’ That is an abuse of prosecutorial energy, concentrating on an individual after which trying to find one thing to cost him with.” • “I surrender. Why can’t they?” –“I Should Not Assume Unhealthy Ideas,” X.
“Trump fundraises off fraud trial: ‘Nothing can break me’” [The Hill]. “Trump’s marketing campaign blasted out a fundraising e mail with a topic line of ‘I simply left the courthouse’ roughly 20 minutes after court docket was dismissed in Manhattan, the place the previous president had been current.” Trump marketing campaign firing on all eight cylinders already. Extra: “The fundraising e mail was just like these Trump has despatched after indictments and court docket appearances in different prison proceedings, together with federal instances in Washington, D.C., and in Florida, and it underscored how the previous president and his marketing campaign have sought to capitalize politically on Trump’s authorized woes.”
“Who’s Arthur Engoron? Decide weighing way forward for Donald Trump empire is Ivy League-educated ex-cabbie” [Associated Press]. “Engoron has been concerned in Trump-related instances since 2020, when he was assigned to intervene in quarrels amongst Trump’s legal professionals and James’ workplace over calls for for proof and the course of her investigation. Trump’s legal professionals needed James’ lawsuit moved to a decide within the court docket’s Business Division, which is about as much as deal with advanced company litigation, however an administrative decide saved the case with Engoron, citing his expertise with the matter.”
* * * “Trump campaigns earlier than 1000’s in pleasant blue-collar, jap Iowa, touting commerce, farm coverage” [Associated Press]. “Trump headlined a day occasion in Ottumwa, the place 2,500 packed the within of an occasion corridor on the Bridge View Heart in Ottumwa. The small metropolis is a hub in jap Iowa and the seat of Wapello County, certainly one of 31 counties Trump carried in 2016 that Democrat Barack Obama had gained 4 years earlier. It was Trump’s second journey in two weeks to jap Iowa, the place he was drawing massive crowds…. The gang spent hours ready outdoor to enter the Trump occasion, regardless of sweltering warmth unusual for early October. It was a stark distinction to the roughly 200 who attended a marketing campaign cease in suburban Des Moines Saturday by former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has gained renewed curiosity in Iowa because the first two Republican presidential debates. Trump is anticipated again to the Waterloo and Cedar Rapids areas subsequent week…. Trump volunteers on the web site held clipboards stacked with pledge playing cards and requested attendees whether or not they would decide to assist Trump on the caucuses.” • Presumably all of the campaigns use pledge playing cards, nevertheless it nonetheless reveals skilled advance work.
“‘We love the farmers.’ Trump, aiming to cement assist in Iowa, indicators John Deere mix” [Des Moines Register]. “After his speech, he visited a farm northeast of Oskaloosa, the place he shook palms with a line of farmers, greeted their wives and left a big Sharpie signature on a John Deere mix. ‘We love the farmers, and we respect the farmers,’ he informed them. ‘You wouldn’t need the rest, proper? I don’t suppose you’d wish to do what I do.’”
“Trump marketing campaign calls on RNC to cancel third GOP debate” [The Hill]. “‘The RNC ought to instantly put an finish to any additional main debates so we are able to prepare our fireplace on Crooked Joe Biden and stop losing money and time that may very well be going to evicting Biden from the White Home,’ [Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita] stated in a press release following the second debate.”
* * * “Hunter Biden’s Authorized Saga Enters Fraught New Chapter” [Wall Street Journal]. “Hunter Biden pleaded not responsible Tuesday to felony gun fees, opening a fraught new chapter in his lengthy authorized saga in the identical federal courthouse in Delaware the place, roughly two months earlier, he had hoped to place these troubles behind him…. Prosecutors didn’t convey tax fees towards him final month, however they might nonetheless achieve this. Weiss has signaled that he could convey such a case in both California or Washington, D.C., the place the youthful Biden lived in the course of the years at subject.”
