By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Affected person readers, extra on the day’s fireworks shortly. The New Yr begins with a bang! –lambert
Hen Tune of the Day
In honor of the New Yr, I’m going to shift mimidae from Mockingbirds to Thrashers.
Brown Thrasher,Libertytown; Audrey Carroll Wildlife Sanctuary, Frederick, Maryland, United States. “Brown thrashers have been again on this space solely 4-6 days.”
In Case You May Miss…
- Mangione decide, protection fund.
- WSWS on managing illness by permitting an infection.
- Populism and the Wizard of Oz.
Politics
“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in actual fact a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Trump Transition
“Islamic State-inspired driver expressed need to kill earlier than lethal New Orleans rampage, Biden says” [Associated Press]. “The FBI recognized the motive force as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, and mentioned it was working to find out any potential associations with terrorist organizations…. “We don’t imagine that Jabbar was solely accountable,” FBI Assistant Particular Agent in Cost Alethea Duncan mentioned at a information convention. Investigators discovered a number of improvised explosives, together with two pipe bombs that had been hid inside coolers and wired for distant detonation, in line with a Louisiana State Police intelligence bulletin obtained by The Related Press.”
“Julian Assange and Wikileaks New Cables Bombshell: ISIS Created By CIA” [Yahoo News]. • From 2016, nonetheless germane. I grant you may’t inform the gamers with no scorecard, however sheesh.
* * * “Fireworks, gasoline tanks and tenting gas utilized in Tesla Cybertruck explosion exterior Las Vegas Trump Lodge” [CNN]. “Authorities imagine fireworks, gasoline tanks and tenting gas had been linked to a detonation system managed by the motive force within the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded exterior a Trump Lodge in Las Vegas Wednesday morning, in line with a legislation enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The FBI is working to find out whether or not the incident was a terrorist act, Jeremy Schwartz, performing particular agent in cost for the FBI’s Las Vegas workplace, mentioned Wednesday. The company believes it was an remoted incident and there’s no additional hazard to the general public, Schwartz famous. There may be one particular person lifeless contained in the Cybertruck, the place the physique stays as authorities proceed their investigation… ” • “The physique” (allegedly) being Matthew Livelsberger.
“Matthew Livelsberger Comparability With Luigi Mangione Takes Off On-line” [Newsweek]. “A social media video posted on-line by the creator Nimay Ndolo evaluating the Cybertruck explosion suspect with the alleged UnitedHealthcare shooter Luigi Mangione has gone viral. She then says: ‘America spent all final month creating class consciousness. In addition they spent final month creating an murderer kink.’ ‘So this Vegas pyromaniac higher have a fats a*** and a thick manifesto as a result of oh my God.’” • Properly, that’s useful.
* * * Large if true (1):
BREAKING: Cybertruck which exploded at Trump Lodge in Las Vegas and truck utilized in New Orleans assault had been each rented by carsharing app Turo – AP
— BNO Information (@BNONews) January 1, 2025
Large if true (2):
Has anybody seen that the CEO of Turo, the automobile renting app accountable for the 2 autos concerned in terror actions yesterday, is Andre Haddad who’s an Arab from Lebanon initially. Word, the NOLA assault has ISIS connection and Vegas assault is clear suicide bombing.
— William Barrell (@bomber6b) January 2, 2025
Large if true (3):
Surrounded by the billionaire class is Haddad, from Lebanon, tapped alongside his entire particular life. Tesla’s and Turo go hand in hand. Haddad and Elon go method again. So many connections right here, it is getting ridiculous. pic.twitter.com/0hGYU8BlP4
— Wyatt Washburn (@WyattWashburn2) January 2, 2025
I can’t discover the tweet, however the concept was that again within the day, our false flags was actually slick. Now they’re clumsy and silly. Was it so mistaken that the very first thought that popped into my thoughts was “Reichstag fireplace”?
* * * There’s a cui bono buried on this assertion:
🚨 BREAKING: Donald Trump releases new assertion pic.twitter.com/r7rpOV9FrB
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 2, 2025
Cui bono being the assertion one ought to at all times ask, even when the reply is just not at all times clear.
