2:00PM Water Cooler 7/25/2024 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Affected person readers, there’s quite a lot of political materials to course of immediately, a few of which* I nonetheless want to sit down and take into consideration, so please examine again. –lambert

Chicken Music of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Santa Fe Dam Rec. Space, Los Angeles, California, United States. Solely forty seconds however there’s rather a lot occurring!

In Case You Would possibly Miss…

(1) Biden’s post-defenestration speech.

(2) Litmus exams for Kamala (Palestine, anti-trust).

(3) Kamala’s marketing campaign, together with the donor-gasm, the 100 days, and the bait and change.

(4) Trad wives.

(5) Worker possession.

Politics

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

2024

Lower than 4 months to go!

Friday’s RCP Ballot Averages:

Virginia and North Carolina added to the checklist. NC was by no means going for Biden Harris, however Virginia? Yikes!

* * *

Biden Defenestration:

“Transcript: Biden’s speech explaining why he withdrew from the 2024 presidential race” [Associated Press]. Biden: “You realize, in current weeks it’s change into clear to me that I wanted to unite my celebration on this crucial endeavor. I consider my document as president, my management on the earth, my imaginative and prescient for America’s future all merited a second time period, however nothing, nothing can are available the best way of saving our democracy, and that features private ambition. So I’ve determined the easiest way ahead is to cross the torch to a brand new era. That’s the easiest way to unite our nation. I do know there’s a time and a spot for lengthy years of expertise in public life, however there’s additionally a time and a spot for brand spanking new voices, recent voices, sure, youthful voices, and that point and place is now.” • So that is all the reason we’re going to get. “Current weeks” contradicts the narrative that Biden’s determination was made rapidly over the weekend when aides Ricchetti and Donilon confirmed him polling information. Provided that Biden’s defenestration was carried out by Tweet with out informing workers, I’m not shopping for “in current weeks.” I feel Biden’s determination was made rapidly underneath stress. Oh, and Kamala is youthful solely notionally; she doesn’t code as 59, certainly. And she or he’s neither a brand new nor recent voice. Assuming one leaves the sound up.

“July 24, 2024” [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]. I’ve by no means been in a position to carry myself to learn Richardson, and now I see why. Countless exposition of Biden’s phrases with out worth add, however concluding piously however “with out proof,” as we are saying: “Like [Washington and Adams], Biden gave up the pursuit of energy for himself as a way to reveal the significance of democracy.” And a teensy bit if reporting, albeit unsourced: “After the speech, the White Home served ice cream to the Bidens and a whole bunch of White Home staffers within the Rose Backyard.” • I’m wondering if the ice cream got here from Pelosi’s fridge.

* * *

Kamala’s Rollout:

The Donor-Gasm:

“How Kamala Harris Took Command of the Democratic Occasion in 48 Hours” [Shane Goldmacher, New York Times]. “The