2:00PM Water Cooler 2/20/2025 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether.

Bird Song of the Day

Brown Thrasher, Wannagan Creek Cabin area, Billings, North Dakota, United States. Wannagan Creek Cabins, East River Road, Little Missouri Grasslands. Grasslands and drainage on top of the bluff behind the cabins. Trees and bushes along the draw of an ephemeral stream in the grassland on the plateau above the main river valley. Also grassy and rocky area uphill from the draw.”

In Case You Might Miss…

1. The goddamned Democrats.
2. Mask ban in MD
3. Why is grayscale taking over?

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

Trump Administration

I suppose some people find this amusing:

“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
–President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/IMr4tq0sMB

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 19, 2025

DOGE

“Judge homes in on DOGE staffer duties in privacy lawsuit” [The Hill]. “A federal judge on Wednesday looked to pinpoint the exact duties of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffers during a hearing over whether to cut off their unfettered access to troves of sensitive personal data. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman questioned the Justice Department over the specific “purposes or tasks” assigned to DOGE workers, attempting to determine whether their far-reaching access is warranted. … The inquiry into DOGE’s staffers came as Boardman weighed whether to temporarily bar DOGE from accessing sensitive personal data across numerous federal agencies. Six Americans and a handful of union organizations sued the Department of Treasury, Department of Education and United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) over personally identifiable information in the systems to which DOGE has gained access. The challengers claim DOGE’s actions violate the Privacy Act of 1974, which was passed in response to the Watergate scandal and provides safeguards against privacy violations. In court filings, they accused the agencies of ‘abandoning their duties as guardians and gatekeepers’ of millions of Americans’ sensitive information.” And: “DOGE’s work and the staffers carrying it out have remained largely obscure, though court proceedings have peeled back the curtains on certain efforts. Several DOGE deputies were previously affiliated with Musk’s companies, and some staffers are fresh out of high school or college, raising alarm about their infiltration of the government. The judge zeroed in on three DOGE staffers in leadership positions — Tom Krause, Adam Ramada and Greg Hogan — who described their work in court filings.” • That is, this lawsuit is directed at the “old heads” DOGEbags, not at the feral/incels.

Democrats en déshabillé

I feel my allotment of posts is winding down, and I’d like to reserve them for current events, so this here is probably the best I’ll be able to do on the goddamn Democrats. Let’s start with this tweet, triggered by the news coverage of government workers axed by DOGE:

They earned it and they never cared about 50 years of Rustbelt unemployment when all the factories closed down, the drugs flowed in, young men died deaths of despair and young women prostituted themselves on OnlyFans. https://t.co/VFIUpvmDut

— Fugitive Caesar (@ThomBrady5) February 15, 2025

(We saw the exact same dynamic during the East Palestine trainwreck, where Trump showed up immediately, workingman’s friend Sherrod Brown didn’t show up at all, and molasses-brained Joe Biden only showed up like a year later.) I don’t much like that accounts politics, but I would never delegitimate the rage, which seemed to overflow in election 2024 (or, more precisely, drove the base, MAGA reaction, to which Trump added slices of the previously invincible Democrat “coalition of the ascendant”).

From the 30,000 foot-level, I believe the 2024 majority rejected governance as practiced by our professional managerial class (PMC). By “governance” I don’t mean actions only performed by the State, but situations outside the workplace where a supplicant citizen sits on one side of a desk, and a credentialed functionary sits on the other, and is the gatekeeper to some sort of reward or punishment. You can see this is broad: It covers everything from health care to children’s schooling to insurance to law enforcement. And it’s hard to disagree with that rejection; from where I sit, there’s not one PMC-managed system I’d trust. Since the PMC is the base of the Democrat Party, to reject PMC governance is to reject the Democrat Party.

[Much more to come]. For now, let me present one Democratic leader:

Hakeem Jeffries (1):

Hakeem Jeffries unveils his nickname for Donald Trump.

[drumroll]

“Captain Chaos” pic.twitter.com/sLIKb9bgLH

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) February 19, 2025

Hakeem Jeffries (2):

At protest against DOGE, Congressman Glenn Ivey tells NIH workers facing mass layoffs, “We’re gonna make Hakeem Jeffries the Speaker of the House in two years, right?” pic.twitter.com/WL5IzXYc6a

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) February 20, 2025

And an example of Democrat “resistance” to Trump:

They earned it and they never cared about 50 years of Rustbelt unemployment when all the factories closed down, the drugs flowed in, young men died deaths of despair and young women prostituted themselves on OnlyFans. https://t.co/VFIUpvmDut

— Fugitive Caesar (@ThomBrady5) February 15, 2025

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (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!

