By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
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Bird Song of the Day
American Woodcock, Nebraska Missuonary Baptist Church, Macon, Alabama, United States. Lovely night sounds, but I’m struggling….
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In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Bragg’s theory of the case at last.
(2) Pennsylvania, the Jewish vote.
(3) Carl Schmitt, Nazi legal theorist
(4) Anosognosia, Word of the Day, if not the decade.
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Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
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2024
Less than a year to go!
RCP Poll Averages, April 19:
Here this Friday’s RCP polling. Trump is still doing very well in almost all the Swing States (more here), leading with one exception: PA. Forget all the arithmetic, and look at PA as a test of the Trump campaign’s basic competence. What are they doing to fix this? (I’ll work out a better way to present this, but for now: Blue dot = move toward Biden; red dot = move toward Trump. No dot = no change (presumably because state polls are not that numerous so far from election day).
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Trump (R) (Merchan/Bragg) “Trump criminal trial wraps for the day after opening statements and first witness” (live blog) [CNN]. Recall that Trump’s alleged records violations are all misdemeanors unless they were part of an “other crime,” in which case they become felonies. However, neither Bragg’s Indictment nor his Statement of Facts identified that “other crime” (as I showed here). In Bragg’s opening statement, he did that. His theory of the case: “Trump, along with his attorney Michael Cohen and David Pecker, the former chairman of the National Enquirer’s parent company AMI, ‘formed a conspiracy … to influence the presidential election…. ‘It was election fraud, pure and simple,’ [prosecutor Matthew] Colangelo told the jury. The scheme was three-pronged, Colangelo said: the trio sought to help Trump kill negative stories about Trump – a process known as ‘catch-and-kill’ – publish favorable stories about Trump and publish negative stories about Trump’s political opponents. He laid out three different instances where the trio allegedly conspired to prevent harmful information about Trump from becoming public prior to the 2016 election.” • So election fraud, presumably at the State level (and not the other possibilities, state tax law, and Federal election law). I would need to see the statute to be sure, but this seems very weak to me, even weaker than the concept that the only real estate magnate in New York who ever engaged in puffery was Trump. It seems to me that it’s trying to outlaw oppo (granted, a dark art, but not illegal). And in terms of Democrart moralstanding, how is this any different than getting most major venues to suppress the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and suborning 50 spooks to write a letter saying it was Russian disinformation? Make it make sense, as the kids say these days.
Trump (R) Merchan: “The Crucial Factor of the Stormy Daniels Case” (Merchan/Bragg) [The Atlantic]. “In his indictment, Bragg lays out a detailed case for why the former president, in hiding the payments, intended to violate both state and federal election laws.” • This is either lying or stunning ignorance (or possibly groupthink). As I show here, Bragg does no such thing. Only today does Bragg show his hand on the “other crime” Trump commmitted (and if I read CNN’s live blog correctly, only at the state level).
Trump (R) (Merchan/Bragg): “Did Donald Trump Just Get Lucky With His NYC Criminal Trial Juror Pool?” [Newsweek]. • Sadly, I can’t get past the paywall now. The idea is that the jury is full of professionals, who will therefore apply their critical thinking skills and really dig into the detail. Well, maybe (and all it takes is one holdout). That said:
Lawyer: Can you be obejctive?
Me: Absolutely!
Lawyer: *Picking up massive stack of papers* I have some of your tweets here.
Me: Awesome!
Lawyer: It says, “Donald Trump is a fetid, rotting, mango.”
Me: Yep!
