2:00PM Water Cooler 5/11/2022 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Fowl Music of the Day

That is Hermit Thrush Week at Bare Capitalism (hat tip Noone from Nowheresville). From New York, the Adirondacks. Fifteen minutes (!). I’n unsure this thrush repeats the identical riff twice.

Politics

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

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

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

Biden Adminstration

“Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe remains to be the one one circulated inside Supreme Courtroom” [Politico]. “Justice Samuel Alito’s sweeping and blunt draft majority opinion from February overturning Roe stays the court docket’s solely circulated draft within the pending Mississippi abortion case, POLITICO has discovered, and not one of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito should date switched their votes. No dissenting draft opinions have circulated from any justice, together with the three liberals. That might clarify why no second draft of Alito’s majority opinion has been distributed, as sometimes the 2 sides react to 1 one other’s written arguments and recast their very own. Because the 9 justices put together for his or her scheduled, personal, closed-door convention this week, they face one of many best crises in trendy Supreme Courtroom historical past, with an inner leak investigation underneath manner, an agitated nation centered on whether or not the constitutional proper to abortion is about to be overturned, and a few justices dealing with offended protests at their houses.”

“The Memo: Biden performs a weak hand on inflation” [The Hill]. “Biden extoled a few of the actions he has taken in a White Home speech Tuesday. However the important thing lever to convey the inflation fee down — the ability to extend rates of interest — is held by the Federal Reserve. This leaves Biden making an attempt to place a dramatic gloss on some strikes which might be more likely to have solely a modest influence. The president outlined how his administration is releasing hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, broadening the provision of an ethanol-blend gasoline and making an attempt to ease supply-chain constraints. Biden additionally sought to empathize with the issues People are dealing with as costs spiral upwards. ‘Households all throughout America are hurting,’ he acknowledged, asserting that ‘all of my plan is targeted on decreasing prices for the common household in America.’ However Biden’s restricted leverage over inflation will likely be solid into stark reduction once more Wednesday morning when the Division of Labor releases new figures for April.”• Which weren’t as dangerous for Biden as they could have been.

I feel the Order of Saint Olga went to Pelosi’s head:

Pelosi: “Whenever you’re dwelling eager about [what $40 billion to Ukraine] is all about, simply take into consideration ‘once I was hungry, you fed me’ from the Gospel of Matthew.” pic.twitter.com/J1NukSFVuo

— Greg Worth (@greg_price11) May 11, 2022

2022

* * *

“4 polling takeaways forward of the 2022 midterm election” [Matthew Dowd, MSNBC]. Hilariously, the chief strategist for the Bush–Cheney 2004 presidential marketing campaign, however Bush gave Michelle sweet, so right here we’re. “[I]n the newest Yahoo Information/YouGov ballot, Biden has a web minus-12-point approval ranking, whereas Democrats have a 5-point lead on the generic poll…. A small section of voters is more likely to be key gamers within the battle for management of Congress and statehouses: voters who dislike each Trump and Biden. At the moment, that group represents a not insignificant variety of all possible voters and an enormous alternative for the occasion that may seize it…. Among the many group of voters who dislike each Trump and Biden heading into the 2022 midterms, every occasion has benefits on distinct points. The GOP has a major benefit on inflation and the financial system, with solely a small lead on coping with immigration and the border. Democrats have a big benefit on voting rights, abortion rights, training and defending the rights of residents based mostly on intercourse or race…. Tied to the above dynamic, the GOP is spending manner an excessive amount of time delving into cultural points that Democrats lead on. In the meantime, Democrats are spending an excessive amount of time worrying and speaking about inflation and the financial system and never sufficient time elevating the stakes of this election and making a broader argument based mostly on elementary rights and American democracy…. Everybody masking the midterm elections have to be cautious to not purchase into previous patterns that won’t apply this yr (akin to that the GOP is robotically going to win due to Biden’s poor approval scores, as in earlier midterm outcomes). And naturally, polling numbers change — they don’t seem to be at all times determinative on Election Day, nor do they at all times completely mirror voters’ gut-level motivations. For instance, once I was chief strategist for George W. Bush in 2004, the No. 1 concern within the polls was the financial system, however our marketing campaign proceeded to make the argument that the election was about nationwide safety. (And it labored.)”

