Bird Song of the Day
Brown Thrasher, Langford Creek Road, Tompkins, New York, United States.
In Case You Might Miss…
- Hegseth advances to floor vote.
- Smile Nazis in action.
- Snow in the South.
“Practice Your Cursive as a Citizen Archivist and Preserve Thousands of Historic Documents” [Colossal]. “In 2010 [thanks, Obama!], the newly established Common Core State Standards program, which outlines skills and knowledge students should acquire between kindergarten and high school, did not include cursive in its English requirements. As a result, many young people can no longer read or write in cursive. But if you can—or are willing to learn—a wealth of historical documents await you in the U.S. National Archives. The federal organization’s Citizen Archivist program is recruiting volunteers to help transcribe thousands of documents in its collection. Records in need of review are categorized into ‘missions,’ like paperwork relating to women in the First World War or submarine patrol reports during the Second World War…. The National Archives also needs people to tag photographs and other materials to help identify people, events, or places. By improving searchability, the archives become more accessible to historians, genealogists, students, and the public. It’s easy to get started: just register and select a document to begin transcribing. There’s no application, and you can contribute as much or as little as you’d like. National Parks Service interpretation planner Joanne Blacoe says, ‘We wanted something that was going to last beyond an anniversary, not just in our own archives but in a place that everybody could access.’”
My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of there (“Helpers” in the subject line). In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of “the communism of everyday life” are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza).
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Energy in the executive:
“Trump moves to revoke clearances of ex-intel officials who signed letter on Hunter Biden laptop” [PBS]. “President Donald Trump says his administration will move to revoke the security clearances of the more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a ‘Russian information operation.’ The action is an early indication of the president’s determination to exact retribution on perceived adversaries and is the latest point of tension between Trump and an intelligence community of which he has been openly disdainful.” Implementation: “The president has a lot of authority when it comes to security clearances. The problem the White House will run into is, if they depart from their existing procedures, they could set up a judicial appeal for these 51 people — and it will probably be a class-action suit since they’re all in alike or similar circumstances,” said Dan Meyer, a Washington lawyer who specializes in the security clearance and background check process.”
“Now the truth comes out: Reporters admit Politico snuffed out Hunter Biden laptop story to protect Joe in 2020” [New York Post]. “‘Politico did that terrible, ill-fated headline: 51 intelligence agents, or former intelligence agents, say that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation,’ recalled [reporter Neil] Caputo. ‘Turns out that story was closer to disinformation, because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true.’” And: “Caputo told his editor the outlet needed to ‘write about the Hunter Biden laptop’ but was instructed, per orders from ‘on high’ at Politico, not to: ‘Don’t write about the laptop. Don’t talk about the laptop. Don’t tweet about the laptop,’ he was told. So ‘the only thing Politico wound up writing was that piece that called it disinformation.’” More: “The 51 Spies Who Lied — ex-intel officials who signed an open letter that trashed The Post’s laptop scoop as a ‘Russian information operation’ — gave the media cover.” More likely they “briefed’ the editors and publishers. And: “If these intel veterans weren’t sure about Russia’s involvement, and weren’t trying to mislead the public, they could’ve checked with their sources at the FBI, which had already verified the laptop’s authenticity. Or just kept their mouths shut. Brennan & Co. knew exactly what they were doing.” • To the extent that the FBI can “verify” anything…
“Exclusive — CIA Director Ratcliffe: ‘Day-One Thing’ to Get to Bottom of Chinese ‘Origins of COVID,’ Wuhan Lab Leak” (interview) [John Ratcliffe, Breitbart]. I tend not to cite to Breitbart, but here we are: “[RATCLIFFE:] You have people who have been at the different intelligence agencies for so long and focused on the Russia threat — and, as you said, legitimately because [Vladimir] Putin is a bad guy and a regime with a huge nuclear stockpile that we need to talk about — but yeah, the Intelligence Community has been slow to adjust to the fact that China is the primary geopolitical threat we face,” Ratcliffe said. “It’s the second largest economy, and they compete with us across the board on a peer-to-peer basis in a way that Russia can’t, and I think there are reasons for that that are unfortunately — there’s a financial aspect to that. From Washington, DC, to Wall Street to Silicon Valley to Hollywood, there has been a desire to keep China from being labeled a bad guy because a lot of people make a lot of money from China and in China, and China has a lot of influence in all of those places. But our intelligence is clear —I saw that as DNI and now it’s inescapable for people to not see — on how sinister and nefarious the People’s Republic of China and its various arms of the Chinese Communist Party have been. So, we’ve been slow to adjust the focus, and it’s one of the things that the president needs and wants from us.”