Lawyer: And here you said, “The only difference between Donald…
— Machine Pun Kelly 🇺🇦 (@KellyScaletta) April 19, 2024
Trump (R) (Merchan/Bragg): “How large parts of Trump’s trial are playing out in the shadows” [Politico]. “Behind the scenes, a maze of arcane rules and archaic systems has made it virtually impossible for the media — and the public — to access key motions and pretrial rulings in real time. New York’s docketing practices have not been updated for the digital age. The judge, Justice Juan Merchan, has imposed policies that force days or even weeks of delays before crucial documents become public. When they do, they have been subject to a heavy, court-imposed redaction process. And Merchan frequently uses email to communicate with Trump’s defense lawyers and the prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. That’s led to a ballooning set of off-the-book messages that are shielded from the public. The result is that one of the most consequential chapters of American history is being drafted with missing pages and invisible ink. ‘Especially in a case like this, where 48 hours can turn news into history, that’s not acceptable,’ said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University law school who specializes in legal ethics. He described the redaction requirement in particular as an impediment to public access. ‘The judge, with a responsibility to make the public informed, should have made it easier,’ Gillers said, ‘and so should Bragg.’” • How convenient.
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Trump (R) (Engoron/James): “New York judge sets new conditions on Trump’s civil fraud bond” [Axios]. “New York Judge Arthur Engoron on Monday accepted the $175 million bond former President Trump posted to appeal his civil fraud case, but the judge imposed several new conditions to ensure sufficient cash funds remain available…. While Engoron allowed the bond to stand, Trump and Knight Specialty Insurance Company agreed to meet several new requirements, per a spokesperson from the New York State Attorney General’s office. These include that Knight Specialty Insurance Company will retain “exclusive control” of the $175 million account, and the company and Trump will provide a monthly account statement certifying that there are sufficient cash funds for the bond. Knight Specialty Insurance Company has agreed to designate an agent of process in New York The agreement between the company and Trump also can’t be amended without court approval.”
Trump (R) (Chutkan/Smith): “How Trump could win at the Supreme Court even if his broad immunity argument is rejected” [NBC]. “At issue in the high-stakes showdown Thursday is whether Trump’s criminal charges over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results should be dismissed based on a broad claim of immunity. Even if the court rejects that bold argument, it could still send the case back to Washington-based U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan for more proceedings on whether some of Trump’s actions are insulated from prosecution With the case, initially scheduled for trial in March, already plagued by delays, such a ruling would further imperil the chances of any trial being concluded before November’s election.
Trump (R) (McAffee/Willis): “Fulton judge dismisses 6 of 41 counts in Trump election interference indictment’ [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]. “All of the charges that were dismissed relate to allegations that defendants illegally urged Georgia elected officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, then-House Speaker David Ralston and members of the General Assembly to violate their oaths of office by convening a special session of the Legislature to appoint pro-Trump electors…. McAfee said the six counts contain ‘all the essential elements of the crimes’ but don’t provide enough detail regarding the alleged felonies committed. ‘They do not give the defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently,’ he added.”… The indictment handed up in August contained 41 felony counts; there are now 35 counts that remain. Trump is still facing 10 felony counts, down from the 13 originally filed against him. Monday’s decision left intact the bulk of Fulton County’s sweeping racketeering case against the former president and his allies. It seemed McAfee wanted to make that clear in his order when he wrote, ‘This does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed.’” •
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Biden (D): “Joe Biden Is Now Favorite Over Donald Trump in Four Swing States” [Newsweek]. “According to Polymarket, an online prediction platform where users can place yes or no bets on world events, the incumbent president will beat Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, in November’s vote in Pennsylvania (58 percent to 42 percent), Nevada (58 percent to 41 percent), Michigan (57 percent to 44 percent) and Wisconsin (52 percent to 47 percent.)” Oh. A prediction platform. Anyhow: “Last month, the Biden campaign announced plans to open 44 field offices in Wisconsin. The campaign has opened 14 offices in Pennsylvania, and announced plans to open 30 offices in Michigan. Trump’s campaign has appeared less vocal about the intricacies of its campaign strategy.” • The polls are basically Brownian motion at this point, especially the State ones which tend to be infrequent and have big margins of error. But 14 in PA seems light to me. Is PA really going to be that easy? OTOH, 30 in MI is clearly a response to the “Uncommitted” movement.
