By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Hen Track of the Day

Blue Mockingbird, Yecora, Km 261, Sonora, Mexico. I assumed I’d strive one other species of mockingbird.

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In Case You Would possibly Miss…

(1) Kamala’s VP search (Walz; Raimondo a darkish horse).

(2) Kamala on crypto.

(3) Trump on crypto (and NFTs).

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Politics

“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in actual fact a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

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2024

Lower than 100 days 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:


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Biden Defenestration:

“Leaving Las Vegas” (excerpt) [Seymour Hersh]. “It’s not surprising that the long overdue unraveling of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign happened when it became impossible to keep his increasing impairment covered up. It was the big-time money backers of the Democratic Party who called off the game of see no evil, hear no evil, after Biden’s shocking performance in his June debate with Donald Trump. They balked at continuing to give millions of dollars to the party now that there was evidence that the president is not always there.” • At which point the excerpt ends, having said nothing especially incisive or new, disappointingly. Or sourced, for that matter. Here an excerpt from a Tweet:

We speculated final week that the TwentyFifth Modification was Pelosi’s “onerous method”; what Hersh, or somewhat his official(s?) add is that Obama held the dagger, not Pelosi, and that the (presumed) medical occasion described on this Day by day Mail piece (“Biden was deathly pale“) was the ultimate straw for the Internal Celebration. Extra right here–

“Seymour Hersh: Obama and Kamala threatened to invoke the twenty fifth Modification on Biden earlier than he dropped out” [Post Millennial]. Hate to make use of this supply, however right here we’re: “‘It was clear at this level,’ , per Hersch [sic,] ‘that she would get the nod’—that’s, the assist to run for the presidency within the November election. ‘However Obama additionally made it clear,’ the official stated, ‘that he was not going to instantly endorse her. However the group [the Big Three: Pelosi, Schumer, Obama] had determined that her work as a prosecutor would assist her take care of Trump in a debate.’” We’ll see how that goes. “The official, who has a long time of expertise in fundraising, informed me that Obama emerged because the strongman all through the negotiations. ‘He had an agenda and he wished to hunt it [sic] via to the tip, and he wished to have management over who can be elected.’” Observe that to date we’re single-sourced, although I haven’t learn the entire piece. It could be attention-grabbing to know what agenda Obama really had, and what his objective for delaying his and Michelle’s endorsement was.

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“Final Tango in Washington: how unhappy, sidelined Joe Biden could but have the final snigger” [Simon Tisdale, Guardian]. “In November 1992, after dropping to Invoice Clinton, George HW Bush discovered himself in an identical place, though he had solely two months left in workplace. Like Biden, Bush was a overseas coverage nerd, and the president, not Congress, directs overseas coverage. So, as a result of he thought it was the appropriate factor to do – however principally as a result of he might – Bush, to widespread amazement, invaded Somalia.” • Nicely, that’s reassuring.

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The Marketing campaign Path:

The VP search:

Kamala (D): “May Josh Shapiro win Kamala Harris the Electoral School?” [Nate Silver, Silver Bulletin]. About his mannequin: “[W]e’ve came upon three issues, all of which lower in opposition to the speculation {that a} veep alternative makes all that a lot distinction: House-state results are solely about one-quarter as giant for the VP decide than for the presidential nominee. House-state results are roughly inversely proportional to the variety of electoral votes in a state. In different phrases, a VP alternative could make a small distinction in a big state or a comparatively giant distinction in a small state (say, Sarah Palin in Alaska or Biden in Delaware). I believe this is sensible intuitively; in a smaller state, a politician is extra prone to really feel as if he’s out of your proverbial yard. And residential-state results have in all probability diminished over time as partisanship dominates all different concerns.” • So, in all probability not.

