2:00PM Water Cooler 7/26/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Bird Song of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Bear Island Wildlife Management Area, Charleston, South Carolina, United States. “Song from telephone wire in residential area.”

In Case You Might Miss…

(1) Who engineered the bait and switch?.

(2) Kamala and Lina Khan.

(3) Abolish your lawn!

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

2024

Less than four months to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

First poll with Harris at the top of the Democrat ticket; Trump’s position deteriorates (and any advantage he gained from the assassination attempt has been wiped away. Nevertheless, he still leads, albeit within the margin of error. NOTE RCP used to have two pages of swing states; I always used the first one. Now there is only one, which I take as an indicator that Harris v. Trump polling is not all that widespread.

Vibe shift:

Unbelievable vibe shift in the US with Kamala Harris https://t.co/LAZoglUMHW pic.twitter.com/rrMisGHLbu

— Albert Pinto (@70sBachchan) July 26, 2024

* * *

Biden Defenestration:

“Who Engineered the Political Coup Against Biden?” (Frank Miehle, RealClearPolitics). “Remarkably, despite the horrific debate performance and the non-stop media narrative that said he was the political equivalent of a dead man walking, Biden remained within the margin of error in national polls. He had barely dropped at all since ‘The Debate.’ He had the delegates, and he had the nomination unless he willingly surrendered it. But something happened. About the same time Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt and raised his fist in defiance, Democrats seemed to have concluded that Biden could not win in November. The four days of what is widely believed to be a successful Republican convention only hardened that belief. And whether it is Sy Hersh or some young gun of journalism ready to make his or her name, someone needs to tell the truth about the 10 days that shook the nation, from the moment Trump took a would-be assassin’s bullet on July 13 to the afternoon Biden inexplicably dropped his reelection bid and Kamala Harris was coronated. And the first question that needs to be answered, and which no one in the mainstream media is asking, is ‘Who convinced Joe Biden that debating Trump on June 27, nearly two months before the Democratic convention, was a good idea?’ This was unprecedented.” Good question (personally, I think Biden was arrogant enough to think he could beat Trump. That was one reason he was so angry throughout the debate; he had this stunned look in his eyes, like he couldn’t believe what was happening to him. And the date for the beginning of the bait and switch operation: “I would not be surprised if the scheme to unseat Biden was hatched in February when Hur declined to prosecute the president for classified documents violations on the grounds that a jury would clear Biden because they would see him as a ‘sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ With that declaration, the cat was out of the bag. Maybe Biden’s handlers initially thought he could survive that humiliation, but when the president gave a press conference to declare himself vindicated, he mistakenly identified Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi as the president of Mexico. The wheels may have started turning to jettison Biden in order to preserve the Democratic Party.” • Good argument.

Kamala’s Rollout:

Lambert here: Normally, I use last (family) names. Clinton (not “Hillary”); Sanders (not “Bernie”); Carlson (not “Tucker”). After all, I’m not good buddies with any of these people. However, with Kamala (not “Harris”) I have shifted to what Frank Herbert’s Fremen call “the insultingly familiar form,” for reasons I assume will become increasingly obvious.

“I Do Not Need to Defend Myself for Believing That Political Candidates Should Be Chosen Democratically” (Freddie deBoer). “I remain disgusted but not surprised by the Democratic party and its machinations, where not even the smallest fig leaf of democratic process survived Harris’s blitzkrieg approach to the nomination. (That is, having it handed to her by her friends in elite Democratic circles.) And I think Democrats are essentially rerunning 2016, where their loyalty to the Clintonite center-right political machine compelled them to nominate an incredibly flawed candidate in a race in which any generic Democratic governor or senator almost certainly would have won. The party never learns. And so we have the confluence of strategic idiocy and rank elitist control. Well: I decline to obediently get onboard the way that (for example) the entire New York Times Opinion section has.” • Fun stuff, well worth a read.