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Kennedy (I): “Kornacki: Low Interest in the 2024 Election a Vulnerability for Trump” [RealClearPolitics] “What the Trump folks have been hoping is RFK, third-party candidates, they gobble up some votes and Trump doesn’t need to get to 50%. But look what happens when we add RFK’s name to the mix. Suddenly, we have a new leader. Joe Biden, 39%; Donald Trump, 37%. There’s Kennedy getting 13%. In other words, we’re seeing by a better than 2:1 margin, it’s Trump voters who are flipping over to Kennedy in this scenario, not Biden voters. You see it right here. 15% of Trump voters, when we add RFK’s name to the mix, they go to RFK. Only 7% of Biden voters. There’s a big change right there.” • This should not be surprising. “Change vs. more of the same.” Biden = “the same.” Both Trump and Kennedy are “change” — Kennedy perhaps even more than Trump.
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PA: “Summer Lee’s primary race tests fallout for critics of the US’s Gaza policy” [Al Jazeera]. “It was not a popular stance to take. Tensions were running high. And yet, on October 16, less than two weeks into Israel’s war in Gaza, United States Representative Summer Lee joined other progressive Democrats in calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave…. But Lee’s critical view of Israel’s war in Gaza has made her a target in the upcoming US election season. On Tuesday, Lee faces a competitive primary in her district, as a fellow Democrat seeks to unseat her for being too ‘extreme.’ Patel has seized on criticism that Lee’s rhetoric has been reckless. After the war broke out on October 7, 40 rabbis and cantors in the Pittsburgh area released a letter criticising Lee’s response. In March, they released a second letter accusing Lee of ‘divisive rhetoric’ that they ‘perceived as openly anti-Semitic.’ Patel has echoed that condemnation, highlighting the risk of anti-Semitism in the shadow of the war. But Lee has stood her ground, arguing that criticism of Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism. ‘We have to be clear that no government, no country is above critique,’ Lee said. ‘The way that [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu has conducted this war, it’s indefensible.’” • Presumably AIPAC is airdropping palettes of cash into the district.
PA: “The Jewish vote could play a huge role in 2024. Pennsylvania is about to put up an early test” [NBC]. “Conversations with more than 30 political strategists, activists and voters outlined how that [post-October 7] tension has put Jewish voters in an unfamiliar spot ahead of the 2024 elections: on the front lines of the fight for control of the White House and Congress. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Pennsylvania, the swing state with the largest Jewish population — about 300,000 voting-age Jews in a state President Joe Biden won by roughly 80,000 votes in 2020. What’s more, the congressional district that includes Squirrel Hill features a primary Tuesday that is among the first electoral tests of sentiment on both sides of the conflict in Gaza and concerns over rising antisemitism in the U.S. Democratic Rep. Summer Lee, a ‘squad’-aligned progressive critical of Israel’s handling of the war and one of the first lawmakers to call for a cease-fire last year, will face Bhavini Patel, an Edgewood Borough Council member who has painted Lee’s advocacy as harmful to Biden’s re-election chances and out of step with her district.” And: “Most Jewish voters in Squirrel Hill — and nationally — align with the Democratic Party. A Pew Research Center survey released this month found 69% of Jews leaning Democratic, while 29% aligned Republican. But Republicans aren’t looking for a massive defection. GOP strategists and Republicans involved in Jewish outreach expressed confidence that Democratic divisions over Israel will help move a small but potentially significant number of Jewish voters into their camp in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. They pointed to surveys showing President Donald Trump’s improved performance among Jews in 2020, compared with his 2016 race, as evidence of a slow shift that could continue.
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On third parties:
Look, I know we live in a Goldfish Society that forgets its entire world every 15 minutes.
However, it takes one second to do a Google search of terms like “McCarthy 1968,” “Reagan 1976,” “Kennedy 1980,” “Buchanan 1992.”