Kamala (D): “Why Kamala Harris ought to decide Tim Walz as her operating mate” [Guardian]. “I’ll be sincere: final month, I’d have struggled to choose Walz out of a lineup. This month? I’m Walz-pilled. I’ve watched dozens of his interviews and clips. And I’m removed from alone. He has a military of latest followers throughout the liberal-left: from former Bernie Sanders 2020 marketing campaign co-chair Nina Turner, to one-time Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke, to gun-control activist David Hogg. ‘In lower than 6 days, I went from not understanding who Tim Walz is,’ joked author Travis Helwig on X, ‘to deep down believing that if he doesn’t get the VP nod I’ll storm the capitol.’ Based on Bloomberg, the Harris marketing campaign has narrowed down its “prime tier” of potential operating mates to a few “white man” candidates: Walz (hurrah!), plus the Arizona senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. Each Kelly and Shapiro have their strengths – and each characterize must-win states for the Dems. Permit me, nevertheless, to make the clear case for Walz.” • Or simply watch this video:

Report from the sphere:

The coveted Derek Man endorsment:

Minnesota readers will in fact make clear his observe report and proper any sunny optimism:

Why the heck isn’t this man on the subject of the ticket? One cause the Democrats by no means held something resembling an open main, I suppose….

Then once more, there’s two-and-twenty Gina:

Nonetheless, the liberalgasm if there have been two ladies on the ticket can be a sight to behold…

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Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris marketing campaign seeks ‘reset’ with crypto corporations” [Financial Times]. “Kamala Harris’s advisers have approached top crypto companies to “reset” relations between her Democratic party and a sector that has come out as an important backer of Donald Trump, her rival for the US presidency.” And: “People advising the Harris campaign on business matters said the decision to reconnect with the crypto industry had little to do with attracting new electoral contributions. They said the objective was instead to build a constructive relationship that would ultimately set a smart regulatory framework that would help the growth of the entire asset class.” BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA! Totes, a party needs to retain its self-respect. More: “One person said her campaign was using the change of leadership on the Democratic ticket as an opportunity to reset relations with the tech industry, which had felt targeted by the Biden administration, particularly on antitrust matters.” So, measuring Lina Khan for the drop? More: “The underlying message Harris wants to strike is that the Democrats are ‘pro-business, responsible business’, said one person close to her campaign. Harris is aiming to win back those in the tech community, many of them in her home state of California, who have turned away from the party in protest at the threat of new taxes or regulation of their industry.” • So backing crypto billionaires is the way to signal “responsible business.” If Kamala does pick Raimondo, that will be wonderfully clarifying.

Kamala (D): “Harris scrambles Trump’s crypto play” [Politico]. “Ron Conway, a venture capitalist and top Democratic donor whose firm has invested in crypto companies, posted on X this week that he has ‘known Kamala for decades, and she’s been a fighter, a leader, and an advocate for the tech ecosystem since the day we met.’ Harris is broadly expected to run on the Biden administration’s record, and speculation about her position on crypto could be a projection. But before Biden dropped out of the race, his camp appeared to be taking a more open-minded approach to crypto concerns, with senior adviser Anita Dunn meeting with industry leaders in Washington.” • “Broadly” is doing a lot of work,there.

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Trump (R): “Trump proposes strategic national crypto stockpile: ‘Never sell your bitcoin’” [CNBC]. “Donald Trump headlined the biggest bitcoin conference of the year in Nashville on Saturday afternoon. It’s quite the 180-turn after he very publicly dismissed bitcoin when he was in the White House. The Republican presidential nominee also held an accompanying fundraiser in Nashville, with tickets topping out at $844,600. Bitcoin 2024 conference organizers say they were briefly in talks to have Vice President Kamala Harris appear at the conference, though she ultimately declined.” • No.

