By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, I have once more been swept up in the social whirl. More soon! –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
Brown Thrasher, Yard, Bledsoe, Tennessee, United States. Lot going on in “Yard” (or “my yard”?).
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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
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Trump Transition
“An Expert in Grand Strategy Thinks Trump Is on to Something” [Politico]. The deck: “Do you want a future in which Canada defects to the EU, Russia rules the Arctic and China runs Latin America? That’s the default outcome of non-action.” And: “Trump’s approach to international affairs reflects Americans’ judgment that we are done building a world order — which we’ve overseen from 1954 to 2008 —and now must vigorously embrace an aggressively competitive approach to this multipolar world; in other words, be less the generous market-maker and more the selfish market-player. The world’s superpowers (U.S., Europe, Russia, India, China) fear one another more and more. We sense an imperative in this re-regionalization/decoupling era — one that screams get yours now before somebody else does!” And here is the kicker: “But let’s also get more real in our thinking and the terms we offer. Justin Trudeau is right when he says Canada will never become America’s 51st state, but what if it became America’s 51st-through-59th-states? Would that be enough political power and standing for Canadians to choose over admission into the EU? Say, 18 Senate seats and more congressional districts than California’s 52 seats? That’s a respectful offer. Greenland holds two seats in Denmark’s 179-member parliament. Does that strike you as more empowering than two seats in the U.S. Senate? How about a $57 billion buy-out package that makes every Greenlander an instant millionaire? Does Trump have your undivided attention now?” • Readers, what do you think? Should such an offer be made? Having been made, should it be accepted?
“Trump Picks a Jet-Setting Pal of Elon Musk to Go Get Greenland” [New York Times]. “Ken Howery is a quiet, unassuming tech investor who prioritizes discretion. And yet, he has ended up in the middle of two of the noisiest story lines of the incoming Trump administration. One is the expanding ambition of Elon Musk, Mr. Howery’s close friend and fellow party-scene fixture since the two helped run PayPal 25 years ago. The other is the expansionist ambition of Mr. Musk’s boss, President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has set his sights on buying Greenland, the world’s largest island. As Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Denmark, Mr. Howery is expected to be central to what Mr. Trump hopes will be a real-estate deal of epic proportions. The only hitch is that Denmark, which counts Greenland as its autonomous territory, says the island is not for sale. Whether he likes it or not, Mr. Howery, a globe-trotter known for his taste for adventure and elaborate party planning, is likely to find himself in the middle of a geopolitical tempest. Mr. Trump has been explicit about his expectations for his new ambassador filling a once-sleepy post. When he announced Mr. Howery for the role, which requires Senate confirmation, he reiterated his designs on Greenland for the first time since winning the presidency.”
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“Trump selections for top jobs advance, despite initial controversy” [WaPo]. “When President-elect Donald Trump first unveiled his picks to staff his new administration, some of the more unconventional names sparked gasps and speculation that they could not amass enough support to be confirmed even in a GOP-controlled Senate…. But three days ahead of Trump’s return to the White House, many of his most prominent Cabinet choices have sailed relatively unscathed through their hearings and are poised to win confirmation as Republican senators rallied around them and appeared largely unwilling to defy Trump’s wishes…. Senate GOP opposition to many of the current Trump picks has not materialized, at least not publicly, after Matt Gaetz, Trump’s original pick for attorney general, withdrew under pressure. No Republican lawmakers have said they will oppose Hegseth, though a handful have not made their intentions clear. Trump’s nominees can lose three Republicans at most and still be confirmed if no Democrat backs them. It’s rare for the Senate to reject presidential picks. But Hegseth’s apparent glide path bodes well for some of Trump’s other controversial choices, like former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for director of national intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Their hearings have not been scheduled but are expected soon. Kash Patel’s nomination as FBI director is also considered a harder sell.”
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“White House’s Pandemic Office, Busy With Bird Flu, May Shrink Under Trump” [Time]. “By Inauguration Day on Monday, most of the pandemic office’s staff will have cleared out their desks. The office, officially known as the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, or OPPR, is losing more than half of its 18-person staff as the Biden Administration hands off the duties to a Trump Administration that has yet to fill multiple key pandemic-response positions, according to two Biden Administration officials. The political appointees in charge of the office—director Paul Friedrichs and deputy director Nikki Romanik—are leaving to make way for potential Trump appointments, and several of the office’s 14 career staffers, whose assignments to the White House office were temporary, are returning to their home agencies…. Supporters of OPPR point to its work in recent months addressing the spread of a virulent strain of bird flu, which was first detected infecting U.S. dairy cattle in March.” • Supporters do that? Oh….