People don’t have to be this stupid. They choose to be. https://t.co/yq3XHcXbV2
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) April 19, 2024
Democrats en Déshabillé
“The GOP’s Pro-Russia Caucus Lost. Now Ukraine Has to Win.” [Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic]. “It’s not too late, because it’s never too late. No outcomes are ever preordained, nothing is ever over, and you can always affect what happens tomorrow by making the right choices today.” • Wowsers. Applebaum’s career.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Down on Law” [Boston Review]. “Schmitt presciently grasped that the development of state intervention in the capitalist economy inevitably transforms the legal system by generating open-ended norms, vague delegations of authority to administrative agencies, and heightened bureaucratic and judicial discretion. And he understood the conflicts between these legal trends and traditional liberal notions of the law, and the ways in which these conflicts create endless invitations for the unbridled exercise of power. Instead of considering how we might make sure that the interventionist state maintains fidelity to the indispensable attainments of liberal legality, however, Schmitt simply considered these trends to be evidence for the superiority of a right-wing dictatorship free of legal restraint.” • Well worth a read.
Pandemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): 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 reports); 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).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful 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, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
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Airborne Transmission
University of Toronto’s Institute of Pandemics does the right thing:
Huge kudos to @DFisman and team for making the inaugural @UofT_Pandemics @UofT_dlsph symposium at Hart House with perhaps the best indoor air quality I’ve come across. Packed hall and CO2 measurement of 615! Giant HEPA filters all over, open doors and windows and high ceilings! pic.twitter.com/LtQLLwKxMm
— Sabina Vohra-Miller (@SabiVM) April 18, 2024
But meanwhile in Toronto:
Looks like there’s a push to get rid of whatever masking rules are left in Toronto area hospitals. Not sure if this is wise, especially in acute care areas, cancer clinics, where infection risk is highest. As we’ve seen many times, today’s lull easily becomes next week’s surge. pic.twitter.com/N1ODQIcVwa
— Kashif Pirzada, MD (@KashPrime) April 19, 2024
Airborne Transmission: Monkeypox
“Mpox, smallpox and the increasing threat of orthopoxvirus epidemics” [C Raina MacIntyre, Global Biosecurity]. “We should be on high alert for orthopoxvirus epidemics because of large, ongoing epidemics of mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mpox has been resurgent in the African continent in countries like Nigeria and DRC since 2017, where the infection is endemic in animals and can be zoonotic or human-to-human transmitted. It remained a low priority until the 2022 epidemic which affected non-endemic, high-income countries in Europe and the Americas….. The most concerning situation is the clade I Mpox epidemic in Kamituga, DRC. From January to November 2023 the World Health Organization reported 12,569 suspected mpox cases in DRC, with a 4.6% case fatality rate, (4) with 70% of the cases and 88% of deaths are in children. (5) Less than 10% of these were tested by PCR, due to low diagnostic capacity in DRC. The predominance of children in the DRC epidemic suggests transmission may be respiratory. In fact, smallpox and mpox are respiratory viruses, and mpox has been identified in ambient air.”
Sequelae: Covid
“Functional connectivity underlying cognitive and psychiatric symptoms in post-COVID-19 syndrome: is anosognosia a key determinant?” [Brain Communications (LawnDart)]. N = 102. From the Abstract: “Lack of awareness of cognitive impairment (i.e. anosognosia) could be a key factor for distinguishing between neuropsychological post-COVID-19 condition phenotypes. In this context, the 2-fold aim of the present study was to (i) establish the prevalence of anosognosia for memory impairment, according to the severity of the infection in the acute phase and (ii) determine whether anosognosic patients with post-COVID syndrome have a different cognitive and psychiatric profile from nosognosic patients, with associated differences in brain functional connectivity.” After a battery of tests: “Only 15.6% of patients who presented mild disease displayed anosognosia for memory dysfunction, compared with 32.4% of patients with moderate presentation and 34.8% of patients with severe disease. Compared with nosognosic patients, those with anosognosia for memory dysfunction performed significantly more poorly on objective cognitive and olfactory measures. By contrast, they gave significantly more positive subjective assessments of their quality of life, psychiatric status and fatigue. Interestingly, the proportion of patients exhibiting a lack of consciousness of olfactory deficits was significantly higher in the anosognosic group.” • Alert reader LawnDart compiled the following notes:
These are notes that I compiled from various sources in an effort to better understand my father’s mental health conditions, and the factors which may be involved in these. These notes define the scope and limits of my knowledge on these subjects.
