By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary, Westchester, New York, United States. “Amazing repertoire of other species’ songs woven into this song. This mockingbird was imitating several species including cardinal, robin, killdeer, Carolina Wren, and Tufted Titmouse. It is unclear whether it was also imitating a Song Sparrow, because one was very nearby and its voice can also be heard on the audio.”
In Case You Might Miss…
- UnitedHealthcare assassination: More details emerge.
- Boeing dropped a satellite, says new whistleblower.
- Nietzsche’s typewriter.
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 Assassination Attempts (Plural)
“Secret Service director vows reorganization as members of Congress press him over major lapses” [Associated Press]. “During the hearing, Rowe was repeatedly asked by flabbergasted lawmakers how problems so obvious in hindsight were allowed to happen, including communications difficulties between the Secret Service and local law enforcement that help secure events [in Butler, PA] and the building overlooking the rally being left unprotected.” And: “Trump has not yet named his pick to lead the agency.”
Democrats en déshabillé
“Jeffries stays out of the way as Dems mutiny against senior panel leaders” [Politico]. The deck: “Democrats are increasingly anxious about the incoming Trump administration and are no longer bowing to seniority rules to pick their committee leaders.” About time. More: “Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, 76, announced this week that he would step down from the top Democratic spot on the Natural Resources Committee. Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, 77, dropped his bid to continue leading Democrats on Judiciary in the face of a tough challenge from 61-year-old Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. And Rep. David Scott of Georgia, 79, is facing multiple challenges for the top Democratic spot on the Agriculture Committee. It’s akin to a mutiny, especially given Democrats’ typical deference to seniority in who leads panels. But party lawmakers are increasingly anxious about the incoming Trump administration and full GOP control of Congress. Many feel it’s crucial to have leaders who are proven fighters and can effectively push back on Republican priorities like harsh limits on legal immigration. It echoes the argument many used when they called on President Joe Biden to step off the ticket over the summer. At the center of it all is Jeffries, the minority leader, and his leadership team, who also skipped the seniority line in many ways when they rose to the top ranks two years ago. They have publicly stayed out of it, loath to stand in the way of lawmakers who, like them, chafed at the party’s strict adherence to seniority.” And: “”The caucus will guide these kinds of discussions,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, the No. 3 House Democrat. “We’re confident that at this time it’s going to take a Democratic Caucus that’s firing on all cylinders to push back against extremism and to .’” • Ick. Mush.
“Scoop: Pelosi backing “some” House Dem committee ousters” [Axios]. • Maybe, for example–
“Scoop: AOC expected to run for top Oversight Committee role” [Axios]. “Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday she is ‘interested’ in the role and has had ‘a lot of outreach from colleagues’ about a run. She told reporters on Wednesday morning that she has ‘spoken with many members of our caucus, including several members of leadership’ about the race. Ocasio-Cortez also laid out her vision for the panel, saying she wants to use it as a ‘communicative platform for public education’ and a vehicle for ‘real legislative work and investigatory work.’” • And speaking of AOC:
With Governor Delgado having finally enacted the special master’s court-ordered redrawn map, we can now map the 2028 Presidential election by New York’s new districts
Districts eliminated:
NY-10 (Hoylman)
NY-14 (Ocasio-Cortez)
NY-22 (Tenney)Posting info on key races below pic.twitter.com/fm30EOypjF
— Lily in the City (@LilyArtemisTO) December 5, 2024
Realignment and Legitimacy
“The Fight Has Only Just Begun” [The Progressive]. “Once upon a time, a majority of U.S. voters rejected a capable, competent, and intelligent daughter of Black and Indian immigrants in favor of a diminished, ignorant, racist son of a multimillionaire, proving that the United States remained a great country for old, white men.” • This is what passes for “left” analysis at The Progressive.
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!
