2:00PM Water Cooler 1/20/2023 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Fowl Tune of the Day

Black x Jap Phoebe (hybrid), Massive Thompson River Bike Path, Larimer, Colorado, United States. “Daybreak music and numerous calls from the hybrid.” 28 minutes lengthy, with rather a lot happening, so you possibly can pay attention whereas making your espresso 🙂

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the biggest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to suppose; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“So most of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are the truth is a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

By no means let it’s stated the Biden Administration doesn’t ship:

✅ Declining life expectancy
✅ Declining inflation-adjusted wages
✅ Declining union membership
✅ Growing carbon emissions https://t.co/xuFYtBi74s pic.twitter.com/rVEvIQD9JF

— wsbgnl (@wsbgnl) January 20, 2023

“Historical past on the Hill: Highly effective spending committees now led by ladies for the primary time” [NBC]. “Within the Senate, Washington Democrat Patty Murray is the brand new Appropriations Committee chairwoman, whereas Maine Republican Susan Collins is the rating member. They’re taking up from two longtime male colleagues who retired final 12 months. Within the Home, Texas Republican Kay Granger is the brand new Appropriations Committee chairwoman, whereas Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro, the panel’s previous chair, is serving as rating member. Collectively, the quartet of highly effective appropriators is thought on the Hill as ‘the 4 Corners.’”

2024

“Trump to GOP: Don’t contact Medicare or Social Safety in debt ceiling battle” [Politico]. “‘Certainly not ought to Republicans vote to chop a single penny from Medicare or Social Safety,’ Trump stated in a video message. The 2-minute video — which matches on to lambaste President Joe Biden over the migration disaster on the southern border — is a part of a sequence of coverage bulletins put out by his marketing campaign. And it comes amid rising brinkmanship between congressional Republicans and the White Home over elevating the nation’s debt restrict.” • Trump strikes to grab the wise middle (as a result of you recognize that Biden will do exactly that — in spite of everything, Obama couldn’t do this, so Biden would lastly one-up him). After which there’s this:

That is completely insane. We don’t have to be in one other conflict as a result of the navy industrial advanced and different DC warmongers wish to get richer than they already are. https://t.co/7gwyNfGYSX

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 19, 2023

DeSantis’s voice (1):

DeSantis has a really Seinfeld-ish whiny New Yorker have an effect on and tone that subtly covers his flank towards populist reactionary framing

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) January 19, 2023

DeSantis’s voice (2):

notably candy morsel of irony that one of many obstacles to Ron DeSantis taking his anti-LGBT marketing campaign of terror nationwide is that his voice sounds lowkey homosexual

— knife-wielding hemophiliac (@NickTagliaferro) January 18, 2023

I dunno… Right here’s DeSantis:

Prepared for the nationwide stage?

By the use of comparability, Buttigeig:

Undecided both are actually prepared for the nationwide stage, tbh.

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, evidently persons are really studying the back-dated put up! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are a lot of updates. So I must do this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Get together (“the Democrat Get together is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “dwell” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Get together is, the truth is, a tough downside. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Get together is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Hear, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Get together didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working components of the Get together reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Get together (ka-ching, however not completely) these components comprise a community — a Flex Web? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.

Be aware, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is restricted by different courses; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

“Rep. Omar celebrates federal funding for Minnesota Public Housing hearth sprinkler programs” [KSTP]. • No Grenfell Tower in Minneapolis!

#COVID19

Lambert right here: I’m however a humble tapewatcher, however not like Eric Topol, I’m not calling a surge, as a result of the final peak was Biden’s Omicron debacle, and after an Everest like that, what’s left? Topol’s view is the institution view: Hospital-centric. Mine is infection-centric. I don’t see the common acceleration or doubling in instances that I might count on to see primarily based on previous surges.

I’m calling a “One thing Terrible.” It’s gonna be dangerous, in some new manner, and we don’t understand how, but (however see right here for immune system dysregulation, which is wanting fairly terrible).

Keep protected on the market!

