Home Economy 2:00PM Water Cooler 2/17/2023 | bare capitalism

2:00PM Water Cooler 2/17/2023 | bare capitalism

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Chicken Music of the Day

In honor of the tool-using Cockatoo:

Gang-gang Cockatoo, Rail Path, Launching Place Swamp, Yarra Ranges, Victoria, Australia. The cockatoo is the one which seems like a creaking door.

* * *

Politics

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

“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to suppose; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels.” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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

Biden Administration

“Biden faces a key financial choice forward of reelection” [Politico]. “President Joe Biden’s choice of Lael Brainard as his prime financial adviser fills one massive policymaking hole for the White Home — and creates one other opening for him on the Federal Reserve to form one in all his greatest threats: a unstable financial system. Brainard, named by Biden as director of his Nationwide Financial Council, has been an influential power on the central financial institution for the previous decade in setting rate of interest coverage, together with practically a 12 months as Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s No. 2. The president’s choice on her successor presents him an opportunity to pick somebody who can be gentler on the financial system — Brainard, like all of the Fed’s voting members, has backed Powell on charge hikes — hoping to keep away from a recession earlier than the 2024 election. Gender and racial variety are additionally components, provided that Powell and Michael Barr, vice chair overseeing regulatory coverage, are each white males.”

“President Biden Indicators Government Order to Strengthen Racial Fairness and Help for Underserved Communities Throughout the Federal Authorities” [The White House]. “By way of the implementation of landmark laws and historic govt motion, the Biden-Harris Administration is working to make actual the promise of America for everybody—together with rural communities, communities of coloration, Tribal communities, LGBTQI+ people, individuals with disabilities, ladies and women, and communities impacted by persistent poverty.” • @wsbgnl: “Please look away from the extraordinary avoidable covid-related lack of life and deepening public well being abandonment of rural communities, communities of coloration, Tribal communities, individuals with disabilities, and communities impacted by persistent poverty…”

2024

“Senior Democrats’ Personal Tackle Biden: He’s Too Previous” [Politico]. “gh-level Democrats are rallying to President Biden’s reelection, not as a result of they suppose it’s in the very best curiosity of the nation to have an 82-year-old begin a second time period however as a result of they worry the potential various: the nomination of Kamala Harris and election of Donald Trump…. ‘No one needs to be the one to do one thing that may undermine the probabilities of a Democratic victory in 2024,’ Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) defined to me. ‘But in quiet rooms the dialog is simply the other — we might be at a better threat if this path is cleared.’” • “Quiet rooms.” Love that.

“Trump assaults Haley on Medicare, Social Safety cuts” [The Hill]. “Former President Trump on Wednesday attacked new Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, his former United Nations ambassador, for her earlier help of chopping Medicare and Social Safety. In an e-mail titled ‘The Actual Nikki Haley’ despatched minutes after her official marketing campaign launch occasion, the Trump marketing campaign famous Haley supported former Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan to get rid of Medicare and switch it right into a voucher system. He additionally highlighted a 2010 Fox Information interview the place Haley indicated Congress ought to be trying to reduce Medicare, Medicaid and Social Safety. Trump has leaned into attacking his present and potential 2024 rivals on entitlements, trying to exploit divisions within the Republican Social gathering over the problem — simply as President Biden and the Democrats are doing. Biden used his State of the Union deal with final week to accuse Republicans of wanting to chop Social Safety and Medicare, baiting them into loudly booing his remarks. Trump is pushing the same assault on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not formally declared his candidacy however is seen as Trump’s principal rival for the 2024 GOP nomination.” • So Trump is to the left [sic] of Obama in his “Grand Discount” days….

