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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Cozumel Thrasher, San Miguel; Isla Cozumel, Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico “Breeding status: Territorial. Other Behaviors: Advertise. Habitat: Forest, Evergreen Forest, Deciduous Forest, Second-growth, Scrub.” This is great!
(I had originally thought to pair this species with skateboarding thrashers, but I can’t find any videos that aren’t either corporate or influencer-ish. Oh well.)
* * *
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
Biden Administration
2024
I guess it’s time for the Countdown Clock!
* * *
Holy moley, this is epic. A must-listen:
Ep. 3 America’s principles are at stake pic.twitter.com/eJNSUVvvqY
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 13, 2023
The key passage:
We can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. here it is it’s from the Republican candidates debate in Greenville South Carolina:
[TRUMP:] “We should have never been in Iraq; we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, okay. They said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none there were no weapons of mass destruction.”
We should never have been in Iraq, Trump said. We destabilized the Middle East. Now by the time Trump said that a lot of Republican primary voters were starting to reach the same conclusion; how could they not. But it was the next line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest. “They lied” he said, “there were no weapons of mass destruction” and they knew there were none.
Now when he said that a few in the crowd booed, most just sat there in silenced stunned. Can he say that? Well he said it anyway and by saying that he sealed his fate. That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides, which on this topic is really just one side.
Hillary Clinton was guilty of it, but so was Paul Ryan. All of them were guilty; they all knew, they all lied, and to a person they hated Donald Trump for exposing them.
After that it was pretty clear that even if he did get elected president Trump was going to have a very hard time controlling the federal government he was supposed to be in charge of. Most of permanent Washington decided that thwarting Trump was the single most important mission in their lives.
So Trump is this guy:
The guy who threw shoes at Bush. Except Trump threw his shoes at everyone who works “for government” in uber-Blue Fairfax, Virginia, plus every spook and eight-star general that makes bank on the teebee, plus every “access” journalist on the national security beat, and let’s not forget the military industrial complex and its Mighty Rice Bowl. Or the squillionaires with arms dealers in their portfolios, who doubtless phoned the family office from poolside when they saw the clip and said “deal with the matter” followed by “No, I don’t care how.”
“Trump raised $2 million hours after arraignment” [Politico]. “The campaign raised $2.04 million during a “candlelight dinner” with top donors and campaign bundlers, according to a person familiar with the campaign. Trump gave brief remarks to his supporters and was seated at a table with donors and supporters that included Sen. Tommy Tuberville, (R-Ala.), according to an attendee. While Trump’s campaign has mostly relied on small dollar, grassroots donors, the fundraiser — which had a goal of raising around $2 million — demonstrates how Trump has still been able to rely on deep pocketed supporters to fill his campaign coffers even amid his legal troubles. The campaign has not yet released information on how much money Trump raised in the aftermath of his indictment, but it planned to make those numbers public following attention for his arraignment and a wave of fundraising pleas from his campaign.” • Single-sourced, but… “They” never had to arrest Sanders, did they….
“The Trump Prosecution by the Numbers: 90, 70, 12, 1” [Jonathan Turley]. On “1”: “For Trump, his team must run the table on all of the 37 counts. As a man who will turn 77 years old on Wednesday, Trump cannot allow for a single count to survive because the charges come with a potential of 10-12 years in prison. … The number 1 also is looming for Jack Smith. Just as Donald Trump cannot lose a single count, Smith cannot lose a single juror without facing a hung jury.” • Well worth a read.