• A useful tip:

• “Massive Thriller Donors Fund COVID Conspiracy Nonprofit” [Walker Bragman, Important Context]. “The nation’s media, and to a big extent, policymakers, have moved on from the continued disaster—a actuality that’s, at the least partly, a testomony to the work of 1 man: Jeffrey Tucker, the founding father of the Brownstone Institute, a shadowy new nonprofit devoted to waging conflict on public well being measures….. Along with his Brownstone Institute, a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Tucker has sought to show the clock again on public well being—and maybe on youngster labor legal guidelines as properly…. New federal tax filings obtained by the Middle for Media and Democracy and offered to Essential Context and the OptOut Media Basis reveal that the group has little common help. As an alternative, it’s bankrolled largely by giant donations of as much as $600,000…. All through the pandemic, business-aligned teams and the political proper have been pushing again towards public well being measures. Koch-backed organizations have been within the battle since March 2020, messaging towards enterprise closures and later, college closures and masking in an effort to attenuate financial disruption. The Brownstone Institute arose out of these efforts; particularly, an October 2020 convention Tucker helped arrange whereas at AIER…. Held at AIER’s headquarters in Nice Barrington, Mass., the convention spawned an influential open letter—the “Nice Barrington Declaration”—calling on governments and scientists to reject broad public well being measures in favor of pursuing herd immunity by means of mass an infection and “targeted safety” solely of the susceptible. Comparable concepts had been proposed in a reopening plan from the Koch-funded Heritage Basis months earlier. The declaration and its authors, three scientists from prestigious universities—Drs. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford and the Koch-funded Hoover Establishment, Martin Kulldorff (then) of Harvard, and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford–have been promoted by the political proper, together with the Trump White Home, DeSantis, and Koch-tied teams, to undermine scientific consensus round public well being measures…. The declaration signaled that public well being was the brand new entrance within the conflict over the scale and scale of presidency.”

• “Airplane bathrooms ship new hope for the CDC’s variant hunt” [Politico]. “On the similar time, after a profitable take a look at run at New York’s JFK Airport, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention is pursuing talks with airways and port authorities to start out gathering samples from long-haul worldwide flights’ wastewater after they land. The small however rising Traveler Genomic Surveillance program, run by the CDC with a biotech agency and an organization that collects samples, is seen by administration officers and public well being consultants as a part of a revolution in biosafety infrastructure — and a crucial plank of nationwide safety within the post-pandemic period. Because it expands geographically and units its sights on new pathogens, it might perform as an early warning system for the place and when harmful viruses and micro organism, pure or in any other case, enter the nation. ‘Identical to we’ve radar to search for airplanes to verify we all know what’s coming into our nation, or we take swabs and samples to verify any individual strolling by means of safety doesn’t have explosives on their fingers, this is identical factor for pathogens or viruses or micro organism,’ stated Matthew McKnight, the overall supervisor at Ginkgo Bioworks, whose biosecurity and public well being unit, Concentric by Ginkgo, companions with the CDC in this system together with XpresCheck.”

• “MRI proof of olfactory system alterations in sufferers with COVID-19 and neurological signs” [Journal of Neurology]. “Mind MRI findings demonstrated [Olfactory Bulb (OB)] injury in COVID-19 sufferers with neurological problems. Future longitudinal research are wanted to make clear the transient or everlasting nature of OB atrophy in COVID-19 pathology.” However extra analysis wanted: “Our outcomes, together with a earlier examine discovering no distinction in OB quantity between COVID-19 sufferers with and with out self-reported olfactory loss [37], counsel that OB atrophy could also be related to the neurological sequelae of COVID-19, even with out resulting in (self-perceivable) olfactory loss, supporting the speculation of SARS-CoV-2 utilizing the olfactory pathway as a gateway to the mind. That is additional supported by the findings of Gu et al. [38] and Buzhdygan et al. [39], however true proof of the neuroinvasive potential of the Coronavirus remains to be lacking. It might be additionally doable that neurological problems are because of para- or post-infectious immune processes occurring in response to the virus. Additional analysis is required to research this facet.”

