By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, 350 South Madison Avenue, Pasadena, Los Angeles, California, United States.
In Case You Might Miss…
- Trump vs. “the Deep State.”
- Boeing, post-strike.
- Mushroom farms and ventilation.
- Weeds becoming resistant to herbicides.
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
Trump Transition:
“Energy in the executive:”
Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the Deep State.
1. “Immediately reissue my 2020 executive order, restoring the President’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats.”
2. “Clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.”
3. “Totally reform… pic.twitter.com/Xhg297uWCe
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 8, 2024
I ran this in Links this morning, but want to make a few additional comments:
#10 “Push a constitutional amendment to oppose term limits on members of Congress.” I think “oppose” is a typo for “propose.” In any case, term limits are a terrible idea, because they mean that the Legislative Branch can end up with no institutional memory. When we were fighting the landfill in Maine, we discovered that the only people who could interpret the relevant legislation were the bent lawyers from Portland who wrote it, at the behest of the landfill operator.
#5 “Launch a major crackdown on government leakers who collude with the fake news to deliberately we false narratives and to subvert our government and our democracy.” I wonder what Snowden or Assange would think about that. Or Ellsberg. I see the qualifiers “deliberately” and “false” but they don’t give me confidence. (In fact, if Trump supported whistleblowers, in general, whether for government or industry, he would be giving RFK a lot of help in his dealings with Big Pharma and Big Ag,
#6 – #9… Might as well give it a shot (though CDC seems to have made its very own cesspit in Atlanta, so I’m not sure how much good #8 would do.
#2 “Clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.” This would be wonderful to see (though does it applly to torturers?). When I wrote “Project 2025: 920 Pages of Irritable Mental Gestures, or a Blueprint for Fascism?“, I had a litmus test to see if Project 2025 recommendations for CIA, ODNI, and CISA would be taken seriously: Firings. Perhaps they will.
Amazing, in a good way, to see an elected (albeit not inaugurated) President propose such things. I wonder who put it together? Susie Wiles? If so, she certainly hit the ground running. (I really, really don’t like the doomy soundtrack to the video, though.)
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, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Airborne Transmission: Covid
Mushroom cultivation requires a lot of lab based work – you’re working in (supposedly) sterile conditions, eg when doing agar work. Laminar flow hoods are required when doing this, otherwise contaminants will kill your efforts (mould will outcompete the mycelium, basically)…
— Matt Tutt (@MattTutt1) November 8, 2024
Michael Pollan, in The Botany of Desire, urges that plants adapt us to their requirements for seed spread and growth by evolving tastes, nutriition, scents, and bright colors. Here we have mushrooms inducing us to breathe clean air, much to our benefit!
Anecdotal but interesting:
A year ago we installed Far UVC in the dining area of a nursing home.
Since then outbreaks have decreased by 85% and overall resident and staff well being has increased.
This nursing home chose to use all possible tools to ensure their occupants stay safe from viruses.… pic.twitter.com/pn5ZsuK2cG
— BioAbundance (@BioAbundancellc) November 7, 2024
Of course, I mistrust any firm with the word “abundance” in its name, especially [checks profile] a Californian one….
Transmission: Covid
“A Flexible Framework for Local-Level Estimation of the Effective Reproductive Number in Geographic Regions with Sparse Data” (preprint) [medRxiv]. From the Abstract: “Our research focuses on local level estimation of the effective reproductive number, which describes the transmissibility of an infectious disease and represents the average number of individuals one infectious person infects at a given time. The ability to accurately estimate the infectious disease reproductive number in geographically granular regions is critical for disaster planning and resource allocation. However, not all regions have sufficient infectious disease outcome data for estimation.” • Can’t make head or tail of the rest, but it might be useful to any epidemiologists in the readership.
Transmission: H5N1
“Serologic Evidence of Recent Infection with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5) Virus Among Dairy Workers — Michigan and Colorado, June–August 2024” [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC]. “Health officials conducted surveys and serologic testing to identify recent HPAI A(H5) infections among dairy workers in two states. .” • Do the math:
Lambert here: There are many starred items today, besides yesterday, because a lot of CDC data is released on Friday. Also, New York hospitalization started up again, which is nice.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1]★ CDC October 28 | Last Week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC October 26 | ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 2 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data November 7: | ★ National [6] CDC November 6: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens November 4: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 2: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| ★ Positivity[9] CDC October 21: | ★ Variants[10] CDC October 21: |
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| Deaths | |
| ★ Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 2: | ★ Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 2: |
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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) Good news!
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* still popular. XEC has entered the chat.
[4] (ED) Down.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved.