Trump (R): “Trump Became Crypto Believer After Falling in Love With NFTs of Himself” [Bloomberg]. “”I pledge to the Bitcoin community that the day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris’s anti-crypto crusade, it will end,” Trump told the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville on Saturday, comparing crypto to the steel industry a century ago. “If Bitcoin is going to the moon,” he added, ‘I want America to be the nation that leads the way.’…. Conventional wisdom has it that this gambit is simply a classic Trumpian transactional relationship. He needs votes and money in a presidential horse race that now looks like it’ll be a photo finish, and he’s exploiting an opening created when President Joe Biden’s administration alienated the crypto crowd by pursuing a crackdown on the industry. If so, it’s working. Crypto is an ecosystem whose public face is dominated by online warriors with a lot of money to throw around, fertile ground for Trump to reap tens of millions of dollars in campaign funds — and a burgeoning army of vocal fans. His newfound role as cheerleader for the industry helped land him support from the likes of Dogecoin aficionado Elon Musk and billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss as well as venture-capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz…. Yet despite all the newfound support he is enjoying, there is something else that played an important role in Trump’s conversion to crypto believer: flattering images of himself. Simply put, he fell in love with Trump-themed nonfungible-tokens — and the supporters who bought them — and that passion has turned into a broader appreciation for the industry, according to insiders who have watched Trump’s crypto evolution. Trump’s lingering questions about valuations of digital assets haven’t slowed his NFT sales pitch, which was clear in May as he riffed off-script to a Mar-a-Lago gathering of supporters who had purchased at least 47 of the digital trading cards — pop-art renderings of the former president, including images of him dressed up like a cowboy, a superhero and other figures of fantasy. ” • Whatever crypto is, it’s not like the steel industry. I see a lot of Carnegie libraries. I don’t see any Winkelvoss libraries.

Trump (R): “The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” [Eschatonblog]. “There is something almost too perfect about the demand from The Bitcoin Community for the federal government to buy up hundreds of billions of their libertarian fake money. every time.” • “Gimmetarianism” is an excellent example of snark. I bow before the master.

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“Report shows 73% of crypto owners’ vote for US president to be affected by candidate’s stance” [Anadolu Agency]. “Almost three in four cryptocurrency owners say their vote for US president in November will be affected by a candidate’s crypto stance, according to a report that was released Friday. ‘For the first time in United States history, crypto has become a significant campaign issue in a presidential election,’ US-based crypto exchange and custodian bank firm Gemini said in its 2024 State of Crypto survey. It showed that more than one in five Americans, or 21%, currently own cryptocurrency, and among those who own, the vast majority, or 73%, plan to consider a candidate’s stance on cryptocurrencies when they vote for the next president. More than one-third, or 37%, said a candidate’s position on cryptocurrencies would have ‘a significant impact’ on their vote for president.” • Unless Gemini is talking its book, of course.

Fraud all the way down:

Democrats en Déshabillé

Centrist freaks:

Syndemics

“I’m in earnest — I cannot equivocate — I cannot excuse — I cannot retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

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Covid Sources, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; consists of many counties; Wastewater Scan, consists of drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide knowledge). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Normal Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).

Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be at liberty to contact me on the handle given with the crops. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!

Sources, United States (Native): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater experiences); 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).

Sources, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).

Sources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tricks to useful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, sq. coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Keep secure on the market!

Maskstravaganza

This one neat trick shuts down anti-maskers:

“Recyclable Grownup 3D Face Masks with KN95 Safety KF94 Type” [Vida (Carla)]. • Colours, together with black, but additionally