* * * “Column: A stable Senate choose and a craven transfer by Gavin Newsom” [Los Angeles Times]. “However Newsom by no means ought to have appointed her — or anybody else — to fill Feinstein’s seat with no promise to serve the steadiness of the late senator’s time period, then stand apart as soon as voters made their choice. Simply final month, the governor had stated he would see to that. ‘Interim appointment,’ he stated on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ noting {that a} fiercely aggressive Senate main was already effectively underway and he wished to steer clear. ‘It might be fully unfair to the Democrats which have labored their tail off,’ Newsom stated, and he was completely proper. ‘That main is only a matter of months away. I don’t wish to tip the steadiness of that.’ Um. By no means thoughts. Newsom went forward and confirmed he was simply wonderful upending that steadiness, assuming Butler decides to hunt a full time period. She has but to publicly state her plans. But when Butler chooses to run, she’ll get no opposition from the governor. ‘If that particular person decides she desires to hunt a full time period in 2024, then she is free to take action,’ spokesman Anthony York stated hours earlier than Newsom introduced his choose Sunday evening. ‘There’s completely no litmus take a look at, no promise.’ And no consistency from the governor.” • I admit it by no means occurred to me that Butler would hang around on Capitol Hill for a number of months after which blow city, presumably to server on a Newsom marketing campaign. My unhealthy! On Butler, commentary:
Intersectionality is lobbying for each Uber and Airbnb.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) October 2, 2023
“Burn!” (as I imagine we used to say, again in 2003).
“Newsom vetoes invoice to provide putting employees unemployment advantages” [Los Angeles Times]. “California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed laws Saturday that may have granted putting employees unemployment advantages, a measure strongly supported by Hollywood unions and different influential labor organizations in California. Newsom’s rejection of Senate Invoice 799 delivers a uncommon blow to organized labor, which has loved sturdy assist within the Democratic-controlled state Legislature.” •
* * * Common concrete materials advantages:
Largest R benefit on economic system since 1991 in latest @GallupNews survey. They’ve been polling this query since 1951 (!!!) https://t.co/JPyGoUlgSs
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) October 3, 2023
Every thing that made employees’ lives simpler in the course of the Trump administration — primarily, the CARES Act — was systematically stripped away by the Biden Administration. Now we see the outcomes.
Republican Funhouse
“Republican congressman admits he ‘was praying’ for ‘small’ GOP Home majority earlier than 2022 midterm elections” [FOX]. “‘When lots of people, sadly, had been voting, to have a 270, 280 Republican Home, I used to be praying every night for a small majority, as a result of I acknowledge that ,’ Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., stated throughout a closed briefing, which The Messenger first reported was ‘a digital briefing for round 50 prime conservative donors.’” • I don’t essentially like Rosendale’s ideas, however a minimum of he has some. In contrast, are you able to think about the (putative) Democrats left hoping, if not praying, for a small majority to advance their agenda? I can’t, which suggests to me that Democrats are liberals throughout the board. This additionally reveals an fascinating structural distinction between the events.
“A viewer’s information to the McCarthy-Gaetz showdown” [Politico]. “If Democrats vote current, they’ll take themselves out of the “members voting” rely and permit McCarthy to hold on with lower than a full majority of the present Home, and with doubtlessly a lot much less assist than he received in January’s grueling speaker election.” However: “If McCarthy is booted, his fast alternative gained’t be chosen by Gaetz – it will likely be handpicked by McCarthy himself. Right here’s why. Underneath a system created after Sept. 11, 2001, to make sure continuity of presidency, the Home clerk would convey out a thus-far-secret checklist of McCarthy’s most popular successors. The primary title on that checklist would instantly turn out to be an appearing speaker, with all of the authority of an everyday speaker, and thus empowered to supervise the election of a brand new speaker.” • The plot thickens!
Democrats en Déshabillé
Affected person readers, it appears that evidently persons are really studying the back-dated submit! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are various updates. So I should do this. –lambert
I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Social gathering (“the Democrat Social gathering is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated submit, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “stay” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Social gathering is, in truth, a tough drawback. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:
The Democrat Social gathering is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Social gathering didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working components of the Social gathering reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Social gathering (ka-ching, however not totally) these components comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with property within the press and the intelligence group.
Be aware, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed 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.