• I don’t see why “eugenics” is the incorrect phrase:

In any case, we simply noticed a splendid instance at Davos. Davos attendees — ruling class, all — know very properly that #CovidIsAirborne, and took the suitable measures to guard themselves, whereas on the similar time not solely denying you all the identical protections, however funding a large propaganda marketing campaign towards them, and diverting the state which they management away from public well being altogether and towards libertarian nostrums (see “How Ashish Jha and Rochelle Walensky of Newton, MA Protect Their Children from Covid (But not Yours).“)

• “Fixing the HEPA Filter Noise Drawback” [It’s Airborne]. “If you’d like the fitting reply, it’s essential ask the fitting query. You need to see [Portable Air Cleaners (PACs)] as an air cleansing AND noise making gadget. The appropriate query is how do you get 250 cubic ft per minute of fresh air with solely 45 dBA noise? The numbers can change relying on the house, however the foundation of the query stays the identical. It looks as if a straightforward answer — decide a quiet PAC. However when you’ve got a have a look at the PACs in the marketplace, you’ll shortly discover that the majority of them are too loud. This can be very uncommon to seek out any PAC marketed at being under 45 dBA…. CR Containers are inconsistent with noise profile as a result of they use completely different followers. A number of the strongest followers are the noisiest and never acceptable for a lot of conditions. Probably the most generally used field followers are the Utilitech, Lasko and For-Dwelling. The noise normally falls throughout the vary of 47–52 dBA. Areas with increased background noise ought to be capable to tolerate these with out issue. For a typical classroom, the noise tolerance varies relying on the atmosphere and trainer. … [PC Fans] is perhaps the way forward for in-room air cleaners. To wash the air, you want a fan. PC followers are designed to be tremendous quiet, even when you find yourself sitting very shut. Utilizing these followers will get the very best clear air supply charge at low noise that you’ll find. A single fan can’t present that a lot circulation, however these followers might be positioned in parallel to provide you very excessive airflows with very low noise.” • Very fascinating!

• That’s rather a lot:

• “Judges ‘rewrote’ COVID protection insurance policies, eating places inform N.Y. high courtroom” [Reuters]. “CRO’s criticism alleged intimately that the virus had bodily broken its eating places by adhering to surfaces, turning them into ‘vectors for illness transmission’ and rendering the eating areas ‘functionally ineffective.’ That needs to be sufficient to state a declare underneath New York’s pleading requirements, the temporary says. The Appellate Division disagreed, calling the criticism ‘conclusory.’ Even when the virus did adhere to surfaces, it might simply be wiped away and subsequently didn’t quantity to ‘tangible’ or ‘demonstrable’ property injury, the panel held.” • Oh gawd. We’re going to jot down fomite and droplet transmission into case legislation. Please, no.

Case Information

BioBot wastewater data from January 19:

Lambert right here: For now, I’m going to make use of this wastewater information as the very best proxy for case information (ignoring the scientific case information portion of this chart, which in my opinion “goes dangerous” after March 2022, for causes as but unexplained). Not less than we are able to spot tendencies, and examine present ranges to equal previous ranges.

Transmission

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to neighborhood transmission (the “pink map,” which is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you.) The map is claimed to replace Monday-Friday by 8 pm:

The earlier map:

NOTE: I shall most actually not be utilizing the CDC’s new “Community Level” metric. As a result of CDC has mixed a number one indicator (instances) with a lagging one (hospitalization) their new metric is a poor warning signal of a surge, and a poor approach to assess private danger. As well as, Covid is a illness you don’t wish to get. Even in case you are not hospitalized, you possibly can endure from Lengthy Covid, vascular points, and neurological points. That the “inexperienced map” (which Topol calls a “capitulation” and a “deception”) remains to be up and being taken severely verges on the legal.

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s test positivity tracker, printed January 20:

-1.5.%.

Wastewater

Wastewater information (CDC), January 16:

January 15:

And MWRA information, January 17:

Lambert right here: Slight uptick within the north. Nonetheless, not all the scholars are again; BU classes begin January 19; Harvard’s January 22.

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how sluggish the variant information is. Does no person within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everyone will get the outcomes from them? [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk]. UPDATE Sure. See NC here on Pango. Each Friday, a stately, tutorial tempo totally incompatible with defending your self towards a variant exhibiting doubling conduct.