“CBS News poll analysis: GOP primary voters still see Trump as best shot against Biden” [CBS]. “Former President Donald Trump is Republicans’ top choice for a presidential nominee, not only because they like what he did as president, but also because they think he can win. Despite questions about his electability, they still see him as their best shot to defeat President Joe Biden. And views of electability depend on what voters prefer in a nominee: appealing to Americans in the middle or turning out the base. Despite Trump’s multiple indictments, six in 10 Republican primary voters say he would ‘definitely’ beat Mr. Biden in a 2024 general-election rematch. And comparing data collected before and after federal charges were unsealed, the new indictment has not put a dent into this number — at least not yet.” • Well, I’ve gotta say: I doubt very much that my views of Trump map well to the views of the average Republican voters. But Trump: (1) Got rid of TPP in his first days in office, and (2) his administration put an enormous dent in poverty with the CARES Act, (3) implemented Operation Warp Speed, and (4) didn’t get us involved in a major ground war (Ukraine) and tried to get us out of one (Syria). Also (5) Trump saved me $600 by abolishing the tax penalty that was the ObamaCare mandate. Meanwhile, Biden owes me $600. All in all, Trump’s record stacks up against Biden’s, Obama’s, Bush’s, and is arguably better than Clinton’s, simply because Clinton did so much raw evil. Do I want to have a beer with Trump? No. Do I like solid gold Louis Quinze bathroom taps? No. Is Trump careless, mouthy, undisciplined, and crooked? Yes. And?
“No Labels likely to back off third party bid if DeSantis emerges as GOP nominee” [Politico]. • Grifters gotta grift.
* * *
RFK on Snowden and Assange:
RFK JR:
“I would put a statue of Snowden in Washington… Assange I’m going to pardon on Day 1.” pic.twitter.com/7wLiRGDSfK
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) June 13, 2023
Good! Let’s see if RFK’s polling numbers hold up.
RFK on RussiaGate:
.@RobertKennedyJr explains why he changed his mind on Russiagate—and how that hoax was critical to the breakdown of US-Russia relations:
“Now I see that as the runway to the Ukraine War… that we were being propagandized to see the Russians as an existential enemy.” pic.twitter.com/7br6za9t0c
— System Update (@SystemUpdate_) June 12, 2023
Good!
I’m so old I remember when liberal Democrat comedy was actually funny:
When I become president, I vow to ARREST Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, and Klaus Schwab for crimes against humanity!
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Parody) (@basedRFKJr) June 7, 2023
No, but seriously, Bill Gates? Windows ME was bad, but was it “crimes against humanity” bad?
Nice platform, but what (see above) about Ukraine?
Yes, I support Marianne Williamson @marwilliamson for President — and here’s why 👇🏼👇🏽👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/K7AVNhS4a7
— Harvey J Kaye (@harveyjkaye) June 14, 2023
Cornel West goes Green:
The Green Party welcomes Dr. Cornel West as a candidate seeking the party’s nomination for president. Dr. West is an important voice for social and economic justice in line with our party’s platform. We look forward to him participating in the nomination process. @CornelWest
— Green Party US 🌻 (@GreenPartyUS) June 14, 2023
I’m not sure whether this is a People’s Party/Green Party unity ticket, or West solving his Nick Brana problem by throwing the People’s Party under the very small bus that is all it would take, or whether he’s trying to solve his ballot access problem, assuming the GP nominates him. (Long-time readers will recall that my experience with the Maine Green Party was excruciating; the logo we see in the GP tweet, professionally designed for good or ill, and delivered with a complete graphic, er, identity, was the source of long-running controversy, with some local groupuscules refusing to adopt it, etc., etc. Maybe things have improved now.)
* * *
Republican Funhouse
“Trump Allies Take Out Anger on FBI Headquarters Project” [Wall Street Journal]. “In recent days, some House Republicans have begun coalescing around a plan to eliminate funding for a new FBI headquarters in response to the bureau’s role in the indictment, the most clearly defined piece of a multipronged attack on the Justice Department. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) has expressed support for the idea of scuttling the project. ‘It sends a message to the FBI that they have to act more responsibly if they want us to spend over a billion dollars, way over a billion dollars,’ said Rep. Andy Harris (R., Md.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee. Democrats condemned Republicans for threatening to derail the long-awaited project. Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it would be ‘an enormous slap in the face of the literally thousands of FBI employees who work to protect the country.’” • That’s a damn shame, although it restores my faith in humanity to encounter an elected who thinks a billion dollars is still real money.