* * * “No, The Bowman Controversy Does Not Warrant Expulsion” [Jonathan Turley]. “Expulsion stays a uncommon treatment in Congress. Regardless of a whole bunch of years of usually deep and indignant political divisions, solely 20 members have been expelled and solely 5 had been expelled from the Home. Consider that for a second. 5 Home members within the prior roughly 250 years. We now have 3 in a single yr being thought-about. The final time three members had been up for expulsion, it was because of their assist for the South within the Civil Conflict. The Home has had members that make the pirates of Penzance* appear like teetotalers. Previous members have included some who had been embodiments of the grasping and the grotesque. The dearth of expulsions traditionally has mirrored an understanding that using this energy can result in a sort of expulsion compulsion.” • Nonetheless, Bowman did pull a hearth alarm after which informed an outrageous lie about it. Can we a minimum of get the protection proper? And are we at liberty to mock him for it? NOTE * Who had been probably not pirates however “noblemen who’ve gone incorrect.” Musical interlude:
“The Period Of Hostage Taking And Small Ransoms” [Brian Beutler, Off Message]. Beutler, late of Pod Save American. “Sure, Democrats are, in the meanwhile, hobbled by Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, however at no level previously 20 years have they made ending this state of affairs a prime party-building precedence. Their indulgence has been inexcusable; their gluttony for punishment, undignified—simply because it’s undignified to pay ransoms to Republicans, even small ones, after they threaten to hurt the nation. It’s not unreasonable for rank-and-file liberals to count on Democrats to attract a tough line towards extortion. It’s not unreasonable for rank-and-file liberals to puzzle over why Democrats haven’t reconstituted their majority (by way of persuasion and strategic recruiting) to assist altering the foundations if and when Republicans abuse them. Tuberville and McCarthy are every disgraced in their very own methods, however we shouldn’t ignore the truth that they walked by way of doorways Democrats left open for them. And we must always fear an excellent deal about what will probably be of their sights the subsequent time round, maybe simply 45 days from now, after they come barreling by way of once more.” • So what the heck was Beutler doing podcasting with Obama’s speechwriter for what looks like perpetually?
Realignment and Legitimacy
“How Elites Ate the Social Justice Motion” [Freddie deBoer, The Free Press]. “[I]f single-payer had been handed tomorrow, we must begin defending it tomorrow. We’d need to combat over how beneficiant the advantages had been. We must be sure that dental and imaginative and prescient advantages had been coated. We must stop the inevitable makes an attempt by conservatives to tear down the system totally or to make it significantly much less beneficiant, as they already do with Medicare and Social Safety. There could be no relaxation. That is, I concede, a miserable situation, an exhausting one. However there’s no various. And maybe there shouldn’t be. I nonetheless yearn for revolution, however I now acknowledge that any revolution have to be a everlasting one, within the sense meant by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—{that a} perpetual revolutionary class should exist, remaining unbiased from the political equipment of its day and always urgent for a extra radical future, even after nice victory. That is the one approach to really safe the most effective good for the most individuals. We should see political success as an ever-receding horizon.” • The Bolsheviks did take energy, in spite of everything, although deBoer fastidiously writes “perpetual” as an alternative of “skilled.” deBoer’s first sentence: “I’m a Marxist.” Fascinating to see him printed in by Bari Weiss.
“Antisocialism and the rehabilitation of fascism” [Carl Beijer]. “Fascism, appropriately understood as a radical eliminationist and expansionist ultranationalism that emerges when the center class displaces the stress of extreme financial precarity below capitalism onto minority scapegoats — fascism can nonetheless solely be discovered amongst a slim albeit dangerously highly effective fraction of Ukraine’s inhabitants. Persisting characterizations of Ukraine as a nation of fascists should not simply grossly inaccurate, nor are they merely merciless to a nation of harmless civilians struggling a horrific struggle of aggression. This line can also be dangerously reactionary, serving without delay to each legitimize the Kremlin’s preposterous ‘denazification’ rationale for invasion and to displace our personal drawback with fascism onto one other nation as some overseas, unique phenomena. It contradicts none of this so as to add that the faction of our ruling class aligned with Ukraine on this struggle are utilizing it as a pretext to villify socialism at the price of rehabilitating twentieth century fascism.”
“Why MAGA Needs to Betray Ukraine” [Paul Krugman, New York Times]. “Ukraine’s unexpectedly profitable resistance to Russian aggression has additionally put different autocratic regimes that may have been tempted to have interaction in wars of conquest on discover that democracies aren’t that simple to overrun. To not put too wonderful a degree on it, however Russia’s failures in Ukraine have certainly decreased the probabilities that China will invade Taiwan.” • Unsure how demonstrating to the world’s greatest manufacturing energy that we are able to’t make sufficient ammo does that. (Nonetheless, I applaud the not-very-subtle shifting of goalposts from defeating Putin and dismembering Russia to stopping “democracies” from being “over-run.”)