Maskstravaganza

Mask ban attempt in MD:

Sponsors and their phone numbers:https://t.co/qPcUjRyDQGhttps://t.co/KjwCqwccSJhttps://t.co/zNfTPduNtYhttps://t.co/imoittLy2Ehttps://t.co/nVEbLjuYUM

— Covid Caution – XEC, KP.3.1.1, LP.8.1, MC.1, LF.7 (@CovidCaution) February 18, 2025

By Democrats. Of course. (On mask bans, see NC here and here).

Immune Dysregulation

“Everyone’s sick this winter. What’s up with flu, norovirus, RSV and COVID?” [USA Today]. “The severity of this year’s flu season is driven by a combination of factors, experts suggested. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University, said the uptick could be a result of people socializing more this year than they did in the immediate years after the pandemic. Vaccination rates might also be playing a role, Brull said. ‘Any family physician would tell you it is not too late to get your flu shot or your COVID booster this year,” Brull said. “Flu and COVID exist all year-round.’” • Not a word about Covid weakening “everyone’s” immune system. Naturally.

Sequelae: Covid

“Differences in Long COVID severity by duration of illness, symptom evolution, and vaccination: a longitudinal cohort study from the INSPIRE group” [The Lancet]. From the Abstract: “Of 3663 participants, 2604 (71.1%) never had Long COVID, 994 (27.1%) reported current Long COVID, and 65 (1.8%) reported resolved Long COVID…. Among participants followed up to 3 years after initial infection, those with current Long COVID had worse physical and mental health outcomes. , with less than 2% having resolved Long COVID. The resolved Long COVID cohort had moderately worse physical and mental health compared with those never-having-Long COVID. COVID-19 vaccination was associated with better outcomes.” Of course, to a eugenicist, like those at Stanford, that’s not a bug. It’s a feature. And from the Limitations: “Long COVID status was based on , rather than objective testing or specific symptom criteria, and may include conditions not caused by Long COVID. However, this is consistent with the recent approach to defining Long COVID, which emphasizes the myriad symptoms and importance of patient involvement in defining Long COVID.” • “The recent approach” means the CDC approach.

Elite Maleficence

“How Influencer Leftists Failed On Covid” [Nate Bear, Do Not Panic]. “I read popular leftist media, listen to popular leftist podcasts, and in nearly five years none of them have ever articulated a covid story for their followers that positions the backlash to covid policies as a coordinated attack by the capitalist ruling class against broadly redistributive policies. Worse than that, some of them push reactionary lines about covid, that it was exclusively an attack on civil liberties, that it was a period of tyrannical rule we must never fall for again. Fake fool leftists like Jimmy Dore are the worst, full covid reactionaries who sprinkle on antivax shite to boot. It’s not just him. Most leftists with a big platform show a total inability, unwillingness, I don’t know what, to apply critical theory about class and capital to the biggest global crisis of our lifetimes…. Much of what we’re seeing now in the US and more broadly in the west is because the liberal centre and the left, together, ceded the ground to right wing reactionaries in the critical period during early covid when the story was not yet written, when the future was still up for grabs. And in that critical period, whether they were openly spouting reactionary sentiment like Dore, dribbling covid out of their mouths only in reference to how bad stay-at-home was for the kids, or staying silent as the brief expansion of the social safety net was unwound, influencer leftists and liberals largely conspired with the billionaire class to agree on a cultural story about covid which led us to where we are.” For example:

Here’s some of the objectively very good things that happened during early covid, things in many cases without precedent.

Direct cash transfers to citizens.

Evictions banned in the US, UK, EU.

Debt collection banned.

Homeless people provided shelter. (The UK ended homelessness).

Child poverty halved to record lows.

Food poverty eradicated. The US government was giving out free food boxes for fucks sake.

Plummeting suicide rates, adult and child.

Wildlife without the boot of industrial capitalism on its neck flourished.

Remote work was normalised.

These policies happened broadly across the west, regardless of the government type. From the right in the UK to the centre in Canada to the left in Spain. The US did redistribution and social protection under Trump and then Biden and at the state level, red and blue.

The crisis provoked a pro-social response independent of government ideology.

There was also a true sense of the collective, a true understanding that we lived in a society for the first time in my life. From mutual aid efforts to clapping for workers to wearing masks in healthcare as a basic courtesy to disabled and vulnerable people.

Of course, Biden rolled all of this back as fast as he could, one reason the Democrats lost. Anyhow, you can be sure our elites will want none of this will happen if Bird Flu ever jumps to humans. They have the same reaction to all this that they had to the New Deal: Never again.

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “Initial jobless claims in the US rose by 5,000 from the previous week to 219,000 on the period ending February 15th, ahead of market expectations of 215,000. In the meantime, recurring claims were at 1,869,000 after the first week of February, loosely in line with market expectations of 1,870,000.”