“Jack Smith, Particular Counsel for Trump Inquiries, Steps Up the Tempo” [New York Times]. “Did former President Donald J. Trump eat detailed details about overseas international locations whereas in workplace? How extensively did he search details about whether or not voting machines had been tampered with? Did he point out he knew he was leaving when his time period ended? These are among the many questions that Justice Division investigators have been directing at witnesses because the particular counsel, Jack Smith, takes management of the federal investigations into Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss and his dealing with of categorized paperwork present in his possession after he left workplace.” I don’t know why it is sensible to mix these two investigations below one hat. I suppose Whitewater units a precedent, although. Extra: “Present and former officers say Mr. Smith seems to see the assorted strands of his investigations as being of a single piece, with interconnected parts, gamers and themes — even when they produce divergent outcomes.” Which is okay, however the article doesn’t clarify why that’s. Extra: “The intensified tempo of exercise speaks to his aim of ending up earlier than the 2024 marketing campaign will get stepping into earnest, most likely by summer season.” Extra: “His crew is sifting by mountains of testimony offered by the Home Jan. 6 committee, together with specializing in the so-called pretend electors scheme through which a few of Mr. Trump’s advisers and a few marketing campaign officers assembled alternate slates of Trump electors from contested states that he had misplaced.” Concluding: “However many authorized observers see the present scenario — with two probably 2024 presidential rivals, Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, dealing with separate particular counsel investigations — as proof that the particular counsel mechanism is getting used far past its meant, restricted function.” • Wanting ahead to voting for Trump when he runs from a jail cell.

Republican Funhouse

IA: “GOP Structuring E book Hearings So Solely Dad and mom In Favor Of Bans Are Heard” [Iowa Starting Line]. “Home Republicans are designing their particular authorities oversight public hearings on faculty e-book banning in order that they solely get enter from dad and mom who agree with them. Final week, the Home Authorities Oversight Committee met to listen to from 5 ladies who need books eliminated or restricted from their faculty libraries and curricula. Legislative Republicans determined this 12 months to carry particular listening classes on the Statehouse to look into e-book issues pushed by right-wing activists—these are separate from common committee hearings on proposed payments. Opponents to the book-ban push had been pissed off that just one aspect acquired to talk on the subject, however Republicans famous they’d have a follow-up listening to. Nevertheless, State Rep. Brooke Boden (R-Indianola) informed a mother or father group that the opposite listening to gained’t enable enter from dad and mom against the censorship push, however as a substitute concentrate on faculty directors.” • These are state-level hearings. I’m wondering if the Republican handbook for nationwide hearings across the nation recommends that they be embubbled, or not?

“Trump’s Supreme Court docket Picks Are Not Fairly What You Suppose” [New York Times]. “Opponents of abortion acquired what they wished when the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade, and the ramifications of that call can’t be overstated. However did Mr. Trump get the remainder of what he wished from the justices he appointed? Virtually six years after the primary appointment, we are able to start to kind a solution: not completely. Whereas conservative, none of his three appointments are practically as conservative — nor as persistently conservative — as Justices Thomas and Alito. The Trump appointees are additionally not as unified as they could initially seem…. [They] can’t be simply characterised as both hard-core originalists or blanket partisans…. The numerous ideological hole between Justices Thomas and Alito, on the one hand, and the Trump nominees, on the opposite, might be seen of their Martin-Quinn scores, a measure of judicial ideology developed by political scientists. Primarily based on their rulings in the course of the court docket’s final time period, Justices Thomas and Alito earn scores of two.949 and a pair of.458, the upper quantity signifying higher conservatism. Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett earn scores of 1.019, 0.791 and 1.318, respectively — pretty shut to at least one one other, however markedly totally different from the 2 scores of the staunch conservatives anchoring the fitting wing of the court docket.” • Fascinating, and exhibits the vacuity of the nomination fights.

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, it appears that evidently individuals are really studying the back-dated publish! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are numerous updates. So I must try 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 publish, 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, the truth is, 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 elements of the Social gathering reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between parts of the Social gathering (ka-ching, however not completely) these parts comprise a community — a Flex Web? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence group.

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

* * *

PA: “Sen. John Fetterman has checked into Walter Reed hospital for medical melancholy” [The Inquirer]. “Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) checked himself into Walter Reed Nationwide Army Medical Middle on Wednesday evening to obtain remedy for medical melancholy, his workplace mentioned Thursday, including that his longtime wrestle with that concern grew to become ‘extreme’ in latest weeks… ‘Whereas John has skilled melancholy on and off all through his life, it solely grew to become extreme in latest weeks,” his chief of workers, Adam Jentleson, mentioned in a press release Thursday…. U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, a Lehigh Valley Democrat whose companion died by suicide in 2019, issued an impassioned assertion hailing Fetterman’s public announcement. She pointed to the pressure he confronted this previous 12 months, together with the stroke, a fraught political marketing campaign with nationwide stakes, and adjusting to a demanding new job. ‘There are those that will say residing with melancholy is a barrier to serving your constituents, however they’re mistaken,’ Wild wrote. ‘Moderately, the Pennsylvanians who additionally stay with melancholy see of their Senator somebody who understands their struggles, bravely sought assist, and can battle to make sure that they will obtain the identical high quality care he does.’” • “Residing with.” Now I do know the place that phrase got here from….

