2:00PM Water Cooler 7/12/2022 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Affected person readers, at present it was ProtonVPN. Extra quickly! –lambert UPDATE All completed.

Flutist Wren, La Escalera, Venezuela. Incomes its identify!

Politics

Lambert right here: One reader recommended altering these quotes; I don’t suppose it’s a foul thought, however I want to consider it. I don’t wish to be too doomy — we’re not wanting stock in that division — however I don’t wish to go all chipped and Pollyanna-esque, both.

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

“They’d realized nothing, and forgotten nothing.” –Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

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

Capitol Seizure

UPDATE “Jan. 6 committee to attach Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and QAnon to Trump allies” [Los Angeles Times]. “Join.” With extra yarn? ” The committee investigating the Capitol riot will focus for the primary time this week on the connection between folks in former President Trump’s orbit and the extremist teams that deliberate and orchestrated the violence on Jan. 6, 2021.” Who doesn’t love an unlawful parade? Extra: “Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who will lead the listening to with Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), has made clear the committee gained’t current smoking-gun proof.” • Effectively, I’m glad that’s settled.

UPDATE “The January 6 Committee Strikes the Needle” [Political Wire].

A brand new Politico/Morning Seek the advice of ballot suggests the January 6 Committee may very well be altering the general public’s understanding of that day’s occasions:

• 66% of voters say Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election.

• 66% say he claimed the election was fraudulent with out proof.

• 59% say he misled the general public concerning the consequence of the election.

Additionally attention-grabbing: 44% of Republicans say Trump lied concerning the election outcomes. That’s up seven factors for the reason that finish of June.

Abortion

UPDATE “Two lengthy weeks: Inside Biden’s wrestle to answer abortion ruling” (not paywalled) [WaPo]. “For Jennifer Palmieri, a White Home communications director below Obama, the criticism [of Biden’s initial response] was by no means truthful to start with. ‘Republicans gamed the system, and so they received two Supreme Court docket justices they shouldn’t have, and people folks had a 40-year plan to overturn Roe and so they did it. And to proceed guilty Biden for the truth that extra People didn’t vote for Democrats is an epic instance of lacking the forest,’ she mentioned. ‘We’re in such a much bigger combat than what the president of america can ship, and for those who’re considering that it may be solved by a president taking any motion in the midst of the 2 weeks after the choice, then you definitely’re not appreciating what an enormous combat it’s and what a precarious second it’s,’ Palmieri added.” • So, simply to be clear, Democrats let Republicans sport the system (Obama, for instance, didn’t put Garland on the Supreme Court docket as a recess appointment, as a result of that will have been enjoying hardball, or sumpin’. And no matter planning horizon Democrats have, it’s not — I’m being form right here — forty years out. Lastly, when Democrats lose elections, they blame voters (being fully and not using a capability for self-reflection). I’d say Palmieri’s assertion is beautiful, nevertheless it’s solely beautiful as a result of she’s so open about it.

UPDATE “White Home Privately Signaling It’s Transferring Ahead With Anti-Abortion Court docket Choose” [HuffPo]. “It might need appeared just like the White Home has been backing off Meredith’s potential nomination given its silence in response to the Democratic outcry. However behind the scenes, the White Home is seemingly signaling that it nonetheless plans to maneuver ahead along with his nomination. ‘They’re defending it,’ the supply briefed final week on the White Home’s plan advised HuffPost, after requesting anonymity with the intention to communicate freely about non-public conversations. This supply additionally believes that Meredith would doubtless be introduced as half of a giant package deal of judicial nominees that would come with many picks that Democrats do like.””

UPDATE “Minnesota choose strikes down quite a few state abortion restrictions” [NBC]. “A choose in Minnesota struck down a number of state legal guidelines limiting entry to abortions Monday, discovering they violated the state’s structure. In a 140-page ruling, state District Decide Thomas Gilligan of Ramsey County issued a everlasting injunction blocking a wide range of restrictions, together with a 24-hour ready interval and a requirement that solely medical doctors carry out the process. He mentioned they run afoul of a 1995 state Supreme Court docket ruling that abortion is protected below the Minnesota Structure. Gilligan, who has presided over the case for 3 years, wrote that “this courtroom concludes that Minnesota abortion legal guidelines referring to mandated doctor care, hospitalization, criminalization, parental notification, and knowledgeable consent are unconstitutional.” • So, states’ rights, mkay?