Anosognosia: notes via Wikipedia, Cleveland Clinic, NIH, etc.. (I have re-written and re-worded these for my own benefit of understanding, so I am not directly citing sources)
Anosognosia; GR: to not know a disease [literally, a person who is ill does not know that they are ill?]
Anosognosia (noun):the inability of a person to recognize or to be cognitively aware of his or her own illness or handicap, or of one or more health conditions, due to underlying brain injury or abnormality.
Anosognosia commonly occurs with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s, and in stroke victims, where the processing of the information that gives us self-awareness or insight is hindered by damage to (or abnormalities of) the frontal lobe of the brain. This damage may result in the loss of the ability to take in new information that would alter or change the perception of one’s self. The brain cannot recognize the health conditions that one has; it cannot recognize or process what the senses tell it or connect these to a problem.
Anosognosia is not static: self-awareness or insight may be present at some times but not during others—it can come and go. It can affect a person’s awareness of their own deficits, difficulties, or problems involving judgement, emotions, memory, executive function (ability to make and/or execute plans), language skills, and motor-abilities. A person with the condition is unaware of their own mental health condition or are unable to accept it, and may try to cover-up or rationalize what they cannot understand. The brain, intellect, does not process the fact that its thoughts do not reflect reality, resulting in inappropriate moods or behaviors. This inaccurate insight is as real and convincing as “normal” insight, and this misperception can cause conflict with others and lead to anxiety.
With regards to memory, a person with anosognosia is not aware of loss or impairment of memory, or may insist that no memory-problem exists. A person with anosognosia may confabulate or lie to fill in the gaps of their memory, gaps which the mind cannot explain or understand, with false memories.
Anosognosia results from physical changes to the brain. It is not a defense mechanism such as denial. A person in denial rejects or avoids accepting reality because it’s unpleasant or distressing. A person with anosognosia cannot recognize the reality of a problem at all: anosognosia is anatomical in origin, denial is psychological. Anosognosia is not a matter of reason, intellect, or will, but of biology.
To recognize anosognosia, one must see that another is afflicted by a condition that has a significant impact on their life, and that this person who is afflicted cannot recognize that there is a problem.
Yikes. “Anosognosia” is the word of the day, for sure.
Elite Maleficence
I like this connotation of “Airborne”:
Convincing the @WHO of the airborne nature of COVID-19 was a real battle for those who set out on this path. Thanks to them for their pugnacity and hard work. pic.twitter.com/umv9WPQ1bh
— LET’S AIR / NOUS AÉRONS (@nousaerons) April 21, 2024
Rolling up sleeves and scrubbing my hands for the next HICPAC meeting:
EDITORIAL: It’s Time To Roll Back All Mitigations In Hospitals: Gloves, Masks, Goggles, Clean Floors, New Needles, Clean Scalpels, Everything. If We Want To Win The War On Immunity Debt, Doctors Must Do Their Duty And Infect Everyone With Everything All The Time. pic.twitter.com/2GRZGc2Kz8
— The Vertlartnic (@TheVertlartnic) April 19, 2024
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TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (Biobot) Our curve has now flattened out at a level far above valleys under Trump. Not a great victory. Note also the area “under the curve,” besides looking at peaks. That area is larger under Biden than under Trump, and it seems to be rising steadily if unevenly.
[2] (Biobot) No backward revisons….
[3] (CDC Variants) As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.