PA:

If Fetterman one way or the other pulls it off the DSCC goes to spend the subsequent 20 years making an attempt to recreate lightning in a bottle.

— Joe (@JoePostingg) May 11, 2022

No, they gained’t. First, they’ll get the lightning again within the bottle. Then, they’ll stash the bottle within the vaults the place the dry powder is saved (linking to this traditional put up in case some newer readers haven’t seen it).

PA: “GOP staffers fired after doable ‘poll harvesting’ operation present in Pa.” [Patriot-News]. “The fallout from the invention of a possible GOP “poll harvesting” operation in South Philadelphia continued Tuesday, as two state occasion staffers misplaced their jobs, the matter turned fodder for assaults within the Republican major for governor, and lawmakers on each side of the aisle jockeyed to outline simply what the scenario stated — or didn’t — concerning the safety of voting by mail…. The [Philadelphia Inquirer] discovered that dozens of Republican mail ballots for the Could 17 major have been being diverted to a P.O. Field registered to the Republican Registration Coalition. The committee’s chairman — Billy Lanzilotti, a onetime Republican ward chief in Philadelphia and former marketing campaign staffer for U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R., Bucks — stated he’d helped the voters fill out their poll functions, inserting his P.O. field on the shape the place voters would sometimes write their dwelling addresses. Although Lanzilotti maintained he was doing this as a ‘service to the voters’ and supposed at hand ship the ballots as soon as they arrived, most of the affected voters stated they didn’t keep in mind making use of to vote by mail and had no concept why their ballots have been going to Lanzilotti as an alternative of on to them. One stated Lanzilotti had delivered his poll again to town as soon as it had been stuffed out — which might violate state regulation. Of the highest 10 mailing addresses for Philadelphia ballots, Lanzilotti’s P.O. field was the one one which was not an elections workplace or a nursing dwelling.”

TX: “Democrats Are Nonetheless Boosting Antiabortion Congressman Henry Cuellar” [Jacobin]. Due to course they’re. “A brand new tremendous PAC led by consultants for Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaigns is diving right into a Texas major to help a conservative Democrat who opposes abortion…. With the runoff solely weeks away, Cuellar, the final remaining antiabortion Democrat within the Home, has seen little outdoors help from Democratic teams — till now. On April 29, America United, an excellent PAC shaped lately to again Latino Home candidates, positioned $241,000 value of impartial expenditures backing Cuellar, regardless of the actual fact his challenger can be Latina.” • Cuellar is a Latina? No marvel he’s doing properly.

2024

“Gavin Newsom 🖤 Oligarch Valley” [Yasha Levine]. “‘Philanthropists’ is an attention-grabbing manner for the Governor of California to explain one of the crucial highly effective forces in farming within the state — a billionaire household that owns one thing like 300 sq. miles of Oligarch Valley land, has its personal poisonous company farm employee city, and, from their ridiculous mansion in Beverly Hills, has been on a damaging quest to eviscerate the state’s river system and plunder its aquifers, serving to gasoline a mass extinction within the San Francisco Bay Delta…all to allow them to develop and export pistachios, a fringe snack meals that individuals round right here barely eat. However then calling these rapacious oligarchs “philanthropists” is precisely the purpose. Governor Gavin was going out to Pasadena to do some public relations work: to lend his identify and picture and the respectably of his public workplace to Stewart and Lynda Resnick’s ongoing effort to rebrand themselves as do-gooders and environmentalists, relatively than the industrial-scale destroyers of the surroundings that they’re. Their newest ploy is that this $750 million ‘Resnick Sustainability Heart’ that they’re constructing at Caltech — a joke contemplating that the Resnick’s whole enterprise mannequin is predicated on unsustainably terraforming the land and plundering sources to the utmost. However then it’s not so humorous what you understand that what the Resnicks most likely take note of with all this ‘sustainability’ speak is ensuring their very own industrial plunder will likely be sustained so long as doable with none critical political challenges. It seems to be like that’s what their Caltech funding is about….. Talking of provide chains. Gavin’s not simply doing this for kicks. That is about obligation and honor. The Resnicks have lengthy been backers of his political profession, going again to when he was mayor of San Francisco. Most lately, they threw $250,000 into his anti-recall marketing campaign. And the governor himself’s no stranger to California’s tight-knit oligarchic politics. He’s basically a part of the prolonged Getty clan…and that household, in addition to a number of others, supplied essential backing to get his political profession off the bottom.” • From CalMatters, a helpful diagram of the California oligarchy:

Democrats en Déshabillé

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 put up, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “dwell” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Social gathering is, actually, a tough downside. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Social gathering is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Hear, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Social gathering didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Social gathering reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between parts of the Social gathering (ka-ching, however not solely) these parts 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 neighborhood.

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

* * *

Republican Funhouse

Good to see The Squad and left elected typically talking out on our proxy battle towards Russia in Ukraine. Oh, wait….

You’ll be able to’t discover child formulation in the USA proper now however Congress is voting at this time to ship $40 billion to Ukraine. Let’s put America First for a change.

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 10, 2022

The Republicans are gonna make me vote for them, aren’t they:

#TheSquad Blasts Ukraine Spending Invoice

“Cease funding regime change”

“The American folks don’t help paying for fixed U.S. involvement in international affairs whereas our personal gov fails our personal nation!”

Oops! sorry, that was #MTG, the squad was silent.pic.twitter.com/eRl9T5ENr2

— Constituent 🌺⏳🍀 (@808constituent) May 11, 2022

#COVID19

Maskstravaganza:

Masks producers are one of many extra innocent types of trade, however the Biden administration’s assault on non-pharamaceutical interventions has induced them issues:

NOTE These producers are the home producers we sorely wanted when Covid first hit. Ah properly, nonetheless.

Anti-masker bullying:

It’s a thriller (1):

It’s a thriller (2):

Too dangerous there was nothing like that on the White Home Correspondents Affiliation superspreader occasion. You needed to convey your individual sensor as a part of your private danger evaluation:

Solely 8:40PM and already within the Purple Zone.

Here’s a helpful chart on one-way masking, so you may calculate how anti-maskers have an effect on your private danger evaluation:

A chart to indicate how one-way masking impacts your private danger evaluation:

Get properly.

One-way “masking” with even an N95 on a protracted flight with maskless, COVID-infected passengers today is NOT satisfactory safety (see Desk 1).

What can masks do? Half 1: The science behind COVID-19 protectionhttps://t.co/hjRoHLaLHS
Half 2:https://t.co/YsS9aHFsv6 pic.twitter.com/ZVnNl5AXy0

— Amante (@DeVerdadera1) May 11, 2022

If I had a toddler within the Atlanta college system, I’d be upset with the directors for messing up the non-public danger evaluation I made for my youngster:

Lambert right here: I’m however a humble tape-watcher, however if some trusting, non-realist soul tells you that “Covid is over,” you may inform them that circumstances are up, transmission is up, take a look at positivity is up, hospitalization is up, fast riser counties are up, and wastewater is up, too. And that is all from knowledge designed to help the narrative that “Covid is over,” and gamed inside an inch of its life. So, if indicators like which might be flashing crimson, take into account what the true sign have to be like. (Word additionally that is all with BA.2 solely, and with what the institution considers an “immune wall” produced from vaccination and prior an infection. Since semper aliquid novi Africam adferre, and we’ve let ‘er rip on the airports…. Properly, I simply hope we get fortunate with BA.4 and BA.5. “God has a particular windfall for fools, drunkards, and the USA of America.” –Otto von Bismarck.

When you missed it, right here’s a put up on my queasiness with CDC numbers, particularly case depend, which I (nonetheless) take into account most vital, regardless of what Walensky’s psychos at CDC who invented “neighborhood ranges” suppose. However these are the numbers we now have.