Biden Administration

“‘We’re not tacos’: Latin neighborhood slams Jill Biden for saying they’re as distinctive as ‘breakfast tacos’ as she refers to bodegas as ‘bogedas’ at ‘Latinx Luncheon’ in San Antonio” [Daily Mail]. • Effectively, no less than she didn’t attempt to communicate Spanish.

2022

* * *

“Home Math and Historical past” [The Cook Political Report]. “Nearly each election analyst and handicapper agrees that the Home is all-but-certain to flip. The one disagreement lately is what number of seats Republicans will achieve. On paper, the grim political atmosphere suggests the sort of wave election that rivals the wipeouts of 1994 and 2010, when the social gathering in energy misplaced greater than 50 seats. Nonetheless, our present forecast, as analyzed by Home editor David Wasserman, is for GOP features within the 20-35 seat vary. Why don’t we foresee 50-60 seat sweep?” • Useful chart:

Extra: “Beneath the high-end situation, the GOP would achieve 41 seats. The lower-end situation reveals Republicans selecting up 19 seats. Bear in mind, this isn’t the online, as we haven’t factored in GOP seats that will flip to Democrats. Proper now, we listing 10 GOP-held seats as weak. Backside line: if Republicans are going to select up the 50-60 seats they did in 1994 or 2010, they’ll have to win a considerably larger share of districts that Biden carried by greater than 10 factors. Within the ‘outdated days’, lots of the incumbents in these ‘secure seats’ would scoff at any suggestion that they may very well be at risk. However, after 4 straight wave elections, most of these members have (or no less than ought to have) realized to take these warnings critically.”

UPDATE “Doomsday political situation takes form for Democrats” [The Hill]. “‘They’re not simply shedding Independents or you understand, By no means-Trump Republicans,’ mentioned [Reinish, managing director at the political strategy firm Mercury], referencing two blocs that helped Biden set up a various coalition in 2020. ‘They’re shedding their very own voters. Democrats’ personal voters don’t really feel as if their leaders hear their issues.’” And: “[S]ome distinguished centrists have gave the impression to be shifting away from Biden in current weeks. The most recent got here from [CIA Democrat] Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who is often outspoken concerning the risks of shifting too far to the left forward of election time. She not too long ago gave a speech in Woodbridge the place she failed to supply even a tacit nod to the commander-in-chief. And Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), one in every of Biden’s shut private associates who’s working for the Senate, additionally determined to not present up for an occasion the president held in Cleveland.” • I ponder who the centrists wish to run…..

2024

“Training divide”:

Fairly attention-grabbing. Enormous training divide between Trump backers and DeSantis backers in a hypothetical major matchup. Non school voters nonetheless overwhelmingly w Trump. https://t.co/907CwerVjp https://t.co/XRvep7QuX3 pic.twitter.com/OLDok86pc4

— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) July 12, 2022

UPDATE “Joe Biden Is Too Previous to Be President Once more” [Michelle Goldberg, New York Times]. “As a current New York Instances/Siena Faculty ballot discovered, 64 % of Democrats need a totally different presidential nominee in 2024. These Democrats cite Biden’s age greater than another issue, although job efficiency is shut behind.” • However bear in mind: That ballot reveals — and Goldberg erases — that it’s the outdated who suppose Biden’s too outdated. The younger suppose his efficiency is awful, and so it’s.

Democrats en Déshabillé

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Celebration (“the Democrat Celebration is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated submit, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “reside” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Celebration is, the truth is, 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 Celebration is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Celebration didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Celebration reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between parts of the Celebration (ka-ching, however not fully) 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.

Notice, 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.