Realignment and Legitimacy
The Chronicle]. “U.S. Justice of the Peace Decide Katharine Parker, who’s presiding over Mangione’s federal pretrial hearings, graduated cum laude from Duke with a Bachelor of Arts in historical past in 1989. Because the pretrial decide, she oversees preliminary hearings concerning the usage of proof however is just not anticipated to preside over Mangione’s trial…. Parker was elected a fellow of The School of Labor and Employment Legal professionals and named on the Finest Legal professionals in America checklist for seven consecutive years. She has additionally served as chair of the Incapacity Regulation Committee for the New York Metropolis Bar and obtained quite a few awards for professional bono work and charitable service. sIn 2016, Parker was appointed to her present position as federal Justice of the Peace decide for the U.S. District Court docket of the Southern District of New York. Parker’s husband, Bret Parker, served as vp and assistant basic counsel of Wyeth Prescribed drugs from 2004 till 2009. When Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer, a multinational pharmaceutical firm, he retained a transitional position on the firm till 2010, in line with a LinkedIn web page beneath his identify.”
“Protection fund established by supporters of suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione tops $200K” [ABC]. “A number of on-line protection funds have been created for Mangione by nameless individuals, together with one on the crowdfunding web site GiveSendGo that as of Tuesday morning had raised over $200,000. The GiveSendGo protection fund for the 26-year-old Mangione was established by an nameless group calling itself “The December 4th Authorized Committee,” apparently in reference to the day Mangione allegedly ambushed and gunned down Thompson in Midtown Manhattan as the chief walked to his firm’s shareholders convention on the New York Hilton resort.”
Syndemics
“I’m in earnest — I cannot equivocate — I cannot excuse — I cannot retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Sources, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; consists of many counties; Wastewater Scan, consists of drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide information). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Normal Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).
Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be at liberty to contact me on the tackle given with the crops. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!
Sources, United States (Native): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reviews); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Sources, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).
Sources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tricks to useful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Keep protected on the market!
Elite Maleficence
“5 years of the COVID-19 pandemic: An interview with Dr. Arijit Chakravarty” [WSWS]. Each phrase a gem. Right here’s the way it begins out: “Quick-forward to as we speak, and COVID-19 is each ubiquitous in our day-to-day conversations and nonetheless very prevalent as a respiratory pathogen within the world group. Near 30 million individuals have died because of the pandemic, over 410 million individuals at the moment are residing with Lengthy COVID globally, and one can assume that almost all of the world’s inhabitants has been contaminated with COVID on common at the least 3 times. Are there any preliminary reflections you wish to share on the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic? Arijit Chakravarty (AC): Sure. That is what failure appears to be like like. We’re taking a look at it. Nobody ever mentioned when the idea of public well being emerged within the nineteenth century, ‘We actually want a corporation that’s dedicated to serving because the doula for each newly emergent pathogen that pops out of the wild.’ The concept that emergent pathogens should be shepherded into endemicity, this has by no means been in any public well being mission assertion.” And once more: “[W]e are managing illness by permitting infections, which had by no means been achieved earlier than.” • (Bidens’s coverage of “mass an infection with out mitigration,” as I repeated usually.) This can be a must-read, and kudos to WSWS. Nonetheless, I’ve not seen an account primarily based on political financial system for how and why public well being adopted the insurance policies it did, and I do attempt to maintain monitor. That appears to me to be a really large concern within the recreation. That concern can also be what the phrase “failure” erases. Why isn’t “all the things’s going in line with plan” an choice, analytically?
TABLE 1: Every day Covid Charts
Lambert right here: Somewhat extra orange and crimson round Ohio; no rise at JFK, EWR, ORD, LAX.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC December 16 | Final week[2] CDC (till subsequent week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC December 21 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC December 21 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| New York[5] New York State, information December 27: | Nationwide [6] CDC December 26: |
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| Positivity | |
| Nationwide[7] Walgreens December 23: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic December 14: |
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| Vacationers Information | |
| Positivity[9] CDC December 9: | Variants[10] CDC December 9 |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new as we speak; all others should not up to date.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution picture, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Home windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open picture in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Seeing extra crimson and extra orange, however nothing new at main hubs.
[2] (CDC) Final week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has achieved an important job normalizing successive waves of an infection.
[4] (ED) Somewhat uptick.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Gradual and small however regular enhance.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward pattern since, properly, Thanksgiving.
[9] (Vacationers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Vacationers: Variants). Positivity is new, however variants haven’t but been launched.
[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.
[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.
Stats Watch
Employment State of affairs: “United States Preliminary Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “Preliminary jobless claims within the US slumped by 9,000 from the earlier week to 211,000 within the final week of 2024, contrasting sharply with the anticipated enhance to 222,000, to mark the bottom quantity of preliminary claims in eight months.”