#COVID19
“I’m in earnest — I cannot equivocate — I cannot excuse — I cannot retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Sources, 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 knowledge). “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 at liberty 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 reviews); 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, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tricks to useful readers: 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, Utah, Bob White (3).
Keep secure on the market!
Maskstravaganza
“Healthcare-associated respiratory viral infections after discontinuing common masking” [Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology]:
When our hospital moved from common masking in all medical buildings to masking for all affected person encounters solely, we noticed a right away, substantial, and sustained enhance healthcareassociated respiratory viral infections. These observations are informative relating to the influence of masking as a result of—in contrast to speedy simultaneous implementation of quite a few mitigation methods in healthcare settings and the group early within the pandemic—no different modifications in an infection prevention methods or staffing ranges had been carried out at our facility in late 2022. The elevated transmission stress from group viruses in the course of the winter respiratory virus season could clarify half however not the entire enhance in [healthcare-associated respiratory viral infections (HARVI] price. Circumstances of healthcare-associated COVID-19 throughout this era approached what was seen in the course of the omicron wave regardless of a constantly decrease census of admitted sufferers constructive for SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, native prevalences of commonest respiratory viruses had been regular or declining in the course of the interval when the HARVI price rose dramatically.
Hopefully these psychos at HICPAC listen. Frustratingly, the article describes each “medical” masks and respirators as “masking.”
“50 Contaminated in NY Hospital COVID Outbreak: Masks Mandates Return” [The Messenger]. “Officers at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, New York, has reported 50 COVID infections amongst staffers this week, alongside 20 sufferers who’ve been admitted with the virus. ‘With a purpose to shield our sufferers, our employees and households, we’re requiring all sufferers and guests to put on applicable face coverings — surgical masks — whereas they’re with us,” stated Keith Collins, M.D., infectious illness specialist, in a press release. ‘COVID will be unfold earlier than you’ve signs and you could not know you might be carrying it.’ ‘We’ve got quite a lot of sufferers who had been recognized with COVID right here. As a result of it’s unclear how they got here in touch with the virus, common masking is one of the simplest ways to fight its unfold,’ Lisa Mark, M.D., the hospital’s chief medical officer, added.” • Surgical masks. Oh effectively, child steps. And the mandates shouldn’t must “return.” They need to by no means have been lifted.
“With COVID-19 instances edging up, London hospitals revise masking guidelines” [CBC]. “As instances of COVID-19 climb within the London area, London Well being Sciences Centre (LHSC) and St. Josephs’s Well being Care London are revising their masking guidelines to require employees and medical doctors in direct contact with sufferers to put on masks, and advocate guests and sufferers do the identical.” IOW, not common. Extra: “‘Up to date masking pointers, together with different protecting measures like staying updated on vaccinations, is a part of our responsive technique this respiratory season,’ stated Dr. Michael Silverman, the chair and chief of infectious illnesses in London, and medical director of an infection prevention and management and the Infectious Illnesses Care Program at St. Joseph’s in a press release.” • [family blog] your make-work, ineffective, deadly “responsive technique.” Simply mandate common masking. Additionally, for the file, Covid just isn’t seasonal. Nor greatest regarded as respiratory.
Selection of phrases:
It could be controversial, however for the previous 1.5 years, I have been utilizing a each day topical prophylactic towards C0VID. Applies on to the face. It is not FDA permitted & unavailable in lots of nations. I’ve by no means met one other grownup utilizing it. I am satisfied it is practically 100% efficient in…
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) October 2, 2023
“Topical prophylactic” is so significantly better than “face overlaying.”
Vaccines
Terribly poor scientific communication:
Pharmacist requested in the present day if I wanted a Covid booster. Advised her I used to be ready for #novavax . “What’s that?” She requested. “Is it Pfizer or Moderna?”. I informed her it was a 3rd vaccine, a greater one. She shook her head. “There are solely two.”