Our Famously Free Press
“Was Tucker Carlson’s New Twitter Show Actually Watched By 114 Million People?” [Mediaite]. “[T]here is little comparison between tweet views and cable news ratings. First, let’s start with Carlson’s new Twitter show. Did one third of the United States watch Carlson’s first episode? Not exactly. Musk has made a big push to show off the ‘tweet view’ metric of posts on his platform, adding it to the interface. Now you can see how many people have viewed each tweet on the site. Last month, he hid the ‘video view’ metric, which showed how many people watched a video on Twitter. Even the video view metric was pretty flimsy: according to Twitter, if you watch a video for two seconds, with only half the video player in-view, you count as one video view. The tweet view metric is even less valuable. It merely counts how many people viewed the tweet, so if you scrolled past Carlson’s video on Twitter, you counted as one of the 114 million…. As Steve Hasker, the former president of Nielsen who now serves as CEO of Thomson Reuters, explained in 2015: ‘In TV, the standard measurement unit for viewership is the average-minute audience — how many viewers there are in an average minute of content. In the digital space, on the other hand, video measurement is commonly expressed as the gross number of times the video is viewed, even if only for one minute or one second. These two metrics are quite different, and comparing one to the other unfairly tilts the comparison against TV.’” • So, apples and oranges. But suppose Carlson’s numbers are off, relative to TV, by an order of magnitude. That’s 10 million. Still impressive!
“Fox News sends Tucker Carlson cease-and-desist letter over Twitter series, reports say” [Associated Press]. “Fox has demanded Carlson stop posting videos to Twitter, The New York Times also reported Monday — as the network’s lawyers accuse Carlson of violating his contract, which runs until early 2025 and restricts his ability to appear on other media outlets. Meanwhile, Carlson’s lawyers have said the network breached the contract first. A spokesperson for Fox News Media and attorneys representing Carlson, Bryan Freedman and Harmeet Dhillon, did not immediately return The Associated Press’ requests for comments on Tuesday. ‘Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election,’ Dhillon said in a statement sent to Axios and the Times. ‘Tucker will not be silenced by anyone.’” •
Democrats en Déshabillé
Patient readers, it seems that people are actually reading the back-dated post! But I have not updated it, and there are many updates. So I will have to do that. –lambert
I have moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Party (“the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing the addition here in a “live” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It turns out that defining the Democrat Party is, in fact, a hard problem. I do think the paragraph that follows is on point all the way back to 2016, if not before:
The Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Party is as “unreformable” as the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. If the Democrat Party fails to govern, that’s because the PMC lacks the capability to govern. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community.
Note, of course, that the class power of the PMC both expresses and is limited by other classes; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial model’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to mind. Suck up, kick down.
* * *
“AOC on climate voters: ‘I’m looking forward to pushing for more’ [Axios]. • So, “pushing for” is the new way to say “fighting for”? Because fighting is too aggressive, maybe? (Axios’s marketing department only lets me see the headline, sadly.)
“George Soros-linked PAC, extra races give Virginia Democrats fundraising edge in crucial primary election” [FOX]. “Democratic legislative candidates in Virginia have a fundraising edge due in part to donations from a George Soros-linked political action committee and having more nomination contests than their Republican counterparts, a nonprofit found.” See, Republicans have NGOs too! More: “The fundraising haul is not entirely good news for the state’s Democrats as it shows some political in-fighting as lucrative candidates are attempting to oust seasoned incumbents.”
Realignment and Legitimacy
Covid and “Lefty” organizations. I think this is very perceptive, and I haven’t heard it said before:
Granted, this comes out of conference organizing, so are we dealing with NGOs, or a genuine left? Unknown. On the other hand, for a genuine left, there’s opportunity here. And the left needs to meet in #DavosSafe rooms too, as DSA’s absurdly vague* annual conference policies — nothing virtual, though, that’s clear — couldn’t show more clearly. NOTE * “The Convention will follow a robust protocol in line with other in-person DSA events (e.g. NPC meetings, committee conferences). This policy will be put together by the Convention Committee and voted on by the NPC. Once it is finalized, it will be linked here.” “Robust” is one of those words you never want to hear. Operationally, it means a big honkin’ three-ring binder, and no follow-through. And three years into a pandemic driven by an airborne pathogen, with the role of ventilation and masking well-known, why on earth does the protocol need to be “put together by the Convention Committee and voted on by the NPC”? Can’t these people actually organize anything? Do they want their conference to be a superspreader event? And if they’re so all-fired “democratic,” why is there no link for comments or proposals? Fear of the disabled community?