[4] (ER) CDC seems to have killed this off, since the link is broken, I think in favor of this thing. I will try to confirm. UPDATE Yes, leave it to CDC to kill a page, and then announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC should explain where to go to get equivalent data, if any. I liked the ER data, because it seemed really hard to game.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Flattening out to a non-zero baseline. I suppose to a tame epidemiologist it looks like “endemicity,” but to me it looks like another tranche of lethality.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Slight uptrend.
[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Uptick.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly.
[11] Looks like the Times isn’t reporting death data any more? Maybe I need to go back to The Economist….
Stats Watch
The Economy: “United States Chicago Fed National Activity Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to +0.15 in March 2024 from an upwardly revised +0.09 in February, slightly exceeding market expectations of +0.09. It marked the highest reading since last November….”
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Shipping: “The 100-year-old railway Mexico hopes will rival the Panama Canal” [The Week]. “The revival of the railway line means that a ship could “unload its cargo from one side, send it by rail across the Isthmus, and reload it back onto another ship on the other side”, thereby providing a new route through which international freight could flow, explained Mexico News Daily…. The $2.8 billion project has been “buoyed” by Mexico’s increasingly important trading relationship with the US; the country ‘surpassed China this year to become the US’s top trading partner’, said The Daily Upside. Given that America’s relationship with China remains ‘decidedly frosty’, Mexico can ‘feel secure in its new position for a while longer’. Droughts are also putting pressure on the canal. Last year the major shipping route, which relies on fresh water for its operation, faced its worst drought on record, causing significant delays.” • Interesting, though I’d like to see some numbers. A Panamax isn’t that big, but how long is a doublestack train that takes all its containers?
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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 34 Fear (previous close: 31 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 39 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 22 at 12:48:27 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 188. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Bird flu not a concern, apparently. And I hate even to go here, but the “Tribulation Temple” category is a mere 3. If Tribulation Temple = Third Temple = whatever temple it is that the Red Heifer loons want to build, then the Rapture Index is making a call, and it’s saying “Don’t worry about the Red Heifers.”
Book Nook
Not wrong:
Taylor Swift: another year another album! Here’s 31 more songs
George R.R. Martin: pic.twitter.com/BL5WRHKPU2
— Washington Post Universe Guy (@davejorgenson) April 19, 2024
The Gallery
Flat:
Interior with Egyptian Curtain, 1948Get more Matisse 🍒 https://t.co/NoY1e00LNZ pic.twitter.com/rl3tSYUBLr
— Henri Matisse (@artistmatisse) April 20, 2024
Not flat!
Rain in Belle-Ile, 1886Get more Monet 🍒 https://t.co/IJa53htaI3 pic.twitter.com/1agGPAHhqi
— Claude Monet (@artistmonet) April 19, 2024
What ambition, to paint rain!
Groves of Academe
Yale:
“Police storm Yale University’s campus with riot gear, 47 arrested as hundreds stage anti-Israel protest” [New York Post]. “Police clad in riot gear swarmed Yale University’s Connecticut campus early Monday and arrested dozens of students who refused to clear out from an anti-Israel protest encampment. At least 47 protesters were cuffed and hauled away from the Ivy League’s New Haven campus on shuttle buses, a university spokesperson confirmed to The Post. They were slapped with trespassing summons — and will be referred for Yale disciplinary action, which may include suspensions, the rep added…. It comes after protests at Yale turned violent over the weekend when a Jewish student journalist reporting on an encampment, which was erected Friday, was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag Saturday night.” • I’d want more detail on the incident.
Columbia:
Community guidelines for the Columbia University Gaza Solidarity Encampment:
“5. Respect personal boundaries – tight quarters are not an excuse to cross physical boundaries without affirmative consent.”
Not enough has been said about the supermajority female demographics and… pic.twitter.com/NvO39jjCAN
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) April 22, 2024
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News you can use:
(2) Gather all written correspondence you have about your employment- offer/ accept etc- and put it with those other valuable files. Maybe you don’t have a formal contract? Still find all that other informal stuff now.
— Sara Goldrick-Rab (@saragoldrickrab) April 20, 2024
A thread of very good tips.