* * *

Democrat psychology:

“why trouble doing X b/c republicans will reverse it when they’re in energy” is like medical melancholy logic. this can be a industrial the place there is a woman in black and white wanting via a window at her children enjoying outdoors in coloration. that is laundry by no means getting put away shit

— Summer season Of The Shark Truther (@bombsfall) May 25, 2022

UPDATE “The By no means-Ending Struggle on the Woke” [Alex Pareene, Forum]. “For my whole life, white moderates have been complaining about how tough the folks on the aspect of multiracial democracy are making it for them to win their idealized suburban voters. I might ask Marshall and From—and Carville and Teixera and the heavy-breathing authors of Politico’s Playbook—solely to acknowledge that they gained. They received what they needed. Barack Hussein Obama could have briefly disrupted the pure order [for about thirty seconds, probably by accident], however the ‘particular pursuits’ had been routed, and the white suburban voter granted satisfaction of place within the scrum for electoral energy. Union membership is right down to single-digits within the private-sector workforce. The communities of coloration that Clinton-era Democrats made such a performative level of rebuffing on the precept that they had been securely captive constituencies have grown disenchanted, and in some circumstances began to edge rightward. The president’s approval amongst younger folks specifically is shockingly dismal. Joe Biden is the president of america. Invoice Clinton’s “PC” cupboard misplaced the 1994 midterms. Congratulations to the anti-PC brigade. You will have gotten what you’ve needed, time and again, for a few years. How’s it going?” • Certainly….

#COVID19

Lambert right here: I’m however a humble tape-watcher, however I by no means thought it might come to this: Probably the most well timed and dependable instruments for making private danger assessments change into the Walgreens positivity chart, anecdotes on the Twitter, and the “Group Transmission” chart that CDC deprecates. All of those alerts have been flashing crimson for weeks. In the meantime, case counts are at greatest useful to intuit the regional conditions, “Group Profile” information (speedy riser counties and hospitalization) has been minimize to twice every week, variant information is absurdly sluggish and dated, and I can’t get CDC’s spandy new wastewater web page to load [bangs head on desk]. That is the state of affairs “the adults within the room” have created. Because it seems, Ron Klain, Pandemic Czar, shouldn’t be put in command of a lemonade stand. Nor any of ’em. One other anecdote:

Propaganda works (and this “conscientious, educated grownup hasn’t been studying NC).

UPDATE “Is BA.5 the ‘Reinfection Wave’?” [Ed Yong, The Atlantic]. The ultimate paragraph: “The stakes of that sport rely upon a quite simple query: Ought to we nonetheless care about stopping infections? If the reply is ‘not a lot,’ which is the implicit and typically express posture that America’s leaders have adopted, then BA.5 modifications little. But when the reply is ‘sure,’ as I and a lot of the consultants I speak to nonetheless consider, then BA.5 is an issue.” • That is about as near “‘Democidal elites’ is a parsimonious rationalization” because the very measured Ed Yong is prone to come….

“Truth Sheet: Biden Administration Outlines Technique to Handle BA.5” [The White House]. I may very well be too jaded and cynical, however I’m not seeing a lot new right here. On masks:

Making free high-quality masks extensively out there and talk clear suggestions about when folks ought to contemplate masking: Specialists agree that masking in indoor, public areas is a crucial software to manage the unfold of COVID-19. The . As BA.5 drives a rise in circumstances, the Administration continues to encourage People to go to COVID.gov to search out the extent of COVID-19 of their neighborhood and observe CDC’s suggestions on sporting masks in public, indoor settings.

First, “folks ought to contemplate masking” is weak tea; what’s mistaken with “folks ought to”? Second, I’m under no circumstances amazed or shocked that the White Home continues to advocate CDC’s discredited “Group Ranges” metric (see NOTE beneath within the Transmission part). This suggestion is just not solely mistaken, however probably deadly, since it is going to trigger folks to masks up too late. Third, what about indoor, non-public areas? I’ve seen anecdote after anecdote about households with a single member contaminated with Covid, the place isolation, masking, and Corsi packing containers protected the remainder of the household.

And so the propaganda line shifts on a dime. CNN:

Sure, there’s no such factor as a mandate, and even collective motion; what must occur is {that a} mass of atomized people have to “personally implement mitigation methods” as a result of some CNN speaking heads determined they need to. Not that the recommendation is all that unhealthy, though 3Cs (closed areas, crowded locations, close-contact settings) is healthier; CNN overlooked “close-contact settings.”

CBS:

So, after a year-and-a-half trashing non-pharmaceutical interventions, the social gathering line has modified to help them.