Manufacturing: “Jet crash catastrophe in South Korea marks one other setback for Boeing” [Associated Press]. “Alan Worth, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Traces who’s now a guide, mentioned it might be inappropriate to hyperlink the incident Sunday to 2 deadly crashes involving Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jetliner in 2018 and 2019. In January this 12 months, a door plug blew off a 737 Max whereas it was in flight, elevating extra questions concerning the aircraft. The Boeing 737-800 that crash-landed in Korea, Worth famous, is a really confirmed airplane. ‘It’s completely different from the Max …It’s a really protected airplane.’” And the Max isn’t. What horrible messaging.
Manufacturing: “Boeing’s horrible 12 months is ending with the worst aviation tragedy of 2024” [CNN]. Each setback an excuse for a roundup like this one. Nonetheless: “The Jeju Air aircraft’s touchdown gear appeared to not be prolonged because it tried to land. There had been reviews of a chicken strike inflicting the aircraft’s pilots to concern a misery name because it upon approached the airport in Muan, South Korea…. A 15-year-old aircraft, just like the one which crashed Sunday, is unlikely to have issues attributable to a design flaw or manufacturing issues attributed to Boeing. However it’s too quickly to say why the Jeju Air aircraft’s touchdown gear was not prolonged.” •
Manufacturing: “Boeing on monitor to be 2024’s greatest loser in Dow Jones Index” [Reuters]. “U.S. planemaker Boeing, opens new tab is on monitor to be the largest loser of 2024 within the Dow Jones Index, tumbling 32% because it bounced from one disaster to a different.” • Properly, I suppose bouncing is healthier than crashing….
Manufacturing: “Intel’s Grim Lesson for Boeing: Generally Mr. Repair-It Is Too Late” [Wall Street Journal]. “Because the 2000s, each [Boeing and Intel] grew to become too narrowly targeted on current profitability, regardless of working in sectors by which large spending is crucial to take care of a aggressive edge a long time down the road. Dividend payouts and share repurchases jumped and firm cultures moved away from technical expertise to rewarding managers primarily based on monetary metrics as an alternative. Traders finally noticed the folly of this strategy.” Sure, after planes crashed into the bottom. Extra: “His true check will are available in a number of years, when a alternative for the 737 MAX begins being developed. Virtually twenty years could have elapsed for the reason that first flight of Boeing’s final clean-sheet mannequin, the 787. With out a daring, costly try to push plane manufacturing ahead, nevertheless, the danger will probably be bigger than ever that airways might store at Airbus for his or her next-generation jets. But, with a lot of Boeing’s outdated engineering expertise now gone and traders hungry to recoup a few of their losses, the temptation to play it protected will probably be sturdy.” • I haven’t seen a agency assertion from anyone (e.g. Leeham, final I checked). After all, Boeing can keep it the restore enterprise for a very long time; see the B-52. And possibly much less air journey is nice for the planet, until your coverage aim is depopulation by the unfold of airborne pandemics, in fact.
Manufacturing: “China steps up drive to interrupt Boeing and Airbus grip on aircraft market” [Financial Times]. “China is stepping up its push to interrupt the grip of Boeing and Airbus on the plane market, because the state-run maker of the nation’s first homegrown passenger jet seeks certifications for it to fly past the nation’s shores. Comac’s closely subsidised C919, which made its maiden industrial flight in 2023, is already flown on home routes by China’s three large state-owned carriers: Air China, China Jap Airways and China Southern Airways. From this month, China Jap will fly the C919 between Hong Kong and Shanghai, its first common industrial route exterior China’s mainland.” And: “Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, mentioned constructing ‘elaborate product help services in export markets could be very laborious and costly work, and a obligatory precondition for competing with Airbus and Boeing.’ Whereas a number of carriers in Asia have expressed curiosity within the C919, some executives say privately that they continue to be hesitant. ‘Upkeep help is the principle concern,’ mentioned an individual near Indonesia’s TransNusa, which has already obtained three of Comac’s smaller ARJ21 plane and is contemplating flying the C919.” • Can’t they outsource it? Perhaps Comac might constructed a plant in Renton, rent all these fired Boeing employees.