* * *

The Campaign Trail:

* * *

Kamala (D): “The Kamala Harris Surprise” (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal). Now to the hundred-day race. I had long thought Kamala Harris couldn’t beat Donald Trump. That’s wrong. She can. We’re a 50/50 country, each side gets 40 going in, you fight for the rest but it can always go either way. As people who speak the technical language of politics say, Mr. Trump has a high floor but a low ceiling. But beyond that, something’s happening.” I’m not sure how I feel to be singing from the same page of the hymnal as Nooners, but it’s been a strange year. More: “Ms. Harris has not, in five years on the national stage, shown competence. She is showing it now, and that is big news. Her rollout this week demonstrated talent and hinted she may be a real political athlete. Her past and famous verbal embarrassments, which shaped her public reputation, almost all took place in interviews and ad libbed arias. They obscured a real proficiency. ?She was striking and strong in this week’s speeches in Milwaukee and Houston. She knows how to act a speech. When she is scripted she is good. That isn’t all put-down. She knows what a good speech is. She can judge it, recognize good material. Not all candidates can. Most can’t. It is its own talent. Milwaukee especially had power. Its theme: ‘We’re not going back.’” Certainly not to FDR. And this very, very curious warning: ” On an average day key figures in our government—the secretaries of state and defense, heads of intelligence and domestic agencies—are on the road, in the conference in Prague and the meeting in Seoul. Right now, with the aged president and the volatile politics, they should stop, stay close to home, be in their offices in Washington. Be there, not on planes and in hotel rooms. The look of solidity is almost as good as the real thing.” • Volatility!

Kamala (D): “Can Harris Pull Off a Victory in Three Months? Three Top Strategists Lay Out How” (Politico). Patti Solis Doyle: “The last 72 hours have been unbelievable in terms of rollout. She locked up the nomination. Within 36 hours, she got the delegates. She got the endorsements from Congress. She got the money. And her first events have been through the roof.

I think she’s doing it.” Robby Mook: “One advantage she really has that we didn’t have on the Clinton campaign, and I don’t think Joe Biden really had, is the internet is a really safe space for her right now. It’s a great safe space for people to express support for her. So that’s great.” Stuart Stevens: “I think the model for this in a lot of ways is the Obama campaign in ’08. They did a magnificent job in setting it up so that when you voted for Barack Obama, it said something about who you were and what you wanted the country to be, not just who you wanted to be president. And I think that’s the challenge that Harris should run right into.” • And we all know how Obama turned out!

* * *

Kamala (D): Tech Lords share views on regulation:

Most Democrats think that we need to save the republic and then we can advocate against bad policy. It doesn’t work that way. An oligarch just told our candidate what to do. That’s the republic ending right there. Silence is complicity. https://t.co/D1TGn8QDxB

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 25, 2024

Kamala (D): Tech Lords share views on Lina Khan:

.@andrewrsorkin asks IAC Chairman Barry Diller if he would lobby Vice President @KamalaHarris to drop @LinaKhanFTC:

“Yeah, I would. I think she’s a dope,” said Diller. pic.twitter.com/JFWrsurhhh

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) July 26, 2024

Kamala (D): “Silicon Valley Steps Up for Native Kamala Harris in Trump Showdown” (Wall Street Journal). “Kamala Harris’s strong ties to her native Silicon Valley, dating back to the start of her political career, give her a solid base of financial support that she is tapping for her battle with Donald Trump…. Tech executives are hopeful that Harris’s Silicon Valley ties, combined with her grasp of the impacts of legal regulation—owing to her law-enforcement background—will position her to be open-minded about emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, which the Biden administration has at times been hard on. The industry is also hoping it might get an ally in the White House after years of criticism and mounting antitrust enforcement. While Biden has taken an aggressive stance toward antitrust enforcement, selecting Amazon critic Lina Khan to chair the Federal Trade Commission, Harris hasn’t been focused on technology for much of her time as vice president. The Biden campaign had earlier invited donors to a July fundraiser in Piedmont, Calif., hosted by a longtime supporter of Harris. The event is being rescheduled, a campaign spokesman said. ” • That event would be a wonderful opportunity for Kamala to invite Lina Khan and give her a bear-hug (as Zephyr Teachout suggested). But maybe not–