“Omicron-Particular COVID Boosters Are Coming” [Scientific American]. Slightly late, it might appear. “Current vaccines goal the ancestral type of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, which first surfaced in Wuhan, China. However though these pictures nonetheless broadly defend in opposition to extreme illness, “their effectiveness does seem to wane with time,” mentioned Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Heart for Biologics Analysis and Analysis, through the late June VRBPAC assembly. Every new variant has been successively extra contagious than its predecessor. And all through the world, Omicron subvariants have been fueling elevated infections and hospitalizations—the latter particularly amongst older folks. The deliberate updates are presently restricted to mRNA vaccine boosters developed by Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration.” • Oh, swell. mRNA solely.

“Latest Omicron subvariants can evade boosters, antibody therapies” [Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy]. “The most recent Omicron subvariants behind new COVID-19 surges in america and overseas have an enhanced potential to flee immunity conferred by three vaccine doses and all however one antibody remedy examined, finds a laboratory examine revealed yesterday in Nature. Omicron BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5, the latter two of which now make up greater than 70% of US COVID-19 infections, are extremely transmissible and evasive owing to new mutations within the virus’s spike proteins…. Relative to BA.2, the BA.2.12.1 subvariant was about 80% extra resistant (1.8-fold) after three vaccine doses, however BA.4 and BA.5 had been no less than 4.2 instances extra resistant, rising the chance of breakthrough infections. When the researchers additionally evaluated the power of 19 monoclonal antibody therapies to neutralize the subvariants, they discovered that just one—Eli Lilly’s intravenous bebtelovimab—retained its full efficacy in opposition to these strains.”

If you happen to missed it, right here’s a submit on my queasiness with CDC numbers, particularly case rely, which I (nonetheless) contemplate most vital, regardless of what Walensky’s psychos at CDC who invented “neighborhood ranges” suppose. However these are the numbers we now have.

Case Rely

Case rely for america:

Persevering with rise. There was a bizarre, plateau-like “fiddling and diddling” stage earlier than the Omicron explosion, too. This conjuncture feels the identical. Beneath the hood the BA.4/BA.5 are making up a higher and higher proportion of circumstances. Keep in mind that circumstances are undercounted, one supply saying by an element of six, Gottlieb considering we solely decide up one in seven or eight.) Therefore, I take the case rely and multiply it by six to approximate the actual stage of circumstances, and draw the DNC-blue “Biden Line” at that time. The earlier rely was ~107,200. Right this moment, it’s ~119,000 and 107,200 * 6 = a Biden line at 714,000 per day. That’s moderately a number of circumstances per day, when you concentrate on it. No less than we now have affirmation that the extraordinary mass of case anecdotes had a foundation in actuality. (Bear in mind these information factors are weekly averages, so every day fluctuations are smoothed out.) The black “Fauci Line” is a counter to triumphalism, because it compares present ranges to previous crises.

Regional case rely for 4 weeks:

Principally the South.

The South:

Florida and Texas. Dudes!

Positivity

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

8.9%. Hoo boy. Seems to be like lots of people got here again from the Fourth of July barbecue hacking and wheezing. The Covid prepare all the time leaves on time! (I additionally marvel if there’s a Keynesian Magnificence Contest impact, right here; that’s, if folks encounter a sympotomatic particular person, whether or not of their social circle or in regular exercise, they’re extra prone to get a take a look at, as a result of they consider (appropriately) that it’s extra doubtless they are going to be contaminated. What we’re seeing right here is the steepest and largest acceleration of positivity on Walgreen’s chart.

Transmission

NOTE: I shall most actually 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. That the “green map” (which Topol calls a “capitulation” and a “deception”) is still up and being taken seriously verges on the criminal. Use the community transmission immediately below.

Here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to community transmission. This is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you. For June 30 – July 6:

Establishment, i.e. it’s a not-over pandemic.

Lambert right here: After the transfer from the CDC to the laughingly named ‘https://healthdata.gov,” this discover appeared: “Efficient June 22, 2022, the Group Profile Report will solely be up to date twice every week, on Wednesdays and Fridays.” Therefore, the “NOT UPDATED”s; my unhealthy. So now the administration has belatedly come to the belief that we’re in a BA.5 surge, and but important information for making our private danger evaluation is barely out there twice every week. What’s the over/below on whether or not they truly ship tomorrow?

NOT UPDATED Speedy Riser information, by county (CDC), July 7:

Good job. For the reason that report moved over to healthdata.gov, every part has gone swimmingly. Simply get the effing reviews out on time. How arduous is that this?

NOT UPDATED Hospitalization information, by state (CDC), July 7:

Very risky.