Case depend by United States areas:

Appears just like the prepare is rolling, now. Bear in mind these knowledge factors are weekly averages, so each day fluctuations are smoothed out. Additionally keep in mind, it’s 100% sure the circumstances numbers are considerably understated. They’ve at all times been gamed, but it surely’s worse than earlier than. One supply stated they although circumstances is likely to be undercounted by an element of six. Gottlieb thinks we solely choose up one in seven or eight. The black “Fauci Line” is a counter to triumphalism, because it compares present ranges to previous crises. The blue “Biden Line” reveals what the case depend can be if it have been 79,000 * 6 = 474,000, i.e. not gamed. (I modified the Biden Line from dotted to stable as a result of the dotted line was too laborious to attract correctly in my crude instrument.)

I’ve helpfully periodized the peaks, #1 – #6. Price noting from the “Fauci Line”: Trump’s peaks (#1, #2, and #3) aren’t so excessive as Biden’s (#4 and #5). Additionally value noting: Biden’s #6 is already larger than Biden’s peaks #1 and #2, though after all we don’t understand how excessive #6 will go. And if we settle for the case depend from the Biden Line, Biden’s peaks #5 and #6 are the 🏆 High Two 🏆. Thank God the adults are in cost.

Listed here are circumstances for the final 4 weeks:

Price noting that circumstances have doubled in 4 weeks.

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

Do we now have any SQL experts in the home who wish to replicate this work? Or dig in additional?

From the Walgreen’s take a look at positivity tracker:

I’m leaving the company brand on as a slap to the goons at CDC.

MWRA wastewater knowledge:

The Massachusetts Water Assets Authority (MWRA) service space contains 43 municipalities in and round Boston, together with not solely a number of college methods however a number of massive universities. Since Boston is so very education-heavy, then, I feel it may very well be an excellent main indicator for Covid unfold in colleges typically.

From Biobot Analytics:

Northeast unflattened, and — hat tip to readers for pointing to this — it seems to be like previous aggregation was adjusted up. However that drop within the West seems to be like an adjustment, too. Do we now have any readers who observe non-biobot wastewater within the West?

Instances lag wastewater knowledge.

From CDC Neighborhood Profile Stories (PDFs), “Speedy Riser” counties:

Each East and West coasts barely worse. (Keep in mind that these are fast riser counties. A county that strikes from crimson to inexperienced just isn’t covid-free; the case depend simply isnt, properly, rising quickly.) It will be good if the falling wastewater measures in California presaged a drop in circumstances. (OTOH, the Biobot knowledge is barely nearly as good because the non-representative pattern it makes use of, so…).

The earlier launch:

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to neighborhood transmission. That is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you:

The Northeast stays stubbornly and solidly crimson. Now California is crimson as properly. The Higher Midwest is transferring that manner, too. (The Unorganized Territories in Maine are again to crimson, good job.)

Hospitalization (CDC Neighborhood Profile):

This map may be very dynamic! Now the orangization again to the Northeast. (Word development, whether or not up or down, is marked by the arrow, at prime. Admissions are offered within the graph, on the backside. So it’s doable to have an upward development, however from a really low baseline.)

Demise fee (Our World in Knowledge):

Complete: 1,025,104 1,024,752. The dying fee dipped, a bit of excellent information. I’ve added an anti-triumphalist Fauci Line.

Covid circumstances in prime us journey locations (Statista):

Broadly down. (Word the standard of those numbers varies wildly. For instance, the UK is slicing again on testing knowledge.