“Amber waves of pain” [Lyz Lenz, Fingers]. “Farmers account for less than 1 percent of the population in America. But the American farm occupies an outsized role in the corporate imagination…. Brands like Busch and Miller High Life want to align themselves with the essence of being American. Or, at least, the imagined idea of what is American. In this narrative, America is open spaces — green fields, blue skies, a lone farmer in a field with nothing but a tractor and nature to keep him company…. But this image of America is more fiction than reality…. Images of American farmland swathed in rows of soy and corn are also images of poison. Every year, thousands of pounds of hog shit are sprayed on fields and run off into streams and rivers, making their way into the Missouri and Mississippi river basins. Iowa’s agricultural waste has played a huge role in creating a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, which is an oxygen depleted area of the ocean…. There is no place in America that is better than any other. Laughter in America’s heartland isn’t more genuine than in New York City. The heartland is not outside of or above America’s political divisions, it’s not a neutral space; it is not nicer, or more genuine than any other part of America. And when corporations fetishize farmers and fields, they work to ignore the violent realities that are roiling beneath the ground.”
#COVID19
“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
Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort.
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin); 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, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (9), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (5), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
* * *
Maskstravaganza
Were they smiling with their eyes? Or only with their lips?
my 89 y/o stepdad had minor surgery today in NYC and the HCWs made him REMOVE HIS 3M Aura N95 and PUT ON A SURGICAL MASK. my mom said the HCWs were super smiley and happy. not masked ofc. they’re GLEEFULLY endangering my elderly parents. i am so freaking angry.
— Ever (@genderlessflesh) June 14, 2023
The so-called HCWs should not have been allowed to “make him.” They should have given him an accommodation. Fight for one, if you are ever in this situation.
Censorship and Propaganda
“Silvio Berlusconi, scandal-ridden former Italian prime minister, dies aged 86” [Guardian]. • Not one mention of Covid. But in 2020: Italy’s Berlusconi leaves hospital after ‘dangerous’ COVID-19 battle and in 2021 Silvio Berlusconi leaves hospital after 24 days medical supervision “due to alleged long-term effects of Covid-19.” Alleged? By whom? Is there some crime involved?
“Something Awful”
Lambert here: I’m getting the feeling that the “Something Awful” might be a sawtooth pattern — variant after variant — that averages out to a permanently high plateau. Lots of exceptionally nasty sequelae, most likely deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we might add brain damage, including personality changes therefrom.
* * *
“A methylation clock model of mild SARS-CoV-2 infection provides insight into immune dysregulation” [Molecular Systems Biology]. From the Abstract: “DNA methylation comprises a cumulative record of lifetime exposures superimposed on genetically determined markers…. We characterized the temporal trajectory of blood epigenetic remodeling in 133 participants in a prospective study of young adults before, during, and after asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. The differential methylation caused by asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic infections was indistinguishable….The clinical trajectory in the young adults and in a diverse cohort with more severe outcomes was predicted by the similarity of methylation before or early after SARS-CoV-2 infection to the model-defined postinfection state. Unlike the phenomenon of trained immunity, the postacute SARS-CoV-2 epigenetic landscape we identify is antiprotective.” • I don’t like that last sentence at all. But the whole piece is so far over my head I can’t even tell it’s woo woo. Perhaps a member of the Brain Trust will comment.