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how sluggish the variant information is. I seemed for extra charts: California doesn’t to a BA.4/BA.5 breakdown. New York does nevertheless it, too, is on a molasses-like two-week cycle. Does no one within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everyone will get the outcomes from them? Further sources from readers welcome [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk].

NOT UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (Walgreens), June 18:

Variant information, nationwide (CDC), June 25:

BA.5 shifting alongside properly.

• “Omicron subvariants threaten COVID-19 resurgence throughout US” [ABC]. “Well being officers are as soon as once more elevating the alarm about the specter of a resurgence of COVID-19 infections throughout the nation, as issues develop concerning the new omicron subvariant, BA.5, which is now the dominant viral pressure within the U.S… As BA.5 spreads, a rising proportion of U.S. counties are seeing will increase in infections and associated hospital admissions.” • Wait. You’re telling me Covid is not over?

Wastewater

Wastewater information (CDC), Jun 19, 2022 – Jul 03, 2022:

A lot of orange, some crimson. Not good. This chart works a bit like speedy riser counties: “This metric reveals whether or not SARS-CoV-2 ranges at a website are presently larger or decrease than previous historic ranges on the identical website. 0% means ranges are the bottom they’ve been on the website; 100% means ranges are the best they’ve been on the website.” So, there’s a bunch of crimson dots on the West Coast. That’s 100%, so meaning “ranges are the best they’ve ever been.” Not damaged down by variant, CDC, good job.

Lambert right here: I waited 5 minutes for this web page to load. That’s sufficient. Possibly I’ll have higher luck on the world’s premier public well being company tomorrow!

Deaths

Loss of life price (Our World in Knowledge):

Whole: 1,046,232 1,045,792. I’ve added an anti-triumphalist Fauci Line. It’s good that for deaths I’ve a pleasant, easy, every day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, not like every part else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

Stats Watch

Inflation: “United States Client Inflation Expectations” [Trading Economics]. “US shopper inflation expectations for the 12 months forward jumped to a brand new file of 6.8 % in June 2022 from 6.6 % in Might. Expectations about year-ahead worth modifications elevated for gasoline (5.6 %), lease (10.3 %), medical care (9.5 %), and school training (8.7 %), whereas households’ assessments of their present monetary state of affairs deteriorated. Alternatively, the median anticipated one-year-ahead change in residence costs dropped sharply to 4.4 %, from 5.8 % in Might, the bottom stage since February 2021.

Optimism: “United States NFIB Enterprise Optimism Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NFIB Small Enterprise Optimism Index in america decreased to 89.5 in June of 2022, the bottom since January 2013, and in comparison with 93.1 in Might. A web adverse 61% of small enterprise house owners count on higher enterprise situations over the subsequent six month, the bottom stage recorded within the 48-year survey.” • That’s small enterprise–

Optimism: “United States IBD/TIPP Financial Optimism Index” [Trading Economics]. “The IBD/TIPP Financial Optimism Index within the US elevated to 38.5 in July of 2022 however nonetheless remained near an 11-year low of 38.1 hit in June. The family’s monetary outlook for the subsequent six months deteriorated additional to a file low of 45.3. In the meantime, a measure of how shoppers really feel concerning the financial system’s prospects within the subsequent six months rose to 32.2 from June’s mark of 30.6. On the identical time, confidence in federal financial insurance policies improved to 38.0 in July from 37.4 within the earlier month.” • IBD = Traders Enterprise Every day. TIPP = TechnoMetrica Institute of Coverage and Politics.

UPDATE Tech: Large if true:

Sadly, you need to click on to increase the total desk, however while you do, you’ll se that there are 70,198 verified profiles (“Blue Checks”) in america. That, then, is a reasonably good approximation of the scale of the political class, inside which I embrace the press. There are usually not very lots of the Shing.