Stats Watch

“United States Inflation Fee” [Trading Economics]. “Annual inflation fee within the US slowed to eight.3% in April from a 41-year excessive of 8.5% in March, however lower than market forecasts of 8.1%. Power costs elevated 30.3%, under 32% in March particularly gasoline (43.6% vs 48%) whereas gasoline oil elevated extra (80.5% vs 70.1%). However, meals costs jumped 9.4%, probably the most since April 1981 and costs additionally rose quicker for shelter (5.1% vs 5%) and new autos (13.2% vs 12.5%). On a month-to-month foundation, client costs have been up 0.3%, barely greater than expectations of 0.2% however under a 16-year excessive of 1.2% in March. ”

The Bezzle: “Bolt Constructed $11 Billion Cost Enterprise on Inflated Metrics and Keen Traders” [New York Times]. “In a rush to indicate development, Bolt usually overstated its technological functionality and misrepresented the variety of retailers utilizing its service, a few of the folks stated. In displays to buyers, it included the names of consumers earlier than verifying whether or not these retailers have been in a position to make use of its know-how. For a time, a fraud detection product it was pitching to retailers was extra depending on guide assessment than Mr. Breslow implied, in line with a former worker.” • One other entrepreneur promoting empty bins out of the again of his Tesla in Silicon Valley. And talking of empty bins–

Mr. Bitcoin is having a tragic:

The Bezzle: “Why has the Terra stablecoin damaged its US greenback peg and do you have to care?” [MoneyWeek]. “The Terra stablecoin is meant to match the worth of the US greenback – however its worth has crashed…. TerraUSD’s algorithm is meant to maintain it pegged to the US greenback by adjusting provide through a sister token, luna.” • Oh-k-a-a-a-y…..

The Bezzle:

Stoller is correct.

The Bezzle: However who’s the Soros of the Terra brief? A thread:

Readers, this one is past me. Can any individual clarify?

The Bezzle: “All my apes are gone:!”

That’s a rattling disgrace.

The Bezzle:

The Bezzle: The Web of Issues:

Sounds to me like some bot is operating a phishing operation and one way or the other received into Alexandria’s visitors management system. Anyhow, while you hear the phrase “sensible contracts,” consider this.

The Bezzle: The Web of Issues:

Whenever you hear the phrase “sensible contracts,” consider this too.

At the moment’s Concern & Greed Index: 21 Excessive Concern (earlier shut: 22 Excessive Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 38 (Concern). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Could 11 at 1:16 PM EDT.

Sports activities Desk

“Why Kentucky Derby winner Wealthy Strike bit one other horse after the race” [The Sporting News]. • Feisty!

The Gallery

Tweeted by John Constable, not painted by him:

This one had me going!

Police State Watch

“A Grandmother Wanted Paperwork For a Glucose Monitor. The NYPD Broke Her Arm.” [Hell Gate]. ““We’re asking you to go away, you’re not leaving, and also you’re not allowed to report,” an officer says within the video. “Flip round.” With that, half a dozen cops shut in round Rodney, and in brief order, she is on the bottom, screaming, as officers twist her arms. ‘It felt like they have been breaking my arm,’ Rodney stated. ‘And sure, it seems they did.’ A medical report confirms that Rodney suffered a fractured elbow. ‘I’m not taking part in with you!’ the officer bellows as he works to get Rodney into handcuffs and leg shackles. ‘I’m a diabetic,’ Rodney sobs. ‘I simply want a bit of paper.’ ‘Now you’re going to jail,’ the officer replies. As Rodney is delivered to her toes and frog-marched out of the vestibule and into the precinct home, the officer, who, like different police surrounding Rodney, just isn’t carrying a masks himself, grabs her masks from her mouth and pulls it up over her eyes so she will’t see. ‘Put your masks up,’ he says. ‘All you needed to do was cooperate. You probably did this to your self.’” • If this have been a scene in a dystopian novel, I’d marvel if it have been just a little excessive.