* * * “Senate advances Pete Hegseth as Trump’s defense secretary, despite allegations” [Associated Press]. “Rarely has a Cabinet choice encountered such swirling allegations of wrongdoing. The outcome provides a measure of Trump’s power and a test for the Senate as it considers the president’s other outsider Cabinet picks, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for Health and Human Services, Kash Patel at the FBI and Tulsi Gabbard for Director of the Office of National Intelligence. Republican senators, and some Democrats, appear ready to give the president his team. Only Matt Gaetz, the former congressman who was Trump’s initial choice for attorney general, was met with enough resistance that his nomination was withdrawn.” • Well, Gaetz was trying to interfere with Congressional stock trading. So no wonder. Now to the Senate floor–
“‘Mitch McConnell Is In’: Fox News Reports On Ex-Host Pete Hegseth Clearing Key Vote Ahead of Likely Confirmation” [Mediaite]. “So that’s the two senators [Murkowski, Collins] that are out. Mitch McConnell is in as is all as are all the other senators in the conference. Roger Wicker, the Armed Services Committee chairman, had told me right before this vote I’d asked him, do you think you still have the 50? That was when Lisa Murkowski came out as she was a no and he said yes. So they walked into the room here feeling confident. They had whipped the votes for quite some time. And they knew that they had these votes and they would not need JD Vance to come in.”
* * * “RFK Jr. applauds Trump’s order to declassify RFK, JFK assassination files” [The Hill]. “‘I think it’s a great move because they need to have more transparency in our government and he’s keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything,’ Kennedy, President Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, told reporters. Kennedy has claimed that the CIA was involved in his uncle’s death. ‘There is overwhelming evidence that the CIA was involved in his murder,’ Kennedy said in a 2023 interview with John Catsimatidis on New York City radio station WABC 770. ‘I think it’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point.’ RFK Jr. said his uncle was targeted due to his refusal to commit U.S. forces to Vietnam.” • No doubt there will be redactions galore and key documents will have gone mysteriously missing. Nevertheless, such an enormous mass of material ought to be enough to make such judgments as historians make, if not the courts.
“RFK Jr.’s allies have a plan to upend childhood vaccination” [Politico]. “‘The people [RFK] really trusts are people that obviously are trying to execute a plan to totally take away vaccines,’ said one of the people with knowledge of the discussions. ‘The risk of overreach, I don’t think is zero.’” And: “‘They’re deadly serious,’ said another person with knowledge of the deliberations. ‘He’s going to move on vaccines and I think he feels he has a mandate.’” • As I’ve said, I don’t think it’s possible to have discussion on vax policy, because RFK’s anti-vaxers are coming for MMR. With measles cases already going up.
DOGE
“Warren sends Musk 30 ideas for DOGE to cut government spending” [The Hill]. “Warren’s Thursday letter to Musk, President Trump’s close ally and the commission’s chair, recommended that he consider numerous progressive policy proposals, including allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, renegotiating Department of Defense (DOD) contracts and curbing tax loopholes for large corporations and the highest earners. ‘With regard to policy, I am disturbed by the dangerous proposals you have discussed and released to date: proposals from you and your allies to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and other programs that tens of millions of Americans count on and rely on are unrealistic and cruel,’ Warren wrote in a 21-page letter. ‘It would be outrageous to cut these programs in the name of government thriftiness while handing out trillions of dollars in tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations,’ she added, but she also said the notion that the ‘federal government spends trillions of dollars on wasteful spending is correct. And if you are serious about working together in good faith to cut government spending — in a way that does not harm the middle class — I have proposals for your consideration.’ Warren’s prime proposal when it comes to slashing spending is renegotiating DOD contracts, arguing contractors often price-gouge the department.” • “Liberal Democrat writes fascist a strongly worded letter, film at 11:00.”
DNC race continues wonderful:
Well, where were you?
AOC criticizing Biden: “it was only on his way out where he was like this country is controlled by Oligarchs, bye !
We could have used that energy years ago”. pic.twitter.com/PtBQUr7ZTI
— Winters Politics 🖤 (@WintersPolitics) January 23, 2025
Watching with the sound down: AOC needs some coaching on how to look serious (unless she wants to just stay as a represenative).
Republican Funhouse
Transparency in government:
Where could they have gotten this sense of impunity?