Transmission: Covid
“Are flu and COVID high now? Here’s how the season has started” [Alexander Tin, CBS]. Tin is a good guy, but Covid is not seasonal. That said: “COVID-19 emergency room visits are ‘low’ or ‘minimal’ in nearly all states, after this year’s late summer wave of the virus. Levels of the virus in wastewater are “minimal” in all regions, compared to “high” levels around this time last year. ‘Does that mean that there was enough immunity built up in that summer wave that we’re going to not see a winter wave? Does it mean the winter wave is going to come, but be a little bit later and maybe a little smaller,’ said [University of North Carolina epidemiology professor Justin Lessler]. Both [Shaun Truelove, associate scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s public health school] and Lessler said one major ‘data gap’ making comparisons to previous seasons challenging has been the lapse in nationwide COVID-19 hospitalization data during the summer surge. A pandemic-era emergency requirement for health care providers to report COVID-19 hospitalizations lapsed earlier this year, and only recently resumed under a new rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Other factors muddying the figures include changes to how people test and seek care for COVID-19 infections. Another big unknown is the evolution of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Most circulating variants right now are a medley of closely related variants like XEC and KP.3.1.1. ‘We don’t know, like we do for flu, what the average pace of COVID’s evolution away from our immune system will be, when it settles down,’ Lessler said. Early data released last month by researchers at The Ohio State University found XEC looked to be more infectious compared with the parent variant it shares upstream with KP.3.1.1, but not significantly more than its siblings. ‘I actually have thought it had settled down a bit, after this year. We’ll see what I think after the season’s done. But right now, I’m a little less sure,’ he said.” • Oh good. Seems like the best indicator would be reports of coughing on the Mommy blogs, at this point…
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC November 25 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC November 23 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 23 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data December 4: | National [6] CDC November 28: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens December 2: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 23: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC November 11: | Variants[10] CDC November 4: |
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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. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) Down.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveled out.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved; it’s now one of the few charts to show the entire course of the pandemic to the present day.
[7] (Walgreens) Down.
[8] (Cleveland) Down.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.
[11] Deaths low, positivity down.
[12] Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “US initial jobless claims rose to 224,000 for the week ending November 30, from 213,000 in the previous week, above market expectations of 215,000 and marking the highest reading in six weeks. Despite this rise, the results still support the view that the US labor market remains at historically strong levels despite the aggressive tightening cycle by the Federal Reserve in the last quarters, adding leeway for the central bank to slow the pace of monetary loosening should inflation remain stubbornly high.”
Employment Situation: “United States Challenger Job Cuts” [Trading Economics]. “US employers announced 57,727 job cuts in November 2024, slightly higher than 55,597 in October and 45,510 a year earlier. The Automotive sector announced the most job cuts (11,506, the highest monthly total since April).”
Manufacturing: “Boeing whistleblower sounds alarm over safety at satellite factory: “They’re not gonna listen to me until somebody dies” [CBS]. “Now, Garriott, 53, says, it’s the lives of hundreds of technicians at the Boeing facility where he has worked for nearly three decades that need protecting from company management. ‘They’ve taken the focus off quality, the focus off the people on the floor, and they’ve put it completely on profit and going fast,’ Garriott said in an exclusive interview with CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave. ‘I’m afraid with Boeing in the hands that it’s in now down here, they’re not gonna listen to me until somebody dies.’ He said efforts by Boeing executives to boost production at the company’s Los Angeles-area military and commercial satellite plant have led to a ‘toxic culture’ that has put workers there in danger. — an incident so catastrophic he compared it to ‘a plane falling out of the sky.’ ‘One person was underneath that satellite and they barely got out,’ said Garriott, who also represents 600 hourly workers as the head of the local carpenters union. ‘It’s the worst thing that can possibly happen on a site.’” • Boing dropped a satellite????
Manufacturing: “Boeing Plea Deal Over Fatal 737 Max Crashes Rejected by Judge” [Bloomberg]. “Boeing Co.’s plea deal with US prosecutors over two 737 Max jet crashes was rejected by a federal judge, who said plans for choosing an independent monitor minimized the court’s role and required the parties to consider the race of the person appointed. US District Judge Reed O’Connor on Thursday sided with family members of people killed during the crashes, who urged him to reject the agreement on the grounds that it failed to adequately hold Boeing accountable for the 346 fatalities.” • Oopsie.