— B (Mastodon @CurrentlyCranky@mindly.social) (@CurrentlyCranky) October 1, 2023
Transmission
The Royal Society has a complete subject of meta-studiets on Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), “The effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the COVID-19 pandemic: the proof,” all open sourced. From the chief abstract: “There’s clear proof from research performed in the course of the pandemic that stringent implementation of packages of NPIs was efficient in some nations in lowering transmission of SARS-CoV-2. There’s additionally proof for the effectiveness of particular person NPIs, however most NPIs had been carried out in packages. Disentangling the consequences of 1 NPI when different NPIs had been carried out on the identical time presents a major problem. Proof means that NPIs had been, on the whole, simpler when case numbers and the related transmission depth of SARS-CoV-2 had been decrease. NPIs turned much less efficient as extra transmissible variants of the virus emerged (eg Delta, Omicron) which had been higher tailored to spreading between individuals and evading immune responses. Stringency of utility of particular person NPIs and teams of NPIs influenced charges of transmission, eg respirator masks had been simpler than surgical masks and two weeks of quarantine had been simpler than shorter intervals.”
From and Abstracts for every article:
Face Masks: ” Regardless of the ROB, and permitting for unsure and variable efficacy, we conclude that sporting masks, sporting greater high quality masks (respirators), and masks mandates usually decreased SARS-CoV-2 transmission in these research populations.”
Social Distancing: “The extra stringent [Social Distancing Measures (SDMs)] equivalent to stay-at-home orders, restrictions on mass gatherings and closures had been estimated to be handiest at lowering SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Most research included on this overview prompt that mixtures of SDMs efficiently slowed and even stopped SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the neighborhood.
Testing, contact tracing and isolation: “Primarily based on the shortage of sturdy empirical proof, we weren’t in a position to attract any agency quantitative conclusions in regards to the quantitative influence of TTI interventions in numerous epidemic contexts. Whereas the vast majority of research discovered that testing, tracing and isolation decreased transmission, proof for the size of this influence is just obtainable for particular situations and therefore just isn’t essentially generalizable.”
Worldwide border management: “We discover that symptomatic screening measures weren’t significantly efficient, however that diagnostic-based screening strategies had been simpler at figuring out contaminated travellers. Focused journey restrictions levied towards travellers from Wuhan had been doubtless briefly efficient however inadequate to cease the exportation of the virus to the remainder of the world. Quarantine of inbound travellers was additionally doubtless efficient at lowering transmission, however solely with comparatively lengthy quarantine intervals, and got here with vital financial and social results.”
Environmental management (EC) measures: “EC NPIs thought-about on this overview are room air flow, air filtration/cleansing, room occupancy, floor disinfection, barrier gadgets, CO2 monitoring and one-way-systems….. Proof means that EC NPIs of air flow, air cleansing gadgets and discount in room-occupancy could have a job in lowering transmission in sure settings. Nonetheless, the proof was often of low or very low high quality and certainty, and therefore the extent of confidence ascribed to this conclusion is low. Primarily based on the proof discovered, it was not doable to attract any particular conclusions relating to the effectiveness of floor disinfection and using barrier gadgets.”
Communications: “This overview explored the effectiveness of communications in enhancing the adoption of or adherence to behavioural interventions (non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)) associated to COVID-19…. Included research recommend that NPI adoption or adherence was usually excessive, and communication had important impacts, with key themes together with readability and consistency, belief and management.” • UK case research.
“One thing Terrible”
Lambert right here: I’m getting the sensation that the “One thing Terrible” is likely to be a sawtooth sample — variant after variant — that averages out to a completely excessive plateau. A lot of exceptionally nasty sequelae, almost certainly deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we would add mind injury, together with persona modifications therefrom.
* * *
Lambert right here: Again to tape-watching mode. It appears to me like the present surge has some methods to run, given how wastewater flattened, with the East Coast up. Let’s wait and see.
Case Knowledge
NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater knowledge, October 2:
Lambert right here: Leveling out to a excessive plateau wasn’t on my Bingo card! Maybe FL.1.5.1, excessive within the Northeast, has one thing going for it that different variants don’t have?
Regional knowledge:
Curiously, the upswing begins earlier than July 4, which neither accelerates nor retards it.
Variants
NOT UPDATED From CDC, September 30:
Lambert right here: September 30 is tomorrow, however by no means thoughts that. High of the leaderboard: EG.5 (“Eris“), with FL.1.15.1, HV.1, and XBB.1.1.16.6 trailing. Nonetheless a Bouillabaisse…
From CDC, September 16:
Lambert right here: I certain hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart relies upon, don’t all transfer on the inexperienced fields and pastures new (or have their entry to services minimize by directors of sick intent).