Realignment and Legitimacy
[Sigh]:
Every Democrat including Bernie voted to confirm Rubio as Secretary of State because Rubio is a life-long adherent to GOP establishment foreign policy, which Dems agree with or tolerate.
What they hate are anti-establishment views, and that (Tulsi/RFK) is who they want to sink. https://t.co/Ez912PRn7w
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 23, 2025
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Airborne Transmission
Malign neglect vs. ruthless elimination:
The White House site has removed its pledge for the Clean Air In Buildings Challenge. This initiative encourages companies to reduce the spread of airborne illnesses.
However, Biden never promoted this and repurposed money for ASHRAE 241 HVAC upgrades in schools to give to cops. pic.twitter.com/LohkB4tHYc
— paulypandemic (@we_are_ssd) January 23, 2025
Transmission: H5N1
Since we’re not getting Federal data:
Minnesota’s Department of Health has issued an urgent health advisory calling for hospitals and clinics to test hospitalized patients with respiratory illness for bird flu A (H5N1)
Mandatory subtyping within 24 hours of admission.
— Outbreak Updates (@outbreakupdates) January 24, 2025
“Boyd Gaming Prohibits Employees from Wearing COVID Masks” [Casino.org]. “Boyd Gaming just updated its grooming policy, and it now forbids employees from wearing face masks without first establishing an ADA-recognized disability with the company’s human resources department…. The memo [to employees] adds that ‘in September 2024, the CDC took the position that masks are not usually recommended in non-healthcare settings.’… As Boyd explained in an addendum to the memo, face coverings ‘impair our ability to provide a warm and welcoming atmosphere for our guests and to provide experiences that exceed their expectations.’ According to the addendum, the use of face coverings ‘dampens sound, restricts clarity of verbal communications, (and) precludes brightening a guest’s day with (a) warm friendly, and genuine [oh, totally] smile.’” • Ah, smile Nazis. But who wouldn’t smile when they were gambling with their life in the workplace?
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC January 10 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC January 18 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC January 11 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| New York[5] New York State, data January 16: | National [6] CDC Janurary 16: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens January 13: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic January 4: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC December 30: | Variants[10] CDC December 30 |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC January 11: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC January 11: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) A little uptick.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely jumped.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.
[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.
[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.
Stats Watch
Real Estate: “United States Existing Home Sales” [Trading Economics]. “Existing home sales in the US rose by 2.2% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.38 million units in December of 2024, the most since February 2024. ‘Home sales in the final months of the year showed solid recovery despite elevated mortgage rates,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.’”
Manufacturing: “Boeing came close to running out of cash in 4th quarter” [Leeham News]. “The Boeing Co. nearly ran out of cash in the fourth quarter, the company said today as it previewed earnings that will be announced next week. Boeing’s fourth-quarter cash flow was negative at $3.5bn, in part due to a strike that overlapped the third and fourth quarters.” • But fortunately, Wall Street came to the rescue!
Manufacturing: “The ‘DEI Theory’ of Boeing’s Undoing” [Maureen Tkacik, The American Prospect]. “Like so many superficially inane right-wing ideas, the DEI theory of the collapse of American aviation contained a kernel of accuracy. Over the past quarter-century, Boeing had devolved from a deeply meritocratic organization into an explicitly anti-meritocratic organization. Engineers and quality officials are repeatedly chastised by their superiors for having too much “knowledge.” I recently interviewed a former quality manager who told me she was mocked and ridiculed for having graduated from aviation school. She said her bosses at Boeing in Charleston, South Carolina, made rude and racist comments about her Black inspectors even as they explicitly encouraged her to hire minorities over white men with aviation experience. That’s because Boeing views its employees as fundamentally disposable and has been for decades now at war with employees who know enough about planes to resist their constant and unrelenting orders to move faster and cut corners.” And of course: “Everyone who knows anything about Boeing understands that the “root cause” of its institutional decline was its 1996-1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, a failed plane maker with a toxic, diabolical culture and a C-suite with an illustrious track record of fomenting distrust, plotting coups, insinuating itself into power vacuums, and bankrupting airplane manufacturers.” • Tkacik is always worth a read.