[7] (Walgreens) Down.
[8] (Cleveland) Down.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC.
[11] Deaths low, positivity down.
[12] Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of note today.
Manufacturing: “Quebec media outlet is reporting possible data falsification at plant where defective Vineyard Wind turbine blades were manufactured” [Bud’s Offshore Energy]. “See the translated excerpts below from a Radio Gaspesie report. This is a massive scandal if true. ‘Yesterday, the vice-president of global operations at GE Vernova reportedly addressed all employees at the Gaspé plant to provide an update on the situation. The investigation, led by GE Vernova’s lawyers, reportedly revealed that employees were asked by senior company executives to falsify quality control data. Data associated with a well-made blade was then associated with poorly made blades. Our sources indicate that this is a widespread practice in the industry. The senior management of the Gaspé plant also allegedly implemented a points system that encouraged employees to skip verification steps, thus prioritizing production quantity over quality. Our sources say the points system allegedly involved tight management oversight that bordered on intimidation of employees. The oversized 107m blades that were produced in Gaspé for the construction of marine parks are said to be affected. .” • Yikes!
Manufacturing: “Boeing to refund lost pay to employees furloughed during Machinists strike” [Seattle Times]. “In a goodwill gesture to Boeing employees who were furloughed during the Machinists’ strike, new CEO Kelly Ortberg on Thursday afternoon sent out a message saying the company will return the pay they lost… A longtime nonunion employee on the quality staff, who asked not to be named to protect his job, said the furloughs had seemed ‘an odd way of taking care of the people not on strike’ and that they destroyed productivity that month as affected employees like him scrambled to figure out the impact and what to do. ‘Obviously your time is not spent focusing on work, but on OK, how am I going to handle this? How do I pay my bills? How do I apply for unemployment?’ he said. The staffer said Thursday he’s ‘really happy’ at the course reversal. ‘There’s still a lot of mistrust,’ he said. ‘There’s still this sense of, ‘Wow, can I trust the company?” And yet, he continued, “this is a step in the right direction.’”
Manufacturing: “Boeing Is Exploring Possible $6 Billion Sale for Jeppesen Unit” [Bloomberg]. ” Boeing Co. is exploring a sale of its Jeppesen navigation unit as the planemaker draws up a list of assets it could shed to help lighten its $58 billion debt load, according to people familiar with the matter…. Suitors are already circling Jeppesen, which could attract sizable interest from private equity firms as well as other companies, said the people.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing 737 Production Grinds Forward” [Airline Geeks]. “With the approval of a new contract, Reuters reported that Boeing will now take weeks to continue producing 737s in the single digits per month range for some time, citing two unnamed sources briefed on the matter. The company was aiming to produce 38 of its best-selling jets per month prior to the strikes, down from 42 a month before January’s Alaska 1282 incident.”
Manufacturing: “United Boeing 777 APU Catches Fire at San Francisco Airport” [Aviation A2Z]. “According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing report, United aircraft during pushback from terminal 2, gate 6 experienced a fire in the APU. For those who are not aware of APU, it is actually a small jet engine located in the tail or empennage section of an aircraft. It is used to start main engines and also act as backup in case of engine failure.” • Oh dear. I have mentally classified the 777 as the last good Boeing airplane, and the only safe one.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 61 Greed (previous close: 59 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 44 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 8 at 1:51:07 PM ET
Permaculture
“The Weeds Are Winning” [MIT Technology Review]. “According to Ian Heap, a weed scientist who runs the International Herbicide-Resistant Weed Database, there have been well over 500 unique cases of [herbicide-resistance] in 273 weed species and counting. Weeds have evolved resistance to 168 different herbicides and 21 of the 31 known “modes of action,” which means the specific biochemical target or pathway a chemical is designed to disrupt. Some modes of action are shared by many herbicides.” Darwin Awards for the industry! More: “Fundamentally, the solution is to ‘not focus solely on herbicides for weed management,’ says Micheal Owen, a weed scientist and emeritus professor at Iowa State University. And that presents a “major, major issue for the farmer” and the current state of American farms, he adds. Farms have ballooned in size over the last couple of decades, as a result of rural flight, labor costs, and the advent of chemicals and genetically modified crops that allowed farmers to quickly apply herbicides over massive areas to control weeds capitalism. This has led to a kind of sinister simplification in terms of crop diversity, weed control practices, and the like. And the weeds have adjusted.” • Edit mine.
Book Nook
“Neal Stephenson Jumps From Speculative Fancy to Strange History” [Literary Hub]. • Hmm. “Interwar leftism”? Another damn book to read.
I am not feeling wired today.
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