PA: “Fetterman attracts reward for getting assist for melancholy” [Associated Press]. And so he ought to. “Fetterman’s public wrestle is extraordinary in a constructing the place few speak about their very own psychological well being, even whereas members of each events have laws to broaden help for it. Kennedy and a handful of others who’ve been open about their very own issues, or these of their household, say they hope Fetterman’s honesty — and his decisive motion to get assist — will foster extra openness amongst lawmakers and their constituents within the wake of a worldwide pandemic that has had far-reaching results.” • Perhaps. I don’t have a substantial amount of sympathy for partisan sniping on Fetterman; in the identical manner I didn’t have numerous sympathy for partisan sniping on, say, Matt Gaetz. Warren? Oz? Dunk away, they earned it. However not everyone does.

PA: “Despair and Stroke” [American Stroke Association]. “Despair is a standard expertise for stroke survivors. It’s typically attributable to biochemical modifications within the mind. When the mind is injured, the survivor might not have the ability to really feel constructive feelings. Despair will also be a traditional psychological response to the losses from stroke.” • It’s as much as Pennsylvania voters, in my thoughts.

PA: “Fetterman marketing campaign might have violated finance guidelines by promoting donor listing” [New York Post]. “On Nov. 3, 2022, 5 days earlier than voters had been scheduled to go to the polls in the important thing senate race that pitted Pensylvania Democrat Fetterman towards Republican tv persona Mehmet Oz, Fetterman for PA raked in $2.2 million from two progressive Washington strategists for the sale of the listing. Center Seat Consulting, which labored on Fetterman’s marketing campaign, paid $1 million in a ‘listing acquisition buy,’ in response to marketing campaign finance data. Aisle 518 Consulting LLC, which has labored on Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential bid, amongst different progressive campaigns, paid $1.2 million for Fetterman’s listing, in response to public data. A day later, on Nov. 4, the Fetterman marketing campaign took in $250,000 from fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey for Senate Inc, Federal Election Fee filings present. Whereas it’s neither unusual nor unlawful for political candidates to promote or lease out their donor lists, the Federal Election Fee requires that they be bought at comparable costs: ‘On the ‘normal and regular’ charge with out the purchaser making a contribution,’ mentioned a spokesman for the FEC. In Fetterman’s case, his listing commanded wildly divergent charges and was bought once more within the weeks after the midterm elections to one of many Washington-based strategists.” • Looks as if a venial sin, not a mortal one.

WI: “Democrats Meddle Once more in a G.O.P. Main, This Time Down-Poll” [New York Times]. “The Democrats are serving to a far-right election denier who has turn out to be a pariah inside her occasion in her race towards a much less excessive, however nonetheless election-denying, conservative. They hope that with a extra weak opponent, Democrats can win a seat held for many years by Republicans and deny the G.O.P. a veto-proof majority within the gerrymandered chamber.” • You’d suppose “Democrat-endorsed” can be the kiss of demise in a Republican major. Why don’t the Republicans ever push again on this?