Mental Property: “Lawsuit over on-line e-book lending may bankrupt Web Archive” [Ars Technica]. “4 of the nation’s main e-book publishers have sued the Web Archive, the web library greatest recognized for sustaining the Web Wayback Machine. The Web Archive makes scanned copies of books—each public area and below copyright—out there to the general public on a website referred to as the Open Library. ‘Regardless of the Open Library moniker, IA’s actions grossly exceed legit library companies, do violence to the Copyright Act, and represent willful digital piracy on an industrial scale,’ write publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random Home of their grievance. The lawsuit was filed in New York federal courtroom on Monday. For nearly a decade, the Open Library has provided customers the power to ‘borrow’ scans of in-copyright books by way of the Web. Till not too long ago, the service was primarily based on an idea referred to as ‘managed digital lending’ that mimicked the constraints of a standard library. The library would solely ‘lend’ as many digital copies of a e-book because it had bodily copies in its warehouse. If all copies of a e-book had been ‘checked out’ by different patrons, you’d have to affix a ready listing. In March, because the coronavirus pandemic was gaining steam, the Web Archive introduced it was dishing out with this waiting-list system. Beneath a program it referred to as the Nationwide Emergency Library, IA started permitting a limiteless variety of folks to take a look at the identical e-book on the identical time—even when IA solely owned one bodily copy. Earlier than this transformation, publishers largely seemed the opposite method as IA and some different libraries experimented with the digital lending idea. Some publishers’ teams condemned the apply, however nobody filed a lawsuit over it. Maybe the publishers feared setting an hostile precedent if the courts dominated that CDL was authorized. However the IA’s emergency lending program was more durable for publishers to disregard. So this week, as quite a few states have been lifting quarantine restrictions, the publishers sued the Web Archive.” • Hmm.

Right this moment’s Concern & Greed Index: 27 Concern (earlier shut: 27 Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 23 (Excessive Concern). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jul 12 at 12:53 PM EDT.

E book Nook

An especially neat e-book, Frank Adams’s Writing Tables. The entire thread is value a learn:

So, when Hamlet says (Act I, scene 5): “My ,–meet it’s I set it down, That one could smile, and smile, and be a villain,” maybe he had in his pocket a duplicate of Frank Adams’s Writing Tables, or one thing related, and was utilizing its “erasable pages” function to make an observation. (Utilizing the phrase “function” intentionally right here; see the thread.)

The Gallery

Greek statuary was gaudy:

It all the time astonishes me what the human hand and eye can do:

Zeitgeist Watch

“A Principle of Vibe” [Glass-Bead]. “What offers a vibe ‘authenticity’ is its potential to evoke—utilizing a small variety of disparate parts—a sure time, place and milieu; a sure nexus of historic, geographic and cultural forces.’ … we would speculate {that a} dense vibe within the imaginative panorama related to a murals probably acts as a structural illustration of a unfastened vibe of the collective objects and phenomena of a real-world area. I might supply, equally, that the ‘dense aesthetic construction’ in query thus probably supplies a schema for decoding the objects and phenomena of a real-world area in accordance with a ‘systemic gestalt’ given via the imaginative panorama of the literary work.” • I don’t suppose that is bullshit. In actual fact, “vibe authenticity” thus described is loads just like the cultural markers that evoke class.

Guillotine Watch

I’d put this below “Sports activities Watch,” however no:

And:

And Rutgers isn’t even a top-rank faculty. One wonders what’s going with different Division 1 “colleges.”

Class Warfare

Amazon:

Information of the Wired

“Primatologist Jane Goodall will get Barbie doll in her likeness” [Channel News Asia]. “Wearing a khaki shirt and shorts and holding a pocket book, Goodall’s doll has a pair of binoculars round her neck and David Greybeard by her aspect, a reproduction of the primary chimpanzee to belief the primatologist as she performed her analysis at Gombe Nationwide Park, in what’s now Tanzania in east Africa. ‘I needed a doll to be me even earlier than this concept got here up. I’ve seen…little ladies enjoying with Barbie dolls and positively at the start, they had been all very girly girly and I assumed little ladies want…some selection,’ Goodall advised Reuters.” • Good, I feel.

Contact info for vegetation: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a examine if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photos of vegetation. Greens are tremendous! 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 through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From MG:

MG writes: “Right this moment was a type of afternoons the place the sky is a blue dome, the temperature is gorgeous, mild breeze . .. not sufficient to fully blow away the odor of the blooms. This can be a half the Owen Rose Backyard in Eugene, Oregon. I like to return to this half to calm and middle, or as greatest I can try this.” MG despatched me a number of very good photographs, however I picked this one, despite the fact that the roses are within the background, as a result of I like what I feel are referred to as “Peace Vegetation” within the foreground.

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

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