Tech: “As a 3rd-party, curious observer, I have several naive, unanswered questions about the Stargate project” [Bill Gurley, ThreadReader]. “Obviously understand that they have no obligation to disclose. Here is list with responses wide open. I would love to be able to aggregate the best answers at some point. 1. Corporate Structure The OpenA press release says that Stargate is “a new company.” Is Stargate established as a standard C-corp, LLC, a joint venture, or something else entirely? 2. CEO Leadership Will Stargate have an independent CEO? Who will lead Stargate on a daily basis, and how is that person chosen? Will they be as operationally intense as the XAI team that launched Memphis? 3. Customer Exclusivity Is OpenAI the sole customer, or will Stargate yearn to serve other businesses? Does Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI impose any exclusivity constraints (the Microsoft release suggests it may)?” • And so on up to 10; a very good thread.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 50 Neutral (previous close: 46 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 37 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 24 at 1:11:54 PM ET,
Civil War Studies
“A brief literary linguistic analysis of the Gettysburg Address” [Language Log]. “The Gettysburg Address is notable for its use of powerful rhetorical devices like anaphora (repetition of words at the beginning of sentences), alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds), antithesis (contrasting ideas), allusion (references to other texts), and parallelism (similar sentence structures), all contributing to its concise and impactful delivery, emphasizing themes of sacrifice, democracy, and the ideal of equality…. The above is not an exhaustive account of the rhetorical aspects and literary virtues of the Gettysburg Address, but I trust that it is sufficient to vouch for the verbal and mental power that is concentrated in this concise text… The raison d’être for this post is to answer the question I raised in “Machine translators vs. human translators” (1/7/25) about whether LLMs can ever do nuanced, sensitive literary translation. When I raised that question, I already felt that the answer was ‘no.’ Having completed this exercise, I’m all the more convinced that that will never happen.
Musical Interlude
Isaac Hayes with a conductor’s baton:
Isaac Hayes in the studio crafting pure funk magic with the iconic ‘Shaft’
A legend at work… pic.twitter.com/AacHkuxs40
— Melodies & Masterpieces (@SVG__Collection) January 23, 2025
Photo Book
Elegant snow umbrella, St Peter street, New Orleans pic.twitter.com/bm5TMD9dCY
— Marco (@marcorasi1960) January 23, 2025
Winter (2):
Meanwhile in Pensacola, Florida, snow covered orange trees. 🍊❄️🥶 pic.twitter.com/dO3j8q4f0I
— DK🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸 (@1Nicdar) January 22, 2025
“At a Deluxe Dining Room on the 100th Floor, a Chef Toils in Obscurity” [New York Times]. “The towers that have sprouted along Billionaires’ Row and elsewhere in New York are in competition for buyers among the top slice of the wealthiest 1 percent. Each building tries to outdo the others with spas, cold plunge pools, infinity pools, fleets of Pilates Reformer machines, steam rooms and other amenities tacked onto the cost of apartments that already are in the tens of millions of dollars…. In these buildings, offering a private restaurant where residents can pick from menus developed by Michelin-starred chefs is becoming de rigueur.” But: “Brokers who buy and sell units in the luxury buildings say these restaurants are often empty. That’s largely because their wealthy residents are busy zipping between apartments in other cities and countries. When they do breeze into New York, one of the great restaurant cities of the world, who wants to eat at home?” • Personally, I think wonderful food should be a perk of being a citizen.
“Automation in Retail Is Even Worse Than You Thought” [The Nation]. “[E]lectronic shelf labels or ESLs [are] digital displays [that] allow companies to change prices automatically from a mobile app. [Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan] warned that this so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ permits retailers to adjust prices based on their whims. … Several people interviewed for this article stressed that they were not against all forms of automation but that the innovations should be put in context. They pointed to the pandemic, when retailers blamed price spikes on chaotic supply chains and higher production costs. But studies have uncovered a different culprit: A 2021 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City attributed 50 percent of pandemic-era price increases to profiteering. And in 2024, the Federal Trade Commission concluded that companies had ‘accelerated and distorted’ supply chain problems to reap a windfall during the crisis. Joe Mizrahi believes that store automation may be another racket. Price gouging ‘is totally in line with what we have seen them do during the pandemic. They are increasing prices having nothing to do with inflation,’ he said.” • Are readers seeing any of these “electronic shelf labels (ESLs)? If you’ve got nothing to do during the day, can you stand around and watch the labels change?
Dad.
Just went to the Oreo website and hit “accept all cookies” … and now we wait
— Cooper Lawrence (@CooperLawrence) January 23, 2025
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From varnel:
Varnel writes: “Took a drive today to Ashland, WI. Took this shot at the local artesian well. Doesn’t seem like winter without snow on the ground. Black Willows on Chequamegon Bay, Lake Superior.”
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