Class Warfare
“When the German left was expropriating princes” [When the German Left was expropriating the princes]. “Just over a century ago, in the spring of 1924, the German left launched an uphill battle to redistribute the wealth of the Hohenzollerns, the ruling family who had lost power with the abdication of Wilhelm II and the creation of the Weimar Republic in 1919. Rich in lessons for today, this little-known episode deserves to be remembered. It illustrates the ability of elites to use the language of the law to perpetuate their privileges, regardless of the scale of their wealth or the importance of collective needs. Yesterday, it was the reconstruction of European societies ravaged by war; today, it is the new social and climatic challenges…. In Austria, the Habsburgs’ imperial estates had become community property without compensation. In Germany, however, the Hohenzollerns managed to retain their properties (over 100,000 hectares of land, a dozen castles, works of art galore, etc). No federal redistribution measures were adopted…. The Communists of the KPD, eventually followed by the Social Democrats (SPD), introduced a bill to expropriate the princes for the benefit of the poorest. They gathered over 12 million signatures in 1925, in what remains to this day the largest petition in German history. The law was about to be passed, but the vagueness of the constitutional wording on compensation allowed President Hindenburg to demand a constitutional revision beforehand. The June 1926 referendum attracted 16 million voters (90% in favor of expropriation). However, the turnout was slightly below the 50% threshold required to amend the constitution. By calling for abstention and denouncing the risks that a Communist victory would eventually pose for small and medium-sized property owners, the German right and large landowners (very influential in the east of the country), allied with the center and the Nazis (who opposed class struggle and advocated expropriating Jews who had arrived in the country since 1914), succeeded in blocking the process and preventing the left-wing union that could then have been put in place.” •
I find this model appealing up to a point:
This is true even for the most serious of issues. It’s all social contagion, all people imitating role models at the hubs.
The hopeless term ‘the people’ doesn’t capture this clumpiness in anyway. /2
— Henry Madison (@RageSheen) April 22, 2024
How hubs are created MR SUBLIMINAL Capital accumulation seems, however, underspecified
News of the Wired
“Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated” [JSTOR]. “Noah Webster’s roles in the formation of the early United States were manifold: editor of the Federalist Papers, owner and editor of the first American daily newspaper, textbook author, a founder of Amherst College, promoter of the first US copyright laws, and author of one of the first works on epidemiology, used by nineteenth-century medical schools. But his 1828 dictionary is what he’s remembered for, coming at a tremendous personal cost: twenty-one years invested, and a lifelong struggle with debt. In his preface to the three-volume work, he writes of his hopes that the dictionary will result in his fellow Americans’ “improvement and their happiness; and for the continued increase of the wealth, the learning, the moral and religious elevation of character, and the glory of my country.’” • Webster edited the Federalist Papers?! What an amazing true fact. And I wonder what his epidemiology book has to say about airborne transmission.
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Errors (1): “The ‘blem wit’ error messages” [The Register]. “Most of [the messages] were verified in one way or another; however I once collected the delightful but unverified ‘Shut her down, Clancy, she’s a-pumping mud.’… In those days, though, most error message were a little less creative. The reason? Memory was expensive. So some of them were terse. I mean rlly trs… My personal favorite is still one from the early 90s. And it was about as trs as they get: “blem wit”….. Unfortunately, the very problem that triggered the error message had the unfortunate side effect of screwing up the ability of DOS to write to the screen. So only a part of the error message was actually written to the screen. What was that error message? ‘There is a problem with the Memory Control Block for the shell.” • Oh.
Errors (2):
The what now? pic.twitter.com/InynA1TKVr
— Karen Percy 🎶🎤 (@KarenPercy1) April 19, 2024
Errors (3):
44 years ago today, history’s greatest printing error was published in the Peterborough Standard pic.twitter.com/Q3EUHEOQnm
— Ivan Brett (@IvanBrett) April 18, 2024
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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From SV:
SV writes: “Western Cape, South Africa, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.”
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