Kamala (D): “Harris Works to Build Bridges to the Business World” (New York Times). “(Kamala) has expressed skepticism of Ms. Khan’s expansive view of antitrust powers, according to a donor who has spoken privately with the vice president.” • Oh well. More optimistic commentary:

On the other hand… That’s one donor is telling that to NYT. Warren, who is pretty much responsible for Khan’s appointment, has been making the rounds to pump up Kamala on cable news all week. Perhaps that’s her end game, we will see

— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) July 25, 2024

Kamala (D): “Behind the Democrats’ Fight Over Lina Khan’s Future” (New York Times). “One wrinkle: Donald Trump’s own running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, has praised Khan as part of his anti-Big Tech stance…. Khan has given no indication that she plans to step down. She has shown a desire to permanently reshape U.S. antitrust law, dating to her law school days. When DealBook asked an F.T.C. spokesman if Khan would consider serving as chair in a Harris administration, he said, ‘Yes.’ The debate underscores Democrats’ anxiety over how Harris would govern. Khan’s appointment arose in part out of Biden’s effort to shore up progressive support in 2020 by giving Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts significant sway over economic regulatory agencies. “Warren, to an extraordinary degree, was the gatekeeper for the administration about appointments,” William Kovacic, a former F.T.C. chair, told DealBook.” • Hmm.

* * *

“More than 160,000 people join white women for Kamala Harris Zoom call” (Reuters). “More than 160,000 people joined a Zoom call on Thursday night to build support for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris among white women, a voter demographic that has supported Republican nominee Donald Trump in the past two elections. Organized by Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun-safety group with about 10 million members, the video call included activists, podcasters, the singer Pink and regular voters, several who said they regretted not doing enough before the 2016 election that put Trump in the White House.” • One alert NC reader attended, and threw this over the transom. Lightly edited:

The White Women webinar format zoom call last night? Oiy!

Tapped out after 30 minutes. Not verbatim, but essentially, too much along the lines of ‘We KNOW we’re white women of privilege and comfort and satisfaction while our black sisters are left hurting. Suburban white women handed the WH to tRUMP and now it’s time for us to step up.’ Heavy group identity guilt politics statements by every white woman speaker that I hear, that said, Shannon Watts was pretty good as a speaker. More women kept coming on, technical glitches, knocked off the call several times due the massive audience. Not sure about total listeners and total raised. FFS, Glennon Doyle? Pink. So, for a younger audience. Ok, sigh. You need Taylor Swift for that.

Look, I don’t have life units to waste. Maybe there was some hard data and charts later, but they lost me fast…..

You know who did this stuff well? Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and the PAC they joined to get it done. I Zoomed into their effort to get abortion in the Ohio constitution. Every meeting was tight, solid, lots of information, charts, activity reporting-out on overall state stats, counties to focus on. Charts galore, bullet points about next steps. etc. Done in exactly an hour. Screens and screens of women watching. Tossed in bigly to a super focused razor sharp effort. Why? They showed me very clearly they were a wise investment in a larger team.

Anyway, one has a short window to get donors engaged on a Zoom. All the identity politics centered remarks were just tiresome and I clicked off. Billionaires and identity politics fans can fund it.

This is a fair reaction:

I could be wrong or just ignorant because white women have never been my focus.

But I don’t remember a “white women: answer the call” equivalent for Hillary. And there definitely wasn’t one with over 100K participants that raised over a million dollars.

Things are different. pic.twitter.com/0necTpgjlN

— April (@ReignOfApril) July 26, 2024

OTOH, if this is all #ImWithHer/#Resistance types….