DOGE
“Two Watchdogs Were Rebuffed From Joining Trump’s Cost-Cutting Effort” [New York Times]. “President-elect Donald J. Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been on a hiring spree, looking for tech executives and conservative activists to dig into the federal government and look for rules and spending to cut. On Thursday, two activists from a left-leaning watchdog group asked: Where do we sign up? ‘We write to request our appointment as members of the ‘Department of Government Efficiency,” wrote Norman Eisen and Virginia Canter, in a letter to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the leaders of Mr. Trump’s unofficial effort that plans to slash regulations and spending. The Trump transition team’s response: no. ‘President Trump’s Truth made clear we have no room in our administration for Democrats,’ said Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition, in an email to The New York Times.” • Hmm.
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
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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Look for the Helpers
CR box makers:
Though it’s amazing we’re still making CR boxes by hand, five years into the pandemic. What a market failure!
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Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States Industrial Production” [Trading Economics]. “Industrial production in the United States surged by 0.9% in December 2024, marking the strongest increase since February and significantly surpassing market expectations of a 0.3% rise. A key driver of this growth was a 0.2 percentage point contribution from the production of aircraft and parts, following the resolution of a work stoppage at a major aircraft manufacturer.”
Capacity: “United States Capacity Utilization” [Trading Economics]. “Capacity utilization in the US rose sharply to 77.6% in December of 2024, the highest since August, to rebound from the downwardly revised 77% recorded in the two prior months, which were the lowest since May 2020.”
Housing: “United States Housing Starts” [Trading Economics]. “Housing stars in the United States surged by 15.8% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.499 Million units in December of 2024, the most since March 2021. It is the highest number of starts since February 2024, above market expectations of a softer increase to 1.320 Million.”
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Tech: “KABOOM! SpaceX rocket EXPLODES as vid shows glowing debris raining down…but upbeat Elon Musk says ‘entertainment is guaranteed!’” [The U.S. Sun]. “Incredible footage shows glowing debris raining down across the sky after the 400ft behemoth failed after launching from Boca Chica, southern Texas, on Thursday…. Confirming the explosion, SpaceX wrote on X: “Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn.” • “Rapid unscheduled disassembly” is, of course, GENIUS. Hat tip, McKinsey?
Tech: “Apple pauses AI-generated news alerts after headline notification errors” [Axios]. “The BBC lodged an official complaint after the Apple Intelligence summaries generated an inaccurate headline of a report by the British outlet that incorrectly represented a report on Luigi Mangione, the suspect in last month’s killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, by suggesting he had committed suicide…. Following the BBC false headline controversy, the nonprofit Reporters Without Borders called generative AI services “a danger to the public’s right to reliable information on current affairs.’” • As if anybody cared about that!
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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 38 Fear (previous close: 28 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 26 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 17 at 1:37:47 PM ET.
News of the Wired
“Ancient burials reveal ‘remarkable’ women-dominated society in UK. ‘Relatively rare’” [News and Observer]. “When the Romans reached Britain in the first century, they were shocked to find ‘remarkable’ women standing in their way. Female tribal leaders Cartimandua and Boudica became legends, leading uprisings that destroyed Roman towns and challenged the authority of the empire, and women in their community were able to own property, divorce and lead the Celtic armies. Julius Caesar himself noted the seemingly exotic practice of British women taking more than one husband in his book ‘Commentarii de Bello Gallico.’ But, because bodies were commonly cremated, excarnated or placed in wetlands during the Iron Age, proof of these powerful matriarchal lineages was absent from the archaeological record in Britain — until now…. ‘This was the cemetery of a large kin group,’ study author Lara Cassidy, a professor genetics at Trinity College, said in the release. ‘We reconstructed a family tree with many different branches and found most members traced their maternal lineage back to a single woman, who would have lived centuries before. In contrast, relationships through the father’s line were almost absent.’ This means when a man was ready to marry, he would have left his community to go and join his wife’s, and that family land would have been passed from mother to daughter, Cassidy said. ‘This is the first time this type of system has been documented in European prehistory and it predicts female social and political empowerment,’ Cassidy said. ‘It’s relatively rare in modern societies, but this might not always have been the case.’” • Headline from the original (abstract only): “Women were at the centre of social networks in Iron Age Britain.”
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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 Wukchumni:
Wukchumni writes: “Sunrise over the Garfield Grove, Sequoia NP.”
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