“Pfizer sees antibiotic supply running out as shortage worsens” [Bloomberg]. “Pfizer will run out of several doses of penicillin, which treat syphilis, strep throat, and other infections, later this year as shortages ripple across the US supply chain. The company anticipates running out of the children’s dose of the syphilis drug Bicillin L-A by the end of June, according to a letter Pfizer posted Tuesday on the Food and Drug Administration’s website. The company says it’s prioritizing production of larger doses of Bicillin L-A, which is recommended for pregnant people with syphilis because it is the only drug that can pass through the placenta and also treat the fetus. A different Pfizer penicillin, Bicillin C-R that treats other bacterial infections but not syphilis, is expected to run out in the third quarter, which ends Sept. 30. Pfizer’s penicillin has been in shortage since April. ‘The supply interruption is the result of a complex combination of factors including significant increases in demand, due to an increase in syphilis infection rates as well as competitive shortages,’ Pfizer said in the letter, which is dated June 12. Basic antibiotics have been in short supply in the US since October, when rising rates of respiratory infections led to increased demand for amoxicillin, the most popular antibiotic. Shortages of the children’s form of this drug led to more need for antibiotics like penicillin, which treats similar infections.” • “rising rates of respiratory infections.” Huh! Whaddaya know. Commentary:
We Don’t Yet Know Whether To Minimise The Drug Shortage Or To Blame Something Else, But Please Be Completely Reassured That We Won’t Blame Widespread Repeat Covid Infections. pic.twitter.com/STgnWV3vWL
— The Vertlartnic (@TheVertlartnic) June 14, 2023
Policy
The spectacle of the GBDers screaming “Help! Help! I’m being oppressed!” while they successfully gave the political class cover to adopt stochastic eugenism as the preferred policy option…. Well, let’s just go ahead and say it’s not edifying:
I don’t recall a single credible voice anywhere explaining in detail the damage of lockdowns in 2020. All i remember is a bunch of fringe loonies shouting “let it rip” while 1000’s of people a day were dying from it. Then promising us there’d be no second wave, then ALPHA hit us. https://t.co/edZo5DvhHu
— Ted Brautigan (@T_Brautigan) June 14, 2023
Elite Maleficence
* * *
Case Data
From BioBot wastewater data from June 13:
For now, I’m going to use this national wastewater data as the best proxy for case data (ignoring the clinical case data portion of this chart, which in my view “goes bad” after March 2022, for reasons as yet unexplained). At least we can spot trends, and compare current levels to equivalent past levels.
Variants
NOT UPDATED From CDC, June 10:
Lambert here: Looks to like XBB.1.16 and now XBB.1.16 are outcompeting XBB.1.9, but XBB.1.5 has really staying power. I sure hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart depends, don’t all move on the green fields and pastures new (or have their access to facilities cut by administrators of ill intent).
CDC: “As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell. Looks like the Walgreens variants page isn’t updating.
Covid Emergency Room Visits
From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, from June 10:
NOTE “Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period.” So not the entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message here being that Covid is “just like the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week period” is appropriate for bothMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these people so much. Notice also that this chart shows, at least for its time period, that Covid is not seasonal, even though CDC is trying to get us to believe that it is, presumably so they can piggyback on the existing institutional apparatus for injections.
Positivity
NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, June 12:
0.1%.
Deaths
NOT UPDATED Death rate (Our World in Data), from June 7:
Lambert here: Theatre of the absurd. I can believe that deaths are low; I cannot believe they are zero, and I cannot even believe that all doctors signing death certificates have agreed to make it so. Looks to me like some administrative minimizer at WHO put the worst intern in charge of the project. And thanks, Johns Hopkins of the $9.32 billion endowment, for abandoning this data feed and passing responsibility on to the clown car at WHO.
Total: 1,166,818 – 1,166,713 = 105 (105 * 365 = 18,250 deaths per year, today’s YouGenicist™ number for “living with” Covid (quite a bit higher than the minimizers would like, though they can talk themselves into anything. If the YouGenicist™ metric keeps chugging along like this, I may just have to decide this is what the powers-that-be consider “mission accomplished” for this particular tranche of death and disease).
Excess Deaths
NOT UPDATED Excess deaths (The Economist), published June 13:
Lambert here: Still some encouragement!