Manufacturing: “Boeing Defense Fighter Jet Unit Head Retires Amid Leadership Shake-Up” [Simple Flying]. “The head of Boeing Defense’s fighter jet division will step down after two years in the role. Steve Nordlund will be replaced by Dan Gillian, vice president and general manager of Mobility, Surveillance & Bombers, amid a challenging time for the company…. [Boeing Defense Systems] continues to lose money, posting losses of $2.3 billion in the third quarter. Much of this was due to fixed-cost contracts, including the KC-46A Tanker and T-7 Red Hawk programs.” • I bet there aren’t a whole lot of companies that lose money on defense work.
Manufacturing: “Boeing Isn’t the Only Plane Maker With Problems. Airbus Just Laid Off 2,000 Workers” [Barron’s]. “Wednesday, Airbus announced it was laying off 2,043 workers in its Defense and Space business. The layoffs amount to about 5% of that business and should be completed by mid-2026. The reductions ‘aim to reduce the company’s fixed cost base, with almost all of the positions affected being so-called overhead positions,’ said Airbus in an emailed statement.” And: “Profits in Airbus’ defense segment have struggled, too, and the company is expected to post a loss for the unit in 2024. Operating profit margins in 2023 came in at 2%, down from 6% in 2020. Airbus’ defense sales in 2024 should amount to about $13 billion; Boeing’s defense business will approach $25 billion. What hasn’t been a problem for either company is commercial aerospace demand. Both companies have backlogs that stretch out years. Building the planes has been tougher.”
The Bezzle:
NEW: Amazon charges 48,000 DC residents in Wards 7 & 8 for full Prime membership while excluding them from Prime delivery benefits.
Amazon failed to inform customers they were excluded.
We are suing Amazon for deceiving DC residents into paying the same price for worse service. pic.twitter.com/72RxzyIPfa
— AG Brian Schwalb (@DCAttorneyGen) December 4, 2024
Probably wouldn’t even buy a bathroom in one of Jeff’s mansions, but every little bit helps!
Tech: “Federal Court Says Dismantling A Phone To Install Firmware Isn’t A ‘Search,’ Even If Was Done To Facilitate A Search” [TechDirt]. “[T]he narrative says the iPhone was ‘inoperable’ (to use HSI’s own words). But the DHS sent it out to a ‘partner forensic laboratory’ (I’m going to assume this was the FBI), which was able to finally obtain access to the phone by: …replacing its circuit board and re-flashing the device’s firmware. Now, that looks like the sort of thing not covered or considered by previous case law or the original warrant request. This is something else. This is another government party extensively modifying seized property to make it more receptive to phone-cracking efforts. One would think a court would need to be apprised of this opportunity before it became a reality, if for no other reason than the original warrant only authorized a search, not the literal cracking of a cell phone (or its casing, at least) to replace a circuit board and install new firmware. I think the defendant raises a good point. But I also think, given the lack of precedent, the court is not completely wrong to rule that reviving a device so it can be searched isn’t actually a search under the Fourth Amendment. To put it in other physical terms, no court would believe pulling a car out of the water after dredging a lake would be a search, even if the recovered vehicle was searched pursuant to a search warrant.” • Hmm.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 58 Greed (previous close: 57 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 63 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 5 at 1:18:31 PM ET.
Healthcare
Gallery
Ka-ching:
Just announced: Opening on May 23, 2025, “Good Business: Andy Warhol’s Screenprints” examines why screenprints are an essential part of Warhol’s body of work: https://t.co/fLPpsNKwZe
Andy Warhol, “$ (1)”, 1982, © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.… pic.twitter.com/LAlxOG0Y8m
— The Andy Warhol Museum (@TheWarholMuseum) December 3, 2024
More on the UnitedHealth shooting:
The gun:
There’s been a bunch of misinformation about today’s murder of United Healthcare’s CEO. I’m going to debunk some of the firearms nonsense that’s been stated.
Myth 1: The pistol was a Welrod / B&T Station 6!