Class Warfare

“Goal Staff Are Becoming a member of the Union Wave” [The New Republic (marym)]. Superior information. “Many of those campaigns have vital issues in widespread. These are the form of low-wage, service-sector employees who appeared so not possible to unionize for thus lengthy. Amazon and Starbucks employees aren’t bringing in organizers from huge, established unions, however as an alternative employees are main the best way themselves. They usually’re going retailer by retailer, location by location. It was lengthy thought that such a marketing campaign couldn’t work. ‘What folks didn’t acknowledge is the contagion issue.’ stated Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor training analysis at Cornell College’s College of Industrial and Labor Relations. Goal Staff Unite is hoping to instigate precisely that form of nationwide unfold…. They’re working with the Industrial Staff of the World and plan to make Goal Staff Unite a subsidiary of IWW, which they hope will enable them to concern union playing cards at any retailer that wishes to carry an election…. As with their counterparts at Amazon and Starbucks, the Goal employees are clear that they’re utilizing a special mannequin than that of huge industrial unions just like the AFL-CIO, Teamsters, or SEIU. The Amazon Labor Union is totally impartial, and whereas Starbucks employees are principally organizing with Staff United, an affiliate of SEIU, the union is letting employees themselves do the organizing, appearing as an alternative as a useful resource. ‘They construct a workforce overwhelmingly round contingent, precarious, transient employees.’ [Adam Ryan, one of the lead organizers at Target Workers Unite] tells his co-workers that IWW gained’t ship folks in from headquarters who inform them what to do.”• The entire article is value studying, and as at Amazon, was sparked by administration choices through the pandemic.

Information of the Wired

“The person who married a hologram in Japan can not talk together with his digital spouse” [Entrepreneur]. “Fictosexuality is the time period used to explain these people who find themselves sexually interested in fictional characters and in Japan little by little it turns into a development, to the extent that there are firms that develop know-how to supply customers holographic {couples}. Akihiko Kondo took his love for a fictional character one step additional by holding a “getting married” ceremony with Hatsune Miku , a digital singer who has starred in a number of video video games and has even accompanied Girl Gaga on her world excursions. The ceremony happened in 2019, after the person was in a position to talk with the hologram through Gatebox , an organization that develops units to holographically present characters that don’t exist.” Gibson’s Idoru, which has fictosexuality as a theme, was printed in 1996 so, good name. Extra: “[T]he help for the Gatebox software program that allowed the interplay of the person together with his digital spouse, is not out there and for a similar cause, can not talk along with her.” • In case your emotional well-being is determined by a platform, you don’t have emotional well-being.

Contact data for vegetation: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a examine in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me pictures of vegetation. Greens are positive! 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 JK:

JK writes: “Plant or Animal, take ya’lls choose. Because the filename suggests, the primary zinnia of 2022! I’m unsure what the insect is however they actually love the okra flowers as soon as these get going. This zinnia took fairly a beating within the storm final week because it was opening up as one can see. The middle of the petals is extra purple than crimson which give the flower a considerably psychedelic feeling, but it surely’s laborious to see on this image. As of this morning it’s nonetheless the one open zinnia within the backyard, however there’s various buds able to go subsequent. I began this plant indoors in January and put it outdoors the 2nd week of March. It was began from a seed that was labeled “Inexperienced Zinnia.” Inexperienced a thought of uncommon in my backyard, final yr of was the primary time I’d see one, and I used to be excited to see extra of them. To my shock a seed taken straight from a inexperienced flower from final yr got here up as a psych crimson/purple which isn’t very uncommon, however IMHO maybe extra lovely than the inexperienced ones. Please don’t inform the greens ones I stated that.”

NOTE ON PAYPAL: As some readers might know, PayPal whacked Consortium Information’s account, for no justification that I can see. It’s to be hoped that Consortium Information has its account utterly restored, and that NC doesn’t come underneath the identical ban hammer. Within the meantime, till I/we are able to give you an alternate, I have to proceed to depend on PayPal (and rely I do). I will likely be cleansing out the account each day, and PayPal does give a heads-up, so your danger is minimal. Please stick with it as earlier than, or, in the event you really feel you will need to, write me and I’ll ship you instructions for sending a examine. Please put “PayPal” within the topic line. Thanks in your help! It’s a lot appreciated, and helps me with obligations. –lambert

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not lined by the lately concluded and — thanks! — profitable 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 precise your appreciation in tangible type. Bear 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. Once I get no donations for 5 or ten days I get nervous. 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 screen that can seem, which I’ve helpfully annotated:

When you hate PayPal, you may e mail me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I gives you instructions on the best way to ship a examine. Thanks!