CDC: “As of Could 11, genomic surveillance knowledge will probably be reported biweekly, primarily based on the supply of constructive take a look at 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.
Covid Emergency Room Visits
NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, September 23:
Drop coinciding with wastewater drop.
NOTE “Charts and knowledge supplied by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the previous yr, utilizing a rolling 52-week interval.” So not your entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message right here being that Covid is “identical to the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week interval” is acceptable for eachMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these individuals a lot. Discover additionally that this chart reveals, a minimum of for its time interval, that Covid is not seasonal, although CDC is attempting to get us to imagine that it’s, presumably to allow them to piggyback on the present institutional equipment for injections.
Hospitalization
Bellwether New York Metropolis, knowledge as of October 3:
Levelling off once more. (New York state is steadily rising, nevertheless it’s New York Metropolis that’s the bellwether.) I hate this metric as a result of the lag makes it misleading.
NOT UPDATED Right here’s a distinct CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, however with a date, a minimum of. September 23:
Lambert right here: “Maps, charts, and knowledge supplied by CDC, updates weekly for the earlier MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Division Visits, Check Positivity) and weekly the next Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So the place the heck is the replace, CDC?
Positivity
From Walgreens, October 2:
-1.0%. One other massive drop. (It might be fascinating to survey this inhabitants usually; these are individuals who, regardless of a tsunami of official propaganda and massive peer stress, went and received examined anyhow.)
NOT UPDATED From Cleveland Clinic, September 23:
Lambert right here: I do know that is simply Ohio, however the Cleveland Clinic is sweet*, and we’re starved for knowledge, so…. NOTE * Even when hospital an infection management is attempting to kill sufferers by eliminating common masking with N95s.
NOT UPDATED From CDC, traveler’s knowledge, September 11:
Again up once more And listed here are the variants for vacationers:
Now, BA.2.86. FL.1.51.1, apparently, low.
Deaths
NOT UPDATED Iowa COVID-19 Tracker, September 27:
Lambert right here: The WHO knowledge is nugatory, so I changed it with the Iowa Covid Knowledge Tracker. Their methodology: “These knowledge have been sourced, through the API from the CDC: https://knowledge.cdc.gov/NCHS/Circumstances-Contributing-to-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Stat/hk9y-quqm. This visualization updates on Wednesday evenings. Knowledge are provisional and are adjusted weekly by the CDC.” I can’t appear to get a pop-up that reveals a complete of the three causes (prime proper). Readers?
Complete: 1,177,793 – 1,177,283 = 510 (510 * 365 = 186,150 deaths per yr, in the present day’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would love, although they’ll speak themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could need to determine that is what the powers-that-be think about “mission achieved” for this explicit tranche of dying and illness).
Extra Deaths
The Economist, October 1:
Lambert right here: That is now being up to date each day once more. Odd. Primarily based on a machine-learning mannequin.
Stats Watch
Employment Scenario: “United States Job Openings” [Trading Economics]. “The variety of job openings rose by 690,000 from the earlier month to 9.61 million in August 2023, effectively above the market consensus of 8.8 million and indicating a strong labor market regardless of the Fed’s unprecedented financial coverage tightening measures.”
Employment Scenario: “Be skeptical of that job openings quantity” [Axios]. “Precise enterprise hiring was mainly unchanged in August, rising to five.9 million individuals employed. The hiring price was steady at 3.7%. The quantity of people that had been laid off or stop was additionally flat in August. Furthermore, the job openings quantity incessantly shows volatility that doesn’t appear to align with any underlying financial change. The rubber-meets-road indicators round precise hiring and layoffs are extra steady. In the meantime, many different knowledge factors are per a slowing labor market.
Provide Chain: “United States LMI Logistics Managers Index Present” [Trading Economics]. “The Logistics Supervisor’s Index in america elevated to 52.4 in September 2023, pointing to the second consecutive month of growth and the strongest development within the logistics sector in seven months.”