Realignment and Legitimacy

Not mistaken:

Mind worms wherever you look. The horrible factor is that you simply don’t know you have got them. No one does, together with me. I’m wondering what De Tocqueville would suppose…

The identical phenomenon–

“The Closed Creativeness of the On-line Liberal” [Ross Barkan]. “When you disagree with one tribe, you might be coded as belonging to the opposite, even in the event you declare no membership in it. Conservatives will solid out those that criticize Donald Trump or don’t consider that essential race idea is the only biggest risk to American civilization. Liberals will censure anybody who presents sustained critiques of Democrats or the pathologies of the college-educated set…. that is the form of sentiment I see on a regular basis, particularly in political circles. It’s, funnily sufficient, not so totally different than the slapdash evaluation employed by the individuals Stancil despises—the right-wing, the fascist-friendly, the ardent Trump supporters. The evaluation takes a deeply complicated, multifarious world and furiously flattens it; it makes existence match for consumption. People are like mushy drinks that should be instantly sorted. Are you Coke or Pepsi? Mountain Dew or Fanta? Are you good or unhealthy? Please inform me, as a result of I need to know what to suppose.” • Classification struggles…

“Being Radical is a Ability” [Joshua P. Hill, New Means]. “The necessity for a widespread understanding and adoption of true radicality, of reaching for and greedy issues on the root, is in every single place we glance. I can’t rely the occasions I’ve encountered dialogue of the essential points we face and seen individuals reply solely be participating with the data instantly introduced, somewhat than what may need motivated the situation, what dominoes might have lined up and toppled over within the buildup to the ultimate occasion that we’re discussing. The dialogue of crime, broadly, is perhaps the clearest instance. Folks see somebody hopping a turnstile, for instance, to keep away from paying the subway fare, and some reactions sometimes observe. The conservative response is to arrest them and effective them closely, accompanied by a name for extra police involvement in public transit. And that response seems to information coverage in most cities throughout the U.S. However, there are different methods to reply. A average response could also be that they shouldn’t be arrested, however ought to face some type of effective, and most significantly they actually ought to pay for the subway subsequent time as a result of we want individuals to pay for public transit to ensure that it to operate. Now what I might ask of you, in the event you’re discussing a situation like this, is to begin first by going to the foundation, greedy on the root causes and points earlier than passing judgment. First, that entails realizing that on this nation public transit is used much more by the working class than the ruling class. Second, it entails why fare evasion is taken into account an issue. It’s thought-about an issue as a result of we fund public transit precariously, that means we underfund it and power the system to depend on thousands and thousands of small purchases. But different important public companies usually are not funded this similar manner. We don’t power people to provide small or giant charges for police and fireplace and public training, regardless of some conservative efforts to vary that. So why ought to the trains or busses which can be the first, typically solely, technique of transportation for thousands and thousands of working class individuals be reliant upon infinite small expenditures from those that usually have far much less to provide? They shouldn’t. On the root of this concern of fare evasion is the truth that there ought to be no fare to be evaded. That radical thought, the concept we arrive at after we go to the foundation of the issue, is what ought to information us.”

“How elite psychological biases can clarify a civilisation in free fall” [¡Do Not Panic!]. “To these of us with little company over the route of the system however with a eager curiosity in not going up in a ball of flames, the proof that we want huge change is apparent. However if you’re deeply invested within the system as it’s, in the event you helped develop and outline it, if its functioning continues to be advantageousness for you personally, the necessity for change gained’t be apparent. A lot of our elites are a long time into this factor, their fingerprints throughout how the system works and why it really works the best way it does…. So with issues beginning to go very clearly mistaken, somewhat than look rationally on the proof and alter course, the elites are turning to unusual schemes and weird concepts, unable and unwilling to consider that the entire edifice they helped construct and run is crumbling…. We can’t hope to interrupt the cognitive biases of political and enterprise elites. They’re too deep in to business-as-usual and too well-rewarded by it. The elite have sunk the whole lot into this ideological venture for the final 40 years, and can proceed to escalate their dedication, in denial of their failings, till all of it falls aside. Any change must come from the skin. From individuals and forward-thinking actions with no funding within the methods and establishments that govern us. From these with no pores and skin within the recreation. With circumstances worsening, the subsequent pandemic inevitable and the planet getting much less liveable by the 12 months, this modification wants to come back quickly.”

#COVID19

Appears like “leveling off to a excessive plateau” throughout the board. (I nonetheless suppose “One thing Terrible” is coming, nonetheless. I imply, in addition to what we already find out about.) Keep secure on the market!

• Readers, because the nationwide information methods in the US are being vandalized, let’s begin accumulating hyperlinks to state information, too. If readers would ship me hyperlinks (see Plant under) to their favourite State and native dashboards/wastewater websites, that may be nice. Canadians, too! Or depart a hyperlink in Feedback.