NOT UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (Walgreens), January 9:

Lambert right here: BQ.1* and XBB nonetheless dominate. Nonetheless, CH.1.91 seems for the primary time at 1.9%. That’s somewhat unsettling, as a result of a Tweet in Links, January 11 from GM drew consideration to it (“shows such a excessive relative progress benefit”) and in Water Cooler, January 18, from Nature: “CH.1.1 and CA.3.1 variants have been extremely proof against each monovalent and bivalent mRNA vaccinations.” Now right here is CH.1.1 within the Walgreens variant information. Let’s see what CDC does with it tomorrow. The Covid variant prepare at all times leaves on time, and there’s at all times one other prepare coming!

Lambert right here: Wierdly, the display screen shot about has been changed at this time by information from “10/7/2022.” (It’s clearly not present information; BQ.1* and XBB don’t dominate.

Variant information, nationwide (CDC), December 31 (Nowcast off):

BQ.1* takes first place. XBB developing quick. CH.1, not like the Walgreens chart, doesn’t seem. (For BQ.1/XBB and vaccine escape, see here.) Right here is Area 2, the Northeast, the place each BQ.1* and XBB are stated to be increased, and are:

Makes clear that Area 2 (New England) varies tremendously from the nationwide common. Wouldn’t it’s fascinating if we ended up with completely different variants dominating completely different components of the nation.

• As a examine, since New York is a BQ.1* hotbed, New York hospitalization, up to date January 19:

• Hospitalization information for Queens, up to date January 14:

Deaths

Demise charge (Our World in Data):

Total: 1,128,330 – 1,127,059 – 1,125,895 = 1271 (1271 * 365 = 463,915 deaths per 12 months, at this time’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit increased than the minimizers would love, although they will discuss themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could must resolve that is what the powers-that-be take into account “mission achieved” for this explicit tranche of demise and illness).

Lambert right here: Deaths lag, and now we’ve some affirmation that no matter we simply went by means of is lowering.

It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, day by day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, not like every thing else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

Stats Watch

There aren’t any official statistics of curiosity at this time.

The Bezzle:

Extra Nexo:

The Bezzle: “Elon Musk’s Urge for food for Destruction” [New York Times]. “For an organization that trusted an unbounded sense of optimism amongst buyers to keep up its excessive inventory worth — Tesla was at one level price greater than Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Ford and Common Motors mixed — these crashes may appear to be an issue. However to Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief govt, they introduced a possibility. Every collision generated information, and with sufficient information, the corporate might pace the event of the world’s first actually self-driving automobile. He believed on this imaginative and prescient so strongly that it led him to make wild predictions: ‘My guess as to after we would suppose it’s protected for any individual to primarily go to sleep and get up at their vacation spot: most likely towards the top of subsequent 12 months,’ Musk stated in 2019. ‘I might say I’m sure of that. That’s not a query mark.’ The way forward for Tesla might relaxation on whether or not drivers knew that they have been engaged on this data-gathering experiment, and in that case, whether or not their urge for food for danger matched Musk’s.” • Ah. “Private danger assessments”!

Tech: “The Excessive Price of Low cost E-Bikes” [The New Republic]. “Fires and overheating accidents attributed to lithium-ion batteries killed 19 people in the US in 2022, in response to the U.S. Shopper Product Security Fee. In New York Metropolis alone, six folks died in these uniquely fast-burning infernos. Consultants say poorly made batteries, like these typically discovered on cheaper e-bike fashions, are the first wrongdoer. So why is it nonetheless really easy to buy them? Does a typical bike proprietor know the right way to safely cost and keep a motorbike battery? And are lower-paid employees, reminiscent of supply folks, primarily being pressured to buy unsafe bikes simply to have the ability to do their jobs?”