Retail: “Retail theft isn’t really rising a lot, main business research finds” [CNBC]. “Retail theft has caught the eye of the lots lately, from startling smash-and-grab movies in the course of the depths of the Covid pandemic to company earnings calls the place retailers like Goal and Foot Locker are discussing losses from organized retail crime greater than they ever have. However the impact of theft on retailers’ backside strains is about the identical because it has been for years, in response to the newest knowledge launched Tuesday within the broadly used business survey performed by the Nationwide Retail Federation. Complete retail shrink grew to greater than $112 billion in 2022, up from $93.9 billion the yr earlier than, in response to the latest Nationwide Retail Safety Survey. The metric, which accounts for varied varieties of stock loss together with theft, injury and vendor error, usually rises as retail gross sales climb. Whereas retailers and the NRF are more and more saying crime is slicing into earnings, losses from inside and exterior theft final yr had been largely on par with historic traits. They made up 65% of complete shrink, the survey discovered.” However: “Sixty-seven % of respondents reported extra violence related to organized retail crime than a yr in the past. Within the final survey, 81% reported a rise in violence.” • Nonetheless, I might need greater than a survey of shops to just accept that.
Manufacturing: “Boeing Settles Allegations of Shortcuts in V-22 Osprey Manufacturing” [Manufacturing.net]. “The corporate has lengthy held a contract to fabricate the V-22 Osprey, a vertical takeoff and touchdown army plane. In response to the U.S. Justice Division, Boeing from 2007 to 2018 failed to stick to agreed upon requirements for the fabrication of composite elements. The U.S. authorities contends Boeing did not carry out required month-to-month testing on autoclaves used within the composite treatment course of and was not in compliance with extra necessities associated to the testing at its facility in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania. Consequently, the corporate has agreed to pay $8.1 million to settle the alleged violations of the False Claims Act.” • Nicely, I’m certain the 787s are OK!
At this time’s Concern & Greed Index: 25 Excessive Concern (earlier shut: 28 Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 31 (Concern). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Oct 2 at 1:59:14 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Report Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 187. (Do not forget that bringing on the Rapture is good.) NOTE on #42 Plagues: “The coronavirus pandemic has maxed out this class.” Extra trustworthy than most!
Photograph E book
“A Forthcoming E book Turns a New Leaf On Outstanding Pictures of Timber From Across the World” [Colossal]. “Trying At Timber, a forthcoming e book compiled with an introduction by artist Sophie Howarth, encourages us to reconnect with our pure environment. Photographs by greater than two dozen modern photographers, together with Beth Moon, Marc Alcock, and Myoung Ho Lee, discover a variety of various species, ecosystems, and landscapes. From enigmatic plantations to lofty dwellings, the amount explores the various methods by which the woody crops are an vital a part of our each day lives, even when typically now we have to recollect to note them.” • Right here’s one:
And although this isn’t a photograph, it could assist artists–
“Leonardo da Vinci Was Flawed – Scientists Disprove ‘Rule of Timber’” [SciTech Daily]. “Da Vinci’s curiosity in drawing led him to have a look at the scale ratios of various objects, together with bushes, in order that he may create extra correct representations of them. To appropriately signify bushes, he perceived a so-called ‘Rule of bushes’ which states that ‘all of the branches of a tree at each stage of its peak are equal in thickness to the trunk when put collectively.’… [But f]or water and vitamins to maneuver effectively by way of the tree, from root to leaf tip, the vascular system has to keep up ‘hydraulic resistance’. Ruben Valbuena and Stuart Sopp of Bangor College and SLU have calculated that for hydraulic resistance to work, there comes a degree the place the ‘Rule of Timber’ can not maintain true. With a purpose to effectively transport liquids from roots to leaf ideas, a tree’s vascular channels want to keep up a sure dimension to keep up hydraulic resistance. Subsequently, the plant has to scale back its quantity because it reaches its extremities, inflicting the next ratio of the capillary to the encircling plant mass.”