Sources, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot); Variants (CDC; Walgreens).

Sources, United States (Native): CA (dashboard); ME (dashboard); IN (dashboard); NC (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NY (dashboard); IL (wastewater); SC (dashboard); TX (dashboard); VA (dashboard); WI (dashboard).

Sources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater).

Hat tricks to useful readers: CanCyn, ChiGal, hop2it, JB, Joe, John, LaRuse, Petal (2), RL, Rod. (Readers, I’m not placing your deal with subsequent to your contribution as a result of I hope and count on the listing will probably be lengthy, and I need it to be simple to scan. (When you depart your hyperlink in feedback, I exploit your deal with. When you ship it to me by way of e-mail, I exploit your initials (within the absence of a deal with.)

• Extra like this, please! Whole: 1 6 11/50 (22%).

* * *

Search for the Helpers

A hospital chaplain tells a narrative. Act 1:

Act 2:

Act 3:


* * *

“Covid Meetups” [COVID MEETUPS (JM)]. “A free service to search out people, households and native companies/companies who take COVID precautions in your space.” • I performed round with it some. It appears to be Fb-driven, sadly, however you should use the Listing with out logging in. I get rational hits from the U.S., however not from London, UK, FWIW.

Maskstravaganza

Airplane journey returning to sanity?

Readers, are you seeing something comparable?

Vogue ahead:

I just like the breathe99 masks. I don’t just like the enterprise mannequin of all the brand new wave maskers, the place the substitute objects are clearly the place the cash is made; the masks is the razor; the filters are the blades. I feel that’s a barrier to uptake, and admittedly, I’d somewhat purchase N95s than filters at one buck a pop. I feel what the business ought to do is undertake a regular dimension of filter that each one producers use. That can reduce prices. It must also be potential to purchase, say, a field of N95s and allow customers to reduce their very own filters out of the material. What do readers suppose?

Sequelae

“The haunting mind science of lengthy Covid” [STAT]. “There are not any permitted therapies for the bodily or cognitive disabilities that now plague 65 million individuals around the globe, a conservative estimate given the diploma of undocumented instances. It’s now clear from U.S. and U.Ok. investigations of roughly 2,000 beforehand hospitalized Covid sufferers that six months later greater than half have issues managing funds and paying payments in addition to finishing on a regular basis actions like getting ready meals, bathing, getting dressed, or strolling throughout a room…. Post-mortem research present that the virus can persist in some individuals for a lot of months though they haven’t any signs and take a look at damaging for the virus. Brains donated by individuals who died of Covid-19 additionally present widespread issues within the cells lining the blood vessels and exaggerated clotting, supporting the concept of Covid-19 as a blood circulation dysfunction that brings on mind illness…. A examine from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being of 44 full autopsies mapped and quantified the distribution of SARS-CoV-2 and confirmed it was extensively distributed all through the physique, together with within the hypothalamus and cerebellum within the mind and neurons within the spinal twine. Particularly related to lengthy Covid, viral fragments had been detected in among the brains of people that died many months after symptom onset.” • Price studying in full.

Elite Malfeasance

“New Scientist Group Calling For Pandemic Solutions Is Tied to Rightwing Darkish Cash” [OptOut]. “A brand new medical group behind an 80-page ‘blueprint’ for a possible congressional fee to research the harms of the U.S. authorities’s COVID-19 response has ties to the political proper and darkish cash. The Norfolk Group purports to be eight impartial scientists [Bhattacharya; Hoeg; all smiling, so watch out!] from totally different political backgrounds who usually are not working ‘on behalf of any establishment, public or personal’ however are somewhat looking for solutions to clarify how the U.S. has fared so poorly all through the pandemic…. On the third web page of the Norfolk Group white paper is an acknowledgment that the authors got here collectively by a gathering organized by the Brownstone Institute, a shadowy COVID misinformation nonprofit. Vital Context and the OptOut Media Basis beforehand reported that Brownstone acquired most of its funding from simply 9 nameless giant donations in 2021.” • Moar Flexians! All these funders — liberal and conservative — are pretty much as good at inventing names for his or her entities as Enron was, again within the day. “Brownnostrilstone, Norfolk: So strong and reliable-sounding!