Lambert here: Based on a machine-learning model. (The CDC has an excess estimate too, but since it ran forever with a massive typo in the Legend, I figured nobody was really looking at it, so I got rid it. )
Stats Watch
Inflation: “United States Producer Prices Change” [Trading Economics]. “The annual producer inflation in the United States eased for an 11th straight month to 1.1 percent in May 2023, the lowest since December 2020 and below forecasts of 1.5 percent.”
* * *
Retail: “Amazon Calls On Governments To Help Crack Down On Fake Reviews” [Forbes]. “However, the company is calling for more support from governments in terms of legislation and enforcement. ‘The specific situation varies by country. In some countries, governments should establish enforcement authority or stronger enforcement tools to penalize fake review brokers,’ it says. ‘In countries that already have legislation or regulations against soliciting fake reviews, we believe regulators should be doing more to use their existing enforcement authority to take action against fake review brokers.’” • Amazon reviews are, in fact, a comments section and critical to Amazon’s continued success as a brand. But Amazon isn’t treating them that way. They’re trying to do content moderation on the cheap with algos, and since that doesn’t work, they want, in essence, to give their algos powers of arrest. Why not hire a content moderation team?
Retail: “Bud Light Loses Title as Top-Selling U.S. Beer” [Wall Street Journal]. • Maybe Pritzker can buy them on the cheap?
The Bezzle: “South Korean Crypto Lending Giant Suspends Withdrawals Amidst Soaring Market Volatility” [BSC News]. “South Korean cryptocurrency lending company Delio has announced the suspension of withdrawals, citing increased market volatility, according to the local media outlet, Decenter. Delio, which operates as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) and reports to financial authorities, holds significant amounts of BTC, ETH, and other alt-coins totaling $9.3 billion. Delio did not reveal when withdrawals will resume. The decision to halt withdrawals comes as a response to the recent suspension of deposits and withdrawals by Haru Invest, a move made to protect investors following a business error. Delio CEO Jung Sang-ho stated that the suspension was a necessary measure to address the surge in withdrawal requests and maintain asset security. The exact details of Delio’s transactional relationship with Haru Invest were not disclosed. Delio’s suspension led Upbit, one of Korea’s largest crypto-asset exchanges, to reduce digital asset withdrawals from Delio as part of its investor protection measures. ”
* * *
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 81 Extreme Greed (previous close: 80 Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 76 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 14 at 1:30 PM ET.
Class Warfare
“Madison Avenue Takes On Capitalism” [Forbes]. “If you look at the brand within the American economic system most brand- challenged right now – one that both dominates practically and yet struggles attitudinally— it might well be capitalism itself. Despite its historic role as the greatest prosperity engine ever created, and despite the resilience of U.S. productivity and employment figures even during this rocky time, capitalism, has become increasingly unpopular within the country synonymous with it. Just 57 percent of Americans have a positive view, according to a massive Pew Research survey last summer, versus 65 percent in 2019, numbers that comport with numerous other polls, including ours, conducted with The Harris Poll. Drill down by age cohort, and those results become positively alarming: among adults under 30, only 40 percent have positive feelings (compared with 44 percent who said the same about socialism). America’s next generation of leaders seems more keen to create the next AOC than the next AOL. And oblivious to what socialism means when applied dogmatically across a country, whether Venezuela today or East Germany a generation ago.” If “the next AOC” is the outcome, then capitalism can rest easy.” • Fascinating article. I’ll just pull out one deliverable:
Neither has anyone else. There’s no such thing.
I’ve linked to and quoted Insider lately. Sorry, guys:
“Insider is on strike? Is that why their articles have been so weird lately?” someone asked me as I gave out flyers on the picket line today.
It’s day 12. Our readers want us back too! Let’s make it happen with a fair contract. pic.twitter.com/elQTx3XZXC
— Talia Lakritz (@talialakritz) June 13, 2023
News of the Wired
“Amtrak St. Louis-Chicago travel getting upgraded from current 90 mph to 110 mph” [ABC7]. • That’s practically supersonic! What is it, maglev?
A variant of the drunk looking for his keys under the lamp post:
* * *
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 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 WB:
WB writes: “First MN wildflowers of the Spring — Siberian Squill — apparently an invasive but pretty nonetheless.” Well seen!
* * *
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