Manufacturing: “China’s Export Crackdown Hits Boeing, Lockheed Martin And Extra” [Benzinga]. “China additionally added 10 firms to its Unreliable Entity Record for collaborating in arms gross sales to Taiwan. These firms are prohibited from doing any enterprise in China and their executives might not enter or dwell within the nation. Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., Normal Dynamics Corp. and RTX Corp. are among the many firms affected. Andrew Gilholm, a China skilled on the consulting agency Management Dangers, instructed the New York Occasions that China has taken comparable actions on these firms earlier than. ‘Most of that is most likely on the symbolic degree as a result of so many of those entities had been already topic to sanctions,’ Gilholm mentioned.” The transfer is seen as retaliation to latest U.S. measures together with the Biden administration’s restrictions on exports of superior reminiscence chips and chipmaking equipment to 140 Chinese language firms and the addition of Chinese language companies to the U.S. Division of Commerce’s Entity Record.”
Tech: “Meta’s Large Wager on Bots Why AI buddies are coming to Fb and Instagram” [New York Magazine]. “The concept of introducing AI characters into Meta’s platforms is in some methods distinct and new — we’re speaking about not simply automating content material curation and promotion right here however, in some circumstances, precise creation — however may also be understood as a technique to rebrand an efficient however alienating overhaul that’s been a decade within the making. With many AI merchandise — from ChatGPT to a customer-support bot — the efficiency of personhood, which is a little bit of a deceptive magic trick even when achieved rigorously, is at the least as essential as uncooked capabilities. Meta can declare it’s constructing expertise to create social-media brokers that may exist on its platforms “in the identical method that accounts do,” and possibly it’ll turn into proper. However Meta’s AI characters are additionally a technique to slap a extra pleasant, humanlike face on an extended, cold marketing campaign of social automation.” • A platform of all bots chittering to themselves…. Each tech bros moist dream, no? Goes with my concept that there will probably be a quiet return to the blogosphere; there actually is one thing to be mentioned for on-line areas had been one thing like authenticity is definitely potential. After all, this newest concept from The Zuckerberg™ might additionally go stomach up. Keep in mind the metaverse, with the avatars that — extremely symbolically! — had actually nothing beneath the waist.”
Tech: Make up your thoughts:
AP stands for Related Propaganda pic.twitter.com/kh8rTuwlPK
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2025
“Congress shall make no legislation… abridging the liberty of speech, or of the press.”
In the present day’s Concern & Greed Index: 26 Concern (earlier shut: 27 Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 33 (Concern). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jan 2 at 1:24:36 PM ET.
Guide Nook
“A Very Non-public Life – Nikolai Tolstoy Remembers Patrick O’Brian We glance again on the lifetime of the ‘best historic novelist of all time’” [Unseen Histories]. That is very lengthy, most likely greatest for O’Brian stans (of which I’m one). “What would a working day be like for Patrick? Was he a morning particular person? Was he very inflexible in his time-keeping? NIKOLAI TOLSTOY: Sure, inflexible. He would go straight down after breakfast. In Collioure, he had an odd, tiny place which was a lot, a lot smaller than this. It was like a cave. They’d a winery happening and sloping fairly steeply from the home. They’d a terrace or balcony and beneath it, there was a spot and that’s the place Patrick did his writing like The Naval Chronicle and issues like that. He didn’t have many books round him.” • Ah, workflow. And that’s the ticket: A cave.
Gallery
Snow scene:
White Frost, 1875 #artbots #monet pic.twitter.com/3Jh7TCCAGl
— Claude Monet (@artistmonet) January 2, 2025
“Populism and the World of Oz” [National Museum of American History]. “On her journey to go to the Wizard, Dorothy meets the scarecrow and the tin woodman. In line with Littlefield, the scarecrow, displaying ‘a horrible sense of inferiority and self doubt,’ represents the American farmer (who made up the majority of the Populist Celebration). Littlefield cites an 1896 article which accuses Kansas farmers of ‘ignorance, irrationality and basic muddle-headedness.’ By extension, the tin woodman represents the hoped-for different faction within the Individuals’s Celebration—the manufacturing unit employee. Dehumanized, the straightforward laborer has been was a machine.” The article concludes: “Remembering the times of low-skilled however extremely paid manufacturing unit work, many disenfranchised People battle and search for somebody guilty in a world that has modified and left them considerably out of the image.” • From 2016, nonetheless germane.
I’m not feeling wired as we speak.
Contact info for crops: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a test in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me pictures of crops. Greens are superb! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! If you’d like your deal with to look as a credit score, please place it firstly 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 DG:
DG writes: “From my restoration workshop to yours.” That is such a beautiful photograph I’m going to declare it an honorary plant, due to all of the wooden.
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