Elite Maleficence

“Why Covid Retains Profitable” [Gregg Gonsalves and Walker Bragman, The Nation]. Happy to see these two authors collectively. The deck: “We didn’t be taught a factor.” Nope. Extra: “However Covid revisionism isn’t just a right-wing phenomenon. It’s gone mainstream. The embrace of this dangerous hindsight has been quick and livid by a few of the most revered legacy media shops within the nation. These publications have churned out piece after piece suggesting we did effectively in our response to the virus; we overreacted to the virus on the expense of kids’s futures; we want a reckoning with lockdowns; we should embrace the ‘lab leak‘ origin of SARS-CoV-2 regardless of the preponderance of proof supporting a zoonotic origin of the virus. They’ve even gotten on the Fauci-bashing bandwagon of the far proper, blaming him for the collapse in belief in public well being.” Fauci actually helped. Extra: “All of that is ridiculous. As President Biden’s current bout with Covid demonstrates, we’re nowhere close to being out of the woods with the pandemic—and that’s exactly as a result of we did not overreact to it. Fairly the other, in actual fact. In comparison with our G7 friends, america did terribly. The federal response was extraordinarily restricted, and folks died and are nonetheless dying due to it. This 12 months alone, in keeping with the CDC, almost 26,000 Individuals have died from the virus. Our nation by no means made the requisite investments in clear air upgrades for buildings. Regardless of botching our vaccination campaigns, we’ve got refused to impose common Covid security guidelines for workplaces. Though one of many earliest suggestions from the World Well being Group was to take away monetary limitations to care, our nation nonetheless doesn’t have a common healthcare system. We have now even watched tens of millions of Individuals get stripped from the Medicaid rolls, whereas 10 states nonetheless refuse to broaden Medicaid eligibility. In the meantime lower than half of states have assured paid medical depart. These are necessary tales to inform time and again. They characterize vital failures of management throughout the aisle. We can’t humanely transfer on from the pandemic with out making primary modifications to adapt to life with Covid. That we’re anticipated to is an abdication of accountability by elected officers, who’re seemingly prepared to jot down off the well being and security of our society’s most weak as a value of doing enterprise.” • “Seemingly”?

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TABLE 1: Day by day Covid Charts

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new at present; all others usually are not up to date.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution picture, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Home windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open picture in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with sizzling spots annotated. Retains spreading.

[2] (CDC) Final week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* extremely popular.

[4] (ER) Value noting Emergency Division use is now on a par with the primary wave, in 2020.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveling off. Doesn’t must be a everlasting factor, in fact. (The NY city space has type; in 2020, as the house of two worldwide airports (JFK and EWR) it was an necessary entry level for the virus into the nation (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, because the wealthy sought to flee, after which across the nation via air journey.)

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what’s, in proportion phrases, a major enhance.

[7] (Walgreens) An optimist would see a peak.

[8] (Cleveland) Slowing

[9] (Vacationers: Positivity) Up. These sh*theads at CDC have modified the chart in order that it doesn’t even run again to 1/21/23, because it used to, however now begins 1/1/24. There’s additionally no strategy to modify the time rasnge. CDC actually doesn’t need you to have the ability to take a historic view of the pandemic, or evaluate one surge to a different. In an any case, that’s why the form of the curve has modified.

[10] (Vacationers: Variants) Similar deal. These sh*theads.

[11] Deaths low, however positivity up.

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Federal Reserve Financial institution of Dallas’ normal enterprise exercise index for manufacturing in Texas fell to -17.5 in July of 2024 from -15.1 within the earlier month. It prolonged the unfavorable momentum in Southern manufacturing with over two consecutive years of contractionary month-to-month readings.”

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At the moment’s Concern & Greed Index: 47 Impartial (earlier shut: 45 Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 56 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jul 29 at 1:45:57 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes down one on Earthquakes. “The shortage of exercise has downgraded this class” [Rapture Ready]. Document Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 183. (Do not forget that bringing on the Rapture is sweet.) • Exhausting to consider the Rapture Index goes down. The place are there individuals getting their information?!