Another reaction:

It’s all fun and games now, but a lot of the rhetoric on that call was about how white women needed to support Kamala as an act of self-actualisation for….white women. If she veers from their expectations for even one second, they will call her “ungrateful.” (Just like RBG said… pic.twitter.com/tJa1cgw7xc

— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) July 26, 2024

* * *

Kamala (D): “Project Coconut is a go” (FWIW). “And as of yesterday, the Vice President now has a personal account on TikTok, @KamalaHarris, which has already gained 1.4+ million followers and 2.1+ million likes at the time of writing. The DNC is also getting in on the online momentum and doing some brat-branding on new fundraising ads as well. Overall, the Harris campaign’s social accounts have gained a huge influx of followers – for example, data from InsTrack shows the Instagram account @KamalaHQ gaining 48,000+ since President Biden stepped aside last Sunday. Pro-Harris content also flooded TikTok. Politically attuned users across Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok began using the coconut emoji en masse, a reference to the most viral meme about the VP. “PROJECT COCONUT IS A GO,” commented one excited TikTok user. “WE RIDE AT DAWN, COCONUTS!” remarked another.” • Of course, social media numbers are never gamed. “WE RIDE AT DAWN, COCONUTS” is so Obama 2008 (“Fired up! Ready to go!”). But this is not 2008.

Kamala (D): “What’s fueling Kamala Harris’ TikTok surge” (Politico). “There’s a vibe shift brewing on TikTok: The platform, which had been dominated by pro-Trump content, has been exploding with Kamala Harris memes, many of which favorably highlight her quirky demeanor and tie her to the trendiest cool girl anthems. Even before President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race on Sunday, Harris memes created by TikTokers had dominated social media, flooding mostly young people’s feeds with video edits of her viral phrases, quirky tangents and “girl boss” moments — like this video of Harris laughing away, with a hint of the signature Gen-Z irony in the caption, which reads “Why did I make this.” These memes paint Harris, who has rarely been in the spotlight during the Biden administration, as a chill auntie — someone who could dish out advice that is both a little silly yet serious at the same time…. Harris’ campaign hasn’t wasted a moment in jumping on the meme momentum, and their efforts have paid off.” • Then of course–

Kamala (D): “TikTok’s Survival Is at Stake in All-Out Fight Against US Ban” (Bloomberg). “The Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok is battling a potential US ban with the signature tools of American democracy — lawyers, lobbyists and money. TikTok has deployed Washington power brokers and $1,500-an-hour attorneys to fend off a new law barring the app unless its Beijing-based parent, ByteDance Ltd., divests. With a $4.8 million ad campaign, a full-court press on Capitol Hill and the US Constitution, TikTok is in a multifront fight for its survival.” • So TikTok has every reason to be nice to the current administration, and Kamala. Not that I’m suggesting that the Tiktok recommendation algorithm is a black box that can be gamed, of course.

* * *

Kamala (D): “Family, Friends and Longtime Aides Dominate Harris’s Inner Circle” (Wall Street Journal). “(T)he expected Democratic presidential nominee has kept her inner circle tight. She has relied on her family members, close friends and longest serving aides to help navigate her career and policy decisions. Unlike President Biden, Harris, who was elected to the Senate from California in 2016, remains relatively new to Washington and is still building her political brain trust…. Harris’s family members have been her closest advisers. All of them, like her, have a legal background. Harris’s only sibling—her younger sister, Maya Harris—was chairwoman of her campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, which was seen as dysfunctional and with some blaming her. Maya Harris didn’t have a formal role at the White House and previously served as policy adviser to Hillary Clinton during her 2016 White House bid. Her brother-in-law, Tony West, was previously an associate attorney general during the Obama administration. West has traveled in recent days with the vice president to events, including a fundraiser on Saturday. West is chief legal officer for Uber. Harris also has a close relationship with her niece, Meena Harris, a lawyer and an author. Two days before Biden dropped out of the race, Harris visited the model Tyra Banks’s new ice cream shop in D.C. with Meena’s two daughters. Since their marriage in 2014, Doug Emhoff, Harris’s husband, an entertainment lawyer, has been her biggest public supporter.” • Other names: Rohini Kosoglu, Josh Hsu, Kristine Lucius, Ike Irby, Lorraine Volz, and Julie Chavez Rodriguez.