* * *

Case Information

BioBot wastewater information from February 16:

For now, I’m going to make use of this nationwide wastewater information as the very best proxy for case information (ignoring the medical case information portion of this chart, which for my part “goes unhealthy” after March 2022, for causes as but unexplained). A minimum of we are able to spot developments, and examine present ranges to equal previous ranges.

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s take a look at positivity tracker, revealed February 17:

-0.8%. Nonetheless on the excessive plateau, equal to earlier peaks.

Deaths

Demise charge (Our World in Information):

Whole: 1,141,862 – 1,141,220 = 642 (642 * 365 = 234,330 deaths per 12 months, at the moment’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “residing with” Covid (fairly a bit larger than the minimizers would really like, although they will discuss themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I may should determine that is what the powers-that-be think about “mission achieved” for this specific tranche of demise and illness). Properly, the entire wasn’t 192 once more. Not that I really feel higher about it.

It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, day by day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, not like the whole lot else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job. (Although CDC could also be jiggering the numbers quickly. Decrease, naturally.)

Lambert right here: Lowest degree in awhile. Though we’ve seen this earlier than.

Stats Watch

There are not any official statistics of curiosity at the moment.

* * *

Delivery: “BIMCO: Chinese language Shipyards Obtain Market Share File in 2022” [Maritime Executive]. “After a long time after China started its concerted efforts to construct its competitiveness within the international transport business, its shipyards hit a file 47 % market share in 2022 in response to a brand new evaluation from the transport commerce group BIMCO. Based on their report, final 12 months was the primary time that Chinese language shipbuilders exceeded the mixed market share of Japanese and South Korean shipyards. China initially attracted orders by providing decrease prices specializing in essentially the most primary of ships akin to bulk carriers. They contributed to the shift away from Europe’s conventional shipbuilders to the decrease prices present in Japan, South Korea, and finally China. Extra just lately they’ve invested in new methods and processes to boost productiveness and now are starting to make entries into the high-value, extra complicated segments together with their first substantive orders for LNG fuel carriers and utilizing their first home cruise ship building to develop experience within the phase. China appears to be like to leverage these competencies to compete in these segments nonetheless dominated by the South Koreans and European shipyards.”

The Bezzle:

AI = BS. Or worse.

* * *

In the present day’s Worry & Greed Index: 66 Greed (earlier shut: 69 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 69 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Feb 17 at 12:40 PM ET.

Groves of Academe

“The Good Marxist” [Year Zero]. I’m going to pick the intense spot from this horrid story of how academia works now; you must learn it in full as a result of it’s excellent. So: “Rapidly I found simply how a lot Kathy dedicated to her educating. The syllabus, lent to me on the primary day by one in all her college students, was a half-inch thick, full of a rigorously tailor-made studying listing of some hundred poems, e-book excerpts, and essays. It included a 3,000 phrase assertion on her pedagogical philosophy, and detailed, to the hour, expectations for each class and project. This may increasingly appear a bit overbearing for an undergraduate inventive writing elective. . They’d all, to an individual, stayed updated on their work and studying. Kathy had written paragraphs of rigorous suggestions for each submitted project. ” • College students reply to good educating. They actually, actually do. No marvel directors try to destroy it.