Sports activities Desk

“You in all probability know the beginning of this Olympic story, however have you learnt the way it completed?” [Aaron Smith, ThreadReader]. “This picture is of Eric Moussambani, aka ‘Eric the Eel’ from Equatorial Guinea, competing within the 100m Freestyle occasion on the Sydney 2000 Olympics, alone. Why? Eric’s warmth began with 2 different rivals; one from Niger and the opposite from Tajikistan. Eric’s rivals nevertheless each broke, and had been disqualified, leaving him to swim this occasion alone. Eric hadn’t accomplished a full size of a 50m pool earlier than, however he dived in anyway. It appeared like he wasn’t going to make the gap. Touching a lane rope would’ve been computerized disqualification. He accomplished in 1:52.72, the slowest time in Olympic Historical past, and for comparability, 47 seconds slower than I did just lately, in my late 40s. Keep in mind these occasions. Why was Eric there? The IOC’s wild card technique aimed to spice up sports activities in creating nations like Equatorial Guinea. Eric heard the decision for swimmers on the radio, and since he was the one one to point out up, he made the workforce! The one subject was, Eric couldn’t swim. So a number of months out from the video games, Eric began his coaching, partly with the help of fisherman in a lake. He was additionally given entry to a 12M lengthy resort pool for as much as 1hr, thrice every week. Equatorial Guinea had no 50m swimming pools. When Eric turned as much as Sydney, and swam in a 50M pool for the primary time, he couldn’t have been much less ready. The blue speedos he raced in got to him by the South African swimming coach simply previous to his race, who observed Eric coaching in shorts. What occurred subsequent?” • Learn the entire thing, it’s nice. Be like Eric the Eel!

The Gallery

Trend week?

Zeitgeist Watch

“Past authenticity” [Aeon]. The deck: “In her last unfinished work, Hannah Arendt mounted an incisive critique of the concept we’re searching for our true selves.” “If the inauthentic self is the on a regular basis self, the one among the many many, the genuine self is the self that has damaged away from the herd; it’s the self that exists for the self alone. To step out of the movement of on a regular basis life is an distinctive incidence. Frequent knowledge stipulates that ‘We’re what we do’ or ‘We’re the sum complete of our actions.’ Every alternative shapes the long run path we discover ourselves on, and sometimes we step again and may see the entire image of ourselves, how we received to the place we’re. However for [Nazi philosopher Martin] Heidegger we’re most totally ourselves solely in these moments of exception, in that clearing of Being once we’ve left the well-worn path carved out by on a regular basis routine altogether. The German phrase he makes use of for authenticity is Eigentlichkeit, which is outlined as ‘actually’ or ‘actually’. Eigen means ‘peculiar’, and ‘personal’ or ‘of 1’s personal’. Actually, it could be translated as possessing the standard of being actually for oneself. … By arguing that considering was a perform of Being, Heidegger had tried to divorce considering from the desire as a way to argue that it was one’s true internal Being that decided finally who they turned on the planet. However for Arendt, this was an abdication of private accountability and selection. It was a method of handing over one’s decision-making energy… [F]or Arendt, the desire was the means to our freedom, it was the promise that we are able to all the time be aside from we’re, and so to the world. The need is an area of stress contained in the self the place one actively feels the distinction between the place they’re and the place they wish to be. The need is the one intervention we’ve got in opposition to the conditioning of worldly existence. Keen is the psychological exercise that goes on between considering and judgment. It has the facility to form us by drawing us into battle with ourselves. With out internal battle, there is no such thing as a ahead motion. These are the essential rules of prepared.” • Hmm. Unsure I excerpted this correctly in any respect.

“Staying human” [When we are Real]. “[W]hat began as an grownup male sexual fetish morphed into the development of artificial intercourse identities from manipulated physique elements, and is resulting in a transhumanist dystopia the place replica is synthetic, life is prolonged, and people develop into melded with machines. This, [Bilek] exhibits, isn’t an natural improvement, however the deliberate end result of an business that requires acceptance of dissociation from our our bodies as regular. ”

Information of the Wired

On “clever design”:


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Contact info for crops: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a examine in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me photographs of crops. Greens are fantastic! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! If you’d like your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it in the beginning of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From DG:

DG writes: “Weeds and an outdated stump encroaching on the ruins of an outdated DC aqueduct.” As readers know, I’m a fan of stumps, notably rotted ones.

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