Manufacturing: “United States Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index in the US decreased to 18.1 in February 2025 from 44.3 in January which was the highest since April 2021, and below forecasts of 20.”

Manufacturing: “Trump says he’s considering buying used planes to serve as Air Force One amid Boeing delays” [Associated Press]. “Speaking to reporters aboard one of the two nearly 35-year-old Boeing 747-200 aircraft in current use, Trump said, ‘We’re looking at alternatives, because it’s taking Boeing too long.’ ‘We may go and buy a plane,’ Trump said, adding that he could then ‘convert it.’ He later clarified that he was ruling out purchasing aircraft of Airbus, the European company that is the only other global supplier on large wide-body aircraft, but would consider a second-hand Boeing plane. ‘I would not consider Airbus. I could buy one from another country perhaps or get one from another country.’”

Manufacturing: “Boeing CEO says Musk ‘helping in a big way’ on timing of Air Force One planes” [Reuters]. “Ortberg told the Barclays Industrial Select Conference that Boeing is making progress with the help of Trump’s cost-cutting ally Musk in improving the delivery time, which will eliminate the risk of continued cost overruns. ‘Elon Musk is actually helping us a lot in working through the requirements …so that we can move faster and get the president those airplanes delivered,’ Ortberg said. ‘And you know he’s a brilliant guy so he’s able to pretty quickly ascertain the difference between technical requirements and things that we can move out of the way and he’s helping us in a big way.’” • Well, that’s what Ortberg would have to say, no? If he knew what was good for him.

Manufacturing: “Airbus CEO says China’s Comac could become a serious rival and disrupt the duopoly with Boeing” [Business Insider]. “[Guillaume Faury] was asked about Comac’s plans to increase production of its C919 jet — a single-aisle aircraft similar to the best-selling Airbus A320 family and Boeing’s 737 Max. ‘Other aircraft manufacturers have tried to enter into this very competitive space in the past from other countries, not necessarily successfully, but I believe Comac is more likely to succeed,’ Faury said. He pointed to its ‘privileged access’ to the Chinese market, which he said accounted for a fifth of global aircraft demand. Faury added that this will also ‘probably give them the room’ to export to other countries ‘when the product is mature.’ ‘They have to do a certain ramp-up first — in the current supply environment, ramp-up is not an easy task — but we take them seriously,’ the Airbus CEO said.” • Then too if Comac management looted the company like Boeing’s did, they’d probably be shot. Concentrates the mind.

Tech: Search was bad. AI is making it worse:

it’s like “Let’s get stupid!” is our culture’s motto!

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 49 Fear (previous close: 48 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 42 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Feb 19 at 3:03:28 PM ET.

Gallery

I don’t much like this account, but this time they really get it right:

Why?

News of the Wired

“The hardest working font in Manhattan” [Marcin Wichary, Aresluna]. “Hours of looking at close-ups of keys made me sensitive to the peculiar shapes of some of its letters. No other font had a Q, a 9, or a C that looked like this. One day, I saw what felt like Gorton on a ferry traversing the waters Bay Area. A few weeks later, I spotted it on a sign in a national park. Then on an intercom. On a street lighting access cover. In an elevator. At my dentist’s office. In an alley…. These had one thing in common. All of the letters were carved into the respective base material – metal, plastic, wood. The removed shapes were often filled in with a different color, but sometimes left alone. At one point someone explained to me Gorton must have been a routing font, meant to be carved out by a milling machine rather than painted on top or impressed with an inked press.Some searches quickly led me to George Gorton Machine Co., a Wisconsin-based company which produced various engraving machines. The original model 1 led to model 1A and then 3U and then, half a decade later, P1-2. They were all pantograph engravers: They allowed you to install one or more letter templates and then trace their shape by hand. A matching rotating cutter would mimic your movements, and the specially configured arms would enlarge or reduce the output to the size you wanted…. A lot of typography has roots in calligraphy – someone holding a brush in their hand and making natural but delicate movements that result in nuanced curves filled with thoughtful interchanges between thin and thick. Most of the fonts you ever saw follow those rules; even the most ‘mechanical’ fonts have surprising humanistic touches if you inspect them close enough. But not Gorton. Every stroke of Gorton is exactly the same thickness (typographers would call such fonts ‘monoline’). Every one of its endings is exactly the same rounded point. The italic is merely an oblique, slanted without any extra consideration, and while the condensed version has some changes compared to the regular width, those changes feel almost perfunctory. Monoline fonts are not respected highly, because every type designer will tell you: This is not how you design a font.” • Neat! Not on the Nostromo, sadly, though this font does sound like it would have been a Weyland-Yutani favorite.

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 IM:

IM writes: “A gully by Lake Huron, after a storm.”

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