Our Famously Free Press

“The Sy Hersh impact: killing the messenger, ignoring the message” [Responsible Statecraft]. “Absolute crickets. That’s the sound within the main mainstream media — each overseas and home — following the fees by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that the US led a covert operation to explode the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022…. Second, they level to what seems to be “single sourcing” in Hersh’s Substack report (although he’s rather more ambiguous about this in his interview with Radio Warfare Nerd this week). Moreover, Twitter and Substack sleuths, utilizing OSINT (open supply intelligence,) say they’ve discovered holes within the particulars (like the category of minesweeper ship concerned and the place it was situated the day Hersh claims the explosives had been planted) that solid doubt on his total story. However the questions raised about Hersh and his reporting (acceptable or not) don’t clarify the shortage of mainstream protection of his extraordinarily detailed, 5300-word article, which below some other circumstances ought to have opened the floodgates of journalistic inquiry. … Media critic, writer, and podcaster Robert Wright suggests the media blackout is a part of an ongoing development of one-sided and incurious Ukraine Warfare protection. He pointed to explosive, but little-reported claims by former Israeli prime minister Neftali Bennett earlier this month that the West had killed a tentative peace deal between Russia and Ukraine final March. ‘In some methods I feel MSM’s roughly ignoring Naftali Bennett’s feedback on aborted early-March Ukraine negotiations is even much less excusable than ignoring the Hersh story,’ Wright mentioned in an e-mail trade with RS. ‘MSM can all the time say Hersh is now only a freelancer and was relying mainly on a single nameless supply, and so on — however Bennett is an eyewitness to what he’s describing, and he’s the previous prime minister of Israel!’” • NC readers find out about each, in fact. As for “ongoing development,” that’s simply one other instance of the State of Exception that the PMC declared after coming to class consciousness as their response to Trump’s 2016 victory. Seems liberals aren’t so liberal in any case (and it’s understanding very nicely for them).

Zeitgeist Watch

“Rising penis sizes are worrying medical doctors. Right here’s why greater won’t be higher” [Miami Herald]. “The examine, revealed Feb. 15 in The World Journal of Males’s Well being, examined information from 75 totally different research between 1942 and 2021 that recorded the penis dimension of their examine contributors. They discovered slight variations amongst geographic area, age and different inhabitants indicators, however total the typical erect penis size has elevated .” That’s lots!Extra: “‘The rise occurred over a comparatively brief time frame,’ [Michael Eisenberg, a urology professor at Stanford Medicine] mentioned within the launch. ‘If we’re seeing this quick of a change, it signifies that one thing highly effective is occurring to our our bodies.’ … Eisenberg thinks environmental components could also be altering when puberty begins, and it might be chemical substances and even simply a rise in sedentary way of life decisions. ‘There might be a lot of components at play, akin to chemical publicity, like pesticides or hygiene merchandise, interacting with our hormonal methods,’ Eisenberg mentioned.” • So am I proper that the “soy boys” are the beneficiaries right here, if that’s the phrase I need? Hilarious, if true.

Class Warfare

I’m submitting some East Palestine prepare bomb materials right here, as a result of class warefare is what Precision Scheduled Railroading is.

“East Palestine resident refuses to signal ‘maintain innocent’ kind” [NewsNation]. “Simply weeks after a prepare carrying poisonous chemical substances derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, some residents say they’re being requested to signal contracts they worry may forestall them from suing afterward. Katlyn Schwarzwaelder and her boyfriend Chris Wells stay simply down the tracks from the place the Norfolk Southern prepare derailed and launched hazardous materials. Final week, Schwarzwaelder says, Norfolk Southern got here by to check for toxins in her dwelling. However earlier than doing so, she was requested to signal a doc. ‘We had been informed they had been an impartial testing company, they had been escorted by the EPA,’ Schwarzwaelder defined. ‘Earlier than they might enter the premises, they handed us a contract. The contract was basically to have the ability to get onto the property, but in addition on the backside was a maintain innocent settlement.’ The doc states that the landowner agrees to ‘maintain innocent Unified Command’ from ‘any and all authorized claims, private harm or property injury.’ Schwarzwaelder says she refused to signal it.” And: “In a press release to NewsNation, Norfolk Southern mentioned the types had been ‘entry agreements’ so air high quality testing groups might be allowed on the property. The corporate acknowledged {that a} batch of agreements contained improper language referencing indemnification. ‘These incorrect types had been instantly pulled when the issue was found,’ Norfolk Southern mentioned. ‘Nobody in the neighborhood has waived their authorized rights towards Norfolk Southern by this program or any interplay with us up to now.’” • Lol. Certain. For realz. Presumably they’re going to be doublechecking that no one really signed them? And giving them the right types in the event that they did? As a result of all of the errors solely go a technique. And: WTF is “Unified Command”?

Water (1):

Water (2):

That J.D. Vance will get to play populist and leverage this makes me wanna hurl. The place the [family blog] is Sherrod Brown, as soon as spoken of as Presidential timber?