Categorically false. pic.twitter.com/HhFcxKFhFw
— Louis vil LeGun 🍌 📟 (@LouisvilleGun) December 4, 2024
More on the gun:
The Welrod pistol uses a bolt action mechanism that requires a twist and pull action to open and close the breech. In this photo you can see how the rear of the pistol must be twisted and pulled out to chamber a new round pic.twitter.com/jmDKHg5usW
— Louis vil LeGun 🍌 📟 (@LouisvilleGun) December 4, 2024
The alleged shooter:
Not the same jacket or backpack. What’s going on here? pic.twitter.com/dNTod8NgZe
— Jacob Smith (@XrealJacobSmith) December 5, 2024
The bike:
guys this is not a citibike
I don’t know if you’ve been to new york but they have a much much larger frame, dark blue etc
also anyone who uses a silencer is not dumb enough to flee on a CITIBIKE pic.twitter.com/bGoKXpVbOs
— zeta (@zeta_globin) December 4, 2024
Hot take (1):
I really really really don’t want to live in a society where political expression happens through assassination. But you can’t sanction endless mass murder by spreadsheet.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 5, 2024
Hot take (2):
Skin in the Game is back. https://t.co/3QdtNgC3dS
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) December 5, 2024
About those bullet casings:
!!! The shooter of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson wrote “deny” “defend” “depose” on the shell casings left at the scene, ABC News reports.
The words echo the name of a book about how insurers won’t pay claims.
This is an EARTHQUAKE for corporate America. pic.twitter.com/iBI255WPOl
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) December 5, 2024
“The Surprising New History of Horse Domestication” [Scientific American]. “Scholars have long sought to understand how the unique partnership between humans and horses got its start. Until recently, the conventional wisdom was that horses were gradually domesticated by the Yamnaya people beginning more than 5,000 years ago in the grassy plains of western Asia and that this development allowed these people to populate Eurasia, carrying their early Indo-European language and cultural traditions with them.” But: “New genomic analyses led by Pablo Librado of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona and Orlando indicate that the ancestors of modern domestic horses originated in the Black Sea steppes around 2200 B.C.E., nearly 2,000 years later than previously thought. Although we do not yet know exactly the details of their initial domestication, it is clear based on the timing that these horses belonged to post-Yamnaya culture. Patterns in the ancient genomes suggest that in the early centuries of domestication, the horse cultures of the western steppe were selectively breeding these animals for traits such as strength and docility.” • Fascinationg detail on archeological evidence. Well worth a read.
“How Typing Transformed Nietzsche’s Consciousness” [MIT Press]. “Amid all this hubbub of opinion and research into the man and his ideas, however, hardly anyone has commented on, or sought to explain, another aspect of Nietzsche: his productivity, and how it changed during his career because of his adoption of a new writing technology. Consider this: Nietzsche wrote four books between 1870 and 1881, or almost one every three years, which is pretty good. After 1881, however, he managed to deliver 10 manuscripts to his publisher in the seven years to 1888, whereupon he became too ill to write any longer. That was a book and a half per year, which is really good. By 1881 Nietzsche had become almost blind, an infirmity that would surely have hampered his longhand writing. How did he manage to improve his work rate? What he did was something seemingly out of character, given his views on modernity and science: He bought a typewriter. To be precise, he purchased a top-of-the-line portable Malling-Hansen writing ball, which was sent specially to him from its inventor in Copenhagen.” And: “The sudden mechanical punctuated strike of the typewriter contrasted starkly with the ruminative flow of the pen; the typewriter encouraged a binary decision, to depress the key or not; whereas the pen with its store of liquid ink, held by surface tension in the nib, or in a small reservoir in the fountain pen, was a more latent and nonmachinic technology….. The German philosopher of technology Friedrich Kittler has claimed that the analog typewriter in general was useful for certain forms of thought: the brief, the succinct, the forms that thrive on concision and quickness…. As Kittler saw it, a celebrated Nietzschean style comprising sustained reflection, long sentences, and complex reasoning had changed ‘from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.’ Nietzsche was an early adopter of the technology. He took it to the heady realms of Continental philosophy and — if we consider his immense influence — began to change it through a creative mind that was reshaped by the keys that had replaced the pen.” • Also well worth a read. (In my owh experience, the computer enabled me to finish the work, like the typewriter (and the pen before that).
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