The Gallery
It’s been awhile since Elon killed off the artbots, and something from the deeply odd Lawrence Alma-Tadema got here throughout my feed:
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Hopeful
1909
34 x 13.8 cm
Oil on panel
Sterling and Francine Clark Artwork Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts pic.twitter.com/BWvK2w0cK1— PubHist (@Pub_Hist) October 3, 2023
Zeitgeist Watch
“Propaganda’s casualties.” [The Floutist]. “Such is the ability of propaganda: Persons are led to imagine outright lies, to suppose no matter their authorities desires them to, and to behave in methods fully at odds with actuality and their very own greatest curiosity. Propaganda validates preexisting biases that are themselves the product of propaganda. To place it one other manner: Propaganda creates a self-perpetuating info ecosystem by which every lie, or half-truth, confirms the subsequent so that individuals can not inform what’s true from what is fake, or what advances their very own safety and wellbeing from what really undermines it…. Propaganda makes a mockery of fact: Something will be made to look true in order that fact itself loses all which means and, within the course of, actuality itself. Consequently, your entire social and political order turns into one-dimensional and cartoon-like—a mere parody of itself because the nation that boasts about defending democracy in all places undermines it. The purpose can’t be overstated: . Unable to discern what’s true from what is fake persons are robbed of the flexibility to make sound selections in regards to the world by which they stay.” • Good factor we’re not constructing any propaganda into our AI coaching units. Oh, wait….
Imperial Collapse Watch
“The Guidelines-Primarily based Worldwide Order Is Quietly Disintegrating” [Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal]. The peroration: “States are imploding and the rule of legislation is disappearing throughout massive components of the world. In Latin America, narco-trafficking crime organizations have infiltrated or supplanted weak states. One thing related is going on within the Sahel, with jihadist teams and bandits brazenly defying the authority of shambolic governments. Russia, China and Iran are fortunately fishing in these troubled waters, with few indicators of efficient Western responses to a rising safety risk. The ignominious collapse of French energy throughout Africa has been extra dramatic, however the palsied incompetence of American responses to the erosion of civil order amongst our personal neighbors is a minimum of equally disgraceful, and equally grave. Threatened by highly effective and relentless adversaries from with out, undermined by political decadence and institutional decay from inside, .” • Because the Thirties? Earlier than World Conflict II? “Present me you’re fully ahistorical with out saying your fully ahistorical.” (Additionally, I really like pundits with three names, particularly trochaic names.)
Class Warfare
“Enormous strike may occur at Kaiser well being services beginning Wednesday. Right here’s what we all know” [Los Angeles Times]. “Tens of 1000’s of Kaiser Permanente workers in California and different states plan to go on strike Wednesday after union contracts expired for an enormous swath of the Kaiser workforce. The deliberate strike includes a number of labor organizations which are a part of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. The most important is SEIU-United Healthcare Staff West, which represents practically 60,000 workers in California….. Nearly all of the Kaiser workforce is unionized, however not the entire unions that signify its workers are collaborating within the three-day strike. As an illustration, lots of the registered nurses working at Kaiser Permanente services in Southern California belong to unions that aren’t a part of the coalition.”
Information of the Wired
“Wilhelm Reich on Pleasure and the Genesis of Nervousness” [Epoché]. “[Reich] proposes within the following passages to schematize the dwelling being as a blob, or, say, as a balloon. Let’s think about a dwelling balloon that, to outlive, wants to stay inflated. It will probably encounter two issues: both, having misplaced some air, it’s too deflated, and must ‘incorporate’ some air – reinflate itself – or, having an excessive amount of air inside, it must launch a few of its air – deflate. It is very important word that each of them, inflation and deflation, are actions. At first, the distinction between these two appears merely to lie in a distinction of course, a quantitative distinction. To quench a starvation, we have to incorporate the vitamins that we lack; there’s, in that sense, a central motion. Libidinal want, alternatively, is marked by a peripheral motion, a motion to the skin, a launch. These two actions are clearly related: once we get hungry, we have to begin on the lookout for meals, which implies that we have to get in touch with the world, as Reich says within the quote above. The libidinal (peripheral) motion due to this fact goes earlier than the (central) motion of incorporation. On the identical time, although, the libidinal motion and the motion of incorporation correspond to totally different issues: ‘underpressure’: lack of stress that must be compensated, and ‘overpressure’: extra of stress that must be launched. There’s, in that sense, additionally a qualitative distinction between these two.” • I’m undecided that’s how organisms function; nevertheless it’s definitely suggestive of how The Blob operates.
Contact info for crops: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a verify if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me pictures of crops. Greens are wonderful! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! In order for you your deal with to look as a credit score, please place it in the beginning of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From DG:
DG writes: “Deciduous rhododendron.”
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Right here is the display that may seem, which I’ve helpfully annotated:
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