Kamala (D): “Team Kamala: the people behind Harris’s White House run” (FInancial Times). Wall Street: “Wall Street funds are pouring into Harris’s campaign. Jon Henes, a top corporate bankruptcy adviser, formerly of Kirkland & Ellis, and longtime Harris ally in finance, has been co-ordinating fundraising. Other leading Wall Street figures rushing to help include Ray McGuire, the Lazard banker and former Citigroup executive, and Brad Karp*, chair of corporate law firm Paul Weiss. Blair Effron, the veteran dealmaker at Centerview Partners and a fixture of Democratic fundraising, is also on board. So are Blackstone president Jonathan Gray, Evercore co-founder Roger Altman, and Marc Lasry, the hedge fund investor and former co-owner of NBA team the Milwaukee Bucks.

‘Many in Wall Street have been extremely supportive of Kamala for years,’ said a Democratic fundraiser. ‘Blair and Brad backed her hugely in the 2020 presidential primaries . . . they aren’t last minute supporters.’” Tech: “Reed Hastings, the chair of Netflix, had been among the Democratic donors openly pushing Biden to quit the race. He immediately pumped $7mn into Harris’s campaign after the president dropped out. Reid Hoffman, the venture capitalist who co-founded LinkedIn, also swiftly backed her bid for the White House.

Republicans have made inroads among Silicon Valley donors in recent years — but Harris has kept her allies. They include Brad Smith of Microsoft, who hosted a fundraiser for the Biden campaign at his Seattle home last year. Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer at Meta, is another prominent supporter.” NOTE * Brad Karp gave Alvin Bragg $1000.

* * *

Trump (R): “Trump campaign plays defense amid Harris honeymoon” (Axios). “Vice President Kamala Harris is reveling in record fundraising, an early bump in the polls, and a growing grassroots army. It’s a “honeymoon” of epic proportions — but one the Trump campaign is betting won’t last.” Because -gasms don’t last, by definition. Here’s a great example: “‘It was the first time we’ve had an Obama-like moment, a feeling where it was pure and it was good, and people were doing things bigger than themselves,’ Silicon Valley fundraiser Steve Spinner told the New York Times.” • I would like to see more defense of Vance, who after giving an economic populist speech at the Republican National Convention, has been drowning in a wave of snark (at least on my Twitter feed). Commentary:

Trump is so lost and weakened right now. He sounds like Bob Dole in 1996, except mean. Very normie GOP. Really missing Steve Bannon’s populist strategies.

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 26, 2024

Does Trump in fact look “lost and weakened”? Can readers comment?

Trump (R): “Unpacking JD Vance’s Labor Record” (On Labor). “Despite his claimed support for workers’ right to organize, Vance’s voting record on labor issues has rarely been supportive of worker power or voice. Instead of backing popular pro-worker bills and nominees, Vance has advanced watered-down legislation that could weaken labor protections. Vance told Politico that he is not in favor of the PRO Act, which would outlaw the right-to-work laws Vance claims to oppose. His opposition to this legislation is rooted in his belief that it would serve only to empower ‘current union leadership… that’s completely in bed with the Democratic Party.’ Vance has instead supported other labor law reforms that are decidedly less popular within the labor movement. Vance partnered with Republican senator Marco Rubio on the Teamwork for Employees and Managers Act of 2024 (TEAM Act), which claims to improve worker voice by relaxing the NLRA’s ban on company unions and promoting ’employee involvement organizations.’ Unlike unions, these organizations may be funded and dissolved unilaterally by employers. The TEAM Act draws heavily on recommendations by American Compass, run by former Mitt Romney advisor Oren Cass. American Compass advocates for the TEAM Act and worker-management councils, which Cass claims could strengthen ‘worker-management trust,’ while unions like the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers have decried the bill as promoting ‘company unions’ and allowing new avenues for employers to hold off unionization.

Trump (R): “Speculation Swirls About What Hit Trump. An Analysis Suggests It was a Bullet” (New York Times). “(A) detailed analysis of bullet trajectories, footage, photos and audio by The New York Times strongly suggests Mr. Trump was grazed by the first of eight bullets fired by the gunman… A key piece of evidence in The Times’s analysis is a live video feed that captures Mr. Trump’s reaction as the first three gunshots are fired. The crack of the bullets are heard as they pass the microphone that Mr. Trump speaks into. Almost a second elapses between the first and second shots. During this brief interim, Mr. Trump starts reaching toward his ear, according to footage and audio of the event analyzed by The Times and Rob Maher, an audio forensics expert at Montana State University. ‘He flinches, and his right hand already starts reaching for his right ear during that time between the first audible shot and the second audible shot,’ Mr. Maher said.