“Progressive group calls on Buttigieg so as to add laws after East Palestine prepare derailment” [The Hill]. “A petition that the PCCC launched calls on Buttigieg to instantly use his present energy to ‘make security guidelines a lot stronger, in order that rail staff and communities throughout America are protected.’ Rouda mentioned the Obama administration had guidelines in place to forestall this kind of scenario, however the Trump administration eliminated them following ‘corrupt company lobbying’ and Buttigieg has not restored them. The discharge cites an article from The Lever that states that Buttigieg particularly has not introduced again a rule that was designed to broaden using superior brake expertise.” • Unsurprising that Precision Scheduled Railroading (and the new field it brought about) isn’t talked about; liberals hate unions and dealing individuals. What I’m having a tough time with is that Lever Information was main the best way on this. In a manner, the conservative critique of the liberal tendency to manage has some advantage: Since regulation invariably entails credentialed gatekeepers, it reinforce PMC class energy. The place conservatives go mistaken is trying to the pursuits of homeowners, not staff, by looking for to dismantle regulation the place discovered.

Assembly (1): Raucous:

“We’ll elevate that concern for you.”

I’m unsure that this meetingis the identical as the subsequent one–

Assembly (2): The EPA:

Virtually a parody of DEI: Left to proper: The college professor, the Black Man, the lady within the rainbow vest. Doesn’t imply they’re malevolent, and even incompetent, however the distinction between them and the viewers above, if the assembly is certainly the identical, is fairly nice.

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“Union tells placing Warrior Met Coal miners to return to work” [AL.com]. “The United Mine Staff of America is telling its members that they might return to work at Warrior Met Coal subsequent month, 23 months and sooner or later after the union’s strike started. UMWA Worldwide President Cecil Roberts despatched a letter at the moment to Warrior Met Coal CEO Walt Scheller asserting that union members would return to work on the firm’s 4 areas on March 2. The letter, often called an ‘unconditional provide to return to work,’ follows federal labor regulation, in response to the union. It could enable union members to return to work, whereas giving the union and Warrior Met time to work out a brand new settlement. A Warrior Met Coal consultant mentioned the corporate has acquired the letter and has no remark.” • Commentary:

“Put up-Gazette asks court docket’s assist in enforcement of trespassing regulation” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (!)]. “The Pittsburgh Put up-Gazette is suing Mayor Ed Gainey and two public security officers for failing to maintain union supporters out of the corporate’s distribution heart on the South Aspect. Mr. Gainey, performing police Chief Thomas Stangrecki and Lee Schmidt, director of public security, had been sued within the Court docket of Frequent Pleas of Allegheny County after police didn’t hold mass pickets from damaging property, blocking entry and threatening impartial drivers on personal property at Gateway View Plaza after a strike started in October, in response to the lawsuit.”

Information of the Wired

“Wooden range – Memorable and primitive magnificence” [Peakd]. “The picket range is my memorable childhood. I used to be born and grew up in Dak Lak, a mountainous province on highlands of Vietnam. At the moment, the climate is absolutely chilly at evening in my place. I nonetheless keep in mind all members in my household gathered across the fireplace and had some sizzling candy potato earlier than going to mattress. The life at the moment was troublesome however a lot blissful. We didn’t have electrical mild. Within the night, youngsters like me used to make use of burning charcoal to attract on the darkish air.” • Like this:

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Contact data for vegetation: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a test if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me pictures of vegetation. Greens are effective! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! If you’d like your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it 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 CC:

CC writes: “It’s not likely a plant photograph however I discovered it attention-grabbing to see once I got here into work that morning after the storm. Situated in New Hampshire close to the Connectictu River.” I feel it’s completely a plant photograph!

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Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not coated by the annual NC fundraiser. So in the event you see a hyperlink you particularly like, or an merchandise you wouldn’t see anyplace else, please don’t hesitate to specific your appreciation in tangible kind. Keep in mind, a tip jar is for tipping! Common constructive suggestions each makes me really feel good and lets me know I’m heading in the right direction with protection. After I get no donations for 5 or ten days I get apprehensive. Extra tangibly, a continuing trickle of donations helps me with bills, and I consider that trickle when setting fundraising objectives:

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

When you hate PayPal, you’ll be able to e-mail me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will provide you with instructions on how one can ship a test. Thanks!

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