Tech: “Amazon’s Big Layoffs Are Gutting Comixology” [Gizmodo]. “The true scope of the layoffs at Comixology is unknown, leaving its destiny unsure—particularly within the wake of a extremely controversial rehaul of the platform final 12 months. The modifications went far past redesigning the app and web site for the main digital comics storefront and included a disastrous integration of the service extra carefully into Amazon’s storefronts, shutting down Comixology’s personal web site within the course of. Between mass errors, clunky navigation, title discoverability points, and the top of a long-running creator royalties program in favor of utilizing Amazon’s e book publishing system Kindle Direct, Comixology spent a lot of the final 12 months apologizing for and trying to repair the litany of points, an ongoing course of. Or at the least, was. Amazon’s strikes to intestine Comixology after practically a 12 months of buyer and creator strife doubtlessly doesn’t simply threaten the service’s presence on the forefront of digital comics distribution, however its existence in any respect.” • Commentary:

The Bezzle: “The AI Magic Present” [New York Magazine]. “If these early AI encounters didn’t really feel like magic, they typically felt, at the least, like superb magic tips — and like magic tips, they have been disorienting. It wasn’t simply direct encounters with these demonstrations that have been confounding, although. Explanations about how deep-learning and large-language fashions really work typically emphasised incomprehensibility or, to make use of the phrases of artwork, a mannequin’s explainability or interpretability, or lack thereof. The businesses making these instruments might describe how they have been designed, how they have been educated, and on what information. However they couldn’t reveal precisely how a picture generator acquired from the phrases purple canine to a selected picture of a big mauve Labrador, not as a result of they didn’t wish to however as a result of it wasn’t doable — their fashions have been black containers by design.” • One other manner of placing that is that AI isn’t maintainable. Significantly when its on a chip, and notably when that chip is in a client product. As they are going to be. So, when the NannyBot places the turkey within the crib and the newborn within the oven, don’t blame me.

Immediately’s Worry & Greed Index: 55 Impartial (earlier shut: 52 Impartial) [CNN]. One week in the past: 61 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jan 20 at 1:53 PM EST.

The Gallery

The garden, the paths, the composition:

Police State Watch

“Contained in the Underground Financial system of Solitary Confinement” [The Marshall Project]. “No matter you’re shopping for or promoting, you should learn to “fish” to take part within the solitary financial system. Fishing traces are manufactured from ripped strips of sheets, towels and garments. With skinny sufficient strips, you can also make about 100 ft of line out of a single state-issued bedsheet. To fish, you connect the merchandise you’re promoting to the road together with a weight, reminiscent of a bar of cleaning soap. If you toss the road towards your purchaser, the load creates the momentum wanted to hold your merchandise by means of the air and drag it into the fitting cell after it lands.In fact, commodities can fall off the road or land in locations the place they will’t be recovered. Arguments can ignite over accusations of theft, so it’s essential know who you possibly can belief to go in your items. In my reporting, I heard about one man who didn’t have any members of the family on the skin to assist him pay for fundamentals like rest room paper. Due to his cell’s central location and his good intention and trustworthiness, he was in a position to help himself by securing different folks’s traces. It began out as one thing he would do to go the time, however he ended up getting actually good at it. Folks would look out for him, sending him objects in change for his assist.It’s tough to completely describe the restrictive circumstances by which fishing takes place. The rec pen is only a small cage, and the house between the bars is a matter of inches. In models the place the bars are too tight to suit one’s hand between them, folks use a “spear” to throw the road. A spear is {a magazine} or newspaper rolled up so tight that it glides by means of the air. It serves the identical goal as a weight does. For many who aren’t but adept at fishing, it might probably take dozens of tries simply to connect with somebody just a few cells down.However the limitations make prisoners’ proficiency all of the extra fascinating.” • I don’t know what’s come over The Marshall Undertaking, however they’ve been producing actually good materials recently.

MMT

Anybody can mint a coin. The difficulty is getting it accepted:

Laborious to see at this time’s Democrats reacting to this line of pondering with enthusiasm.

Saving Social Safety:

Class Warfare

“Shock and anger after fired employee killed by police at Oklahoma pork plant” [Guardian]. “Chiewelthap Mariar, a 26-year-old refugee from Sudan, was killed by law enforcement officials whereas working on the Seaboard Meals meatpacking plant in Guymon on 9 January. A employee who filmed components of the incident on his cellphone, and was later fired for doing so, requested to stay nameless for worry of additional retaliation. The employee claimed Mariar was fired from his job by a supervisor however was instructed by human assets to complete his shift. The employee stated the supervisor who fired him confronted Mariar on the store flooring after he was fired, and police arrived quickly after to escort Mariar from the positioning. Seaboard Meals didn’t touch upon however didn’t refute this characterization of the state of affairs. ‘I witnessed your entire factor, from once they began arguing with him till he was shot,’ stated the employee. ‘He had a company-issued band-cutter in his hand. When the police acquired to the plant, the man was already working, minding his personal enterprise.’ The employee offered cellphone footage main as much as and following the incident, the place Mariar might be seen with the band-cutter in his hand working round different workers and being confronted by officers on the store flooring. ‘They made him out to be a hazard once they stated he had a knife in his hand, when it wasn’t. And that’s incorrect on so many ranges,’ the employee stated. The employee claimed workers have been instructed to maintain working after the incident occurred. ‘I labored in upkeep. All they’d us do was cowl the scene with plastic, and we proceeded to complete what was on the manufacturing line,’ the employee added. ‘This firm fired me for recording the reality they have been attempting to brush underneath the mat. They by no means requested me if I used to be OK. It was my first time seeing a man get killed – after which I get fired.’” • IIRC, that’s what Amazon does: Put some plastic around the corpse, and carry on working.

“Right here’s How Rail Employees Are Combating On After Biden Blocked a Nationwide Strike” [In These Times]. “[Deven Mantz, a BMWED member in North Dakota] defined that fairly than an govt order from Biden himself — which the rail carriers would probably problem in courtroom — assured sick depart might come within the type of new security guidelines from one other a part of the manager department. The Division of Transportation, for instance, might mandate paid sick days on the grounds that forcing workers to return to work unwell and unrested creates unsafe circumstances on the railroads.” Pete? Pete? Pete? Extra: “Rank-and-file railroad unionists appear to agree that the very best hope for a greater contract subsequent time is larger cross-craft unity, and a single bargaining coalition of all of the rail unions.” As I urged. Extra: “Constructing such unity is the primary purpose of Railroad Employees United (RWU), a solidarity caucus of rank-and-file employees from throughout the dozen completely different rail unions…. RWU organizer Ron Kaminkow stated that whereas the group want to see Biden mandate paid sick days, they aren’t going to expend their restricted assets attempting to influence the president to do what he might have completed throughout contract bargaining…. Particularly, he stated RWU goes to ​”go notch 8″ on its just lately introduced marketing campaign calling for public possession of the freight railroads. (Notch 8 is the very best amperage on diesel locomotive engines.).” • Good. I ponder the place Sawant is on this….

“How A lot Earnings Do You Have to Be Wealthy?” [Of Dollars and Data]. “Listed here are the highest 10%, high 5%, and high 1% of family incomes in the US:

• Prime 10% = $191,406
• Prime 5% = $290,164
• Prime 1% = $867,436

Fascinating. As a result of the highest 1% isn’t all that a lot, is it? Should be fairly a steep energy curve, eh? (And allow us to all do not forget that revenue isn’t class. Class is a social relation. Neither “the wealthy” nor “the poor” are a category. Neither is the “center.”

Information of the Wired

“David Boswell Reid’s Air flow of the Homes of Parliament” [The Victorian Web]. “Lord Sudeley, Chairman of the Commissioners who chosen the design for the New Homes of Parliament, stated within the Home of Lords “The air flow of the [Temporary] Home of Commons was full and ideal ‘ and the primary plan of systematic air flow ever carried out on this or another nation”. In a written report he acknowledged ‘To the ability, zeal and dedication of Dr Reid, it’s owing that the members of the Home of Commons can now pursue their senatorial duties and not using a sacrifice of both well being or consolation. To him we owe the answer of the issue, that, by a correct system, air flow could also be obtained in essentially the most attempting and tough circumstances’ (Harris in Reid, 1858). In 1835, Sir Benjamin Hawes, Chairman of the Committee on Acoustics and Air flow, which had initially beneficial Reid’s appointment, wrote to Reid ‘You may have facilitated public enterprise, and extended the lives of public males’ (Harris in Reid, 1858).” •

Contact info for vegetation: 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 vegetation. Greens are high quality! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! If you’d like your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it firstly of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize by utilizing your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) here. From timotheus:

timotheus writes: “Plant or antidote – undecided.”

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