Mr. Trump’s fingers are bloodied as soon as he touches his ear, as seen in a picture taken by Doug Mills, a veteran Times photographer.” • Notice the lack of agency in “speculation swirls.”

* * *

“Forget the Hype: It’s Still a Working-Class Election” (Ruy Teixiera, The Liberal Patriot). “Who can blame Democrats for being a bit slap happy? They were staring into the abyss and now have a reprieve. They have a younger candidate and a more enthusiastic, unified party. Those are important and positive differences. But there are also similarities to their previous situation that are highly negative and can’t be wished away…. These double digit Democratic deficits among the working class have been a regular feature of this election cycle. These deficits have been driven by worsening performance among the white working class…. Can she do it? Sure, anything’s possible. But Democrats would be well-advised to be clear-eyed about the challenge. What Harris has to overcome is illustrated by an early July Pew poll that had a large enough sample size (N=over 9,400) to allow blacks and Hispanics to be broken down by working-class vs. college-educated. Both racial groups show strong educational polarization that is much larger than what was observed in 2020. Hispanic working-class voters in this poll preferred Trump by 3 points over Biden, compared to a 22 point margin for Biden over Trump in 2020. Among black working-class voters, Biden was leading by 47 points over Trump, compared to an 82 point lead for Biden in 2020. A working class-oriented campaign would appear to be in order. But so far there is little indication that is what the Harris campaign has in mind. A widely-circulated memo from the campaign sees Harris’ candidacy as building on the “Biden-Harris coalition of voters” and mentions black voters, Latino voters, AANHPI voters, women voters and young voters. Working-class voters are conspicuous by their absence.” • If this is a working class election, then the Democrats cannot win — unless (I hope this is clear) the Republicans lose if for them. Hence the online assault on Vance.

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 (dashboard); 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, 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!

Social Norming

“Pandemic disbelief identified as key factor in vaccine hesitancy” (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy). N = 290. “A new study among Hispanic people in the United States suggests that an initial disbelief in the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to vaccine hesitancy among that population, especially among parents making vaccine decisions for their children. The study is published in PLOS One. … Overall, there was high vaccine uptake in the sample, with 88% of parents and 80% of youth receiving at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Most notable, however, was the role of youth pandemic disbelief (belief the pandemic was a conspiracy or not real) in vaccine hesitancy: In addition to youths’ pandemic disbelief predicting their own vaccine hesitancy, the authors wrote, it also predicted their parents’ vaccine hesitancy. ‘Parents are often thought of as the key decision maker for children under the age of 18, and although the final decision may rest with them, our findings suggest that their child’s perspective, particularly around disbelief, may be part of this decision-making process,’ the authors concluded.” • Perhaps the children read English-language media?

Lambert here: New York Hospitalization leveling out for two days, and Cleveland Clinic positivity slowing is the first good news I’ve seen in some time.

Inflation: “United States PCE Price Index Annual Change” (Trading Economics). “The annual PCE inflation rate in the US decreased to 2.5% in June 2024 from 2.6% in May, in line with market forecasts.”

Tech: “There is no fix for Intel’s crashing 13th and 14th Gen CPUs — any damage is permanent” (The Verge). “On Monday, it initially seemed like the beginning of the end for Intel’s desktop CPU instability woes — the company confirmed a patch is coming in mid-August that should address the ‘root cause’ of exposure to elevated voltage. But if your 13th or 14th Gen Intel Core processor is already crashing, that patch apparently won’t fix it. Citing unnamed sources, Tom’s Hardware reports that any degradation of the processor is irreversible, and an Intel spokesperson did not deny that when we asked. Intel is ‘confident’ the patch will keep it from happening in the first place. (As another preventative measure, you should update your motherboard BIOS ASAP.) But instead of tweaking BIOS settings to try and alleviate the problems…. This raises lots of questions. Will Intel recall these chips? Extend their warranty? Replace them no questions asked? Pause sales like AMD just did with its Ryzen 9000? Identify faulty batches with the manufacturing defect? We asked Intel these questions, and I’m not sure you’re going to like the answers. Why are these still on sale without so much as an extended warranty? . The company is not currently commenting on whether or how it might extend its warranty. It would not share estimates with The Verge of how many chips are likely to be irreversibly impacted, and it did not explain why it’s continuing to sell these chips ahead of any fix.” • First Boeing, now Intel.

Tech: “OopsGPT” (The Atlantic). “(AI scammers companies) tend not to point out that generative-AI models are prone to providing incorrect, and at times fully made-up, information—and yet it keeps happening. Early this afternoon, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, announced a prototype AI tool that can search the web and answer questions, fittingly called SearchGPT… In a prerecorded demonstration video accompanying the announcement, a mock user types music festivals in boone north carolina in august into the SearchGPT interface. The tool then pulls up a list of festivals that it states are taking place in Boone this August, the first being An Appalachian Summer Festival, which according to the tool is hosting a series of arts events from July 29 to August 16 of this year. Someone in Boone hoping to buy tickets to one of those concerts, however, would run into trouble. In fact, the festival started on June 29 and will have its final concert on July 27. Instead, July 29–August 16 are the dates for which the festival’s box office will be officially closed. (I confirmed these dates with the festival’s box office.)” • in the demo. Are these people high?

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 46 Neutral (previous close: 39 Fear) (CNN). One week ago: 49 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 26 at 1:51:49 PM ET.

Permaculture

This doesn’t solve the world’s problems. But solves problems for these insects, and for you:

Health

“Age and familiarity effects on musical memory” (PLOS One). “This study explored the effects of age, familiarity on a recognition memory task for new music in a live concert and lab setting. Overall, we find no main effect of age when tasked with recognizing a theme in a piece of music, nor any significant interaction of age with familiarity, setting or musical training…. This study further supports the use of music in particular as a medium for cognitive maintenance and training in older adults by offering evidence that recognition memory is not affected by age in a realistic listening situation. Accordingly, music recognition could be considered a strength, onto which other aspects of memory could be scaffolded in a rehabilitation setting. For example, it may be easier to remember something if you pair a melody with it. In fact, this idea is not new. Throughout history songs have been used to transmit information orally between generations.” • Hmmm.

The Gallery

Arrangement in pink, gold, and black:

Zeitgeist Watch

“The Origin & Evolution of Italian Stuffed Pasta Shapes” (Kottke.org). “Our results showed that, with the exception of the Sardinian Culurgiones, all the other pasta ripiena from Italy likely had a single origin in the northern parts of the country. Based on the proposed evolutionary hypothesis, the Italian pasta are divided into two main clades: a ravioli clade mainly characterized by a more or less flat shape, and a tortellini clade mainly characterized by a three-dimensional shape.” • Handy diagram of the pasta clades:

News of the Wired

“Lewis H. Lapham” (Harper’s). “In 1984, Lapham introduced the iconic Harper’s Index, Readings, and the Annotation, journalistic forms that recognized the time constraints modern readers faced amid the flood of information in the electronic age. This redesign remains the foundation of the magazine to this day, and Lapham’s editorial sensibility continues to guide our work.” • Even though Lapham’s name isn’t on any of these forms, nonetheless they will live on. Editors forever!

“Bible Study And The Oxford Comma” (Future Lawyer). “Another Oxford Comma fail. Educate your children about the Bible; but do it properly.”

Dad.

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 TH:

TH writes: “I struggle with telling the difference between a wild sunflower and a black-eyed susan, so I looked it up. I’m sure you already know, so feel free to call this whatever you like, but I’m pretty sure, based on the leaves, mostly, that this is a black-eyed susan.” Readers? I think it is too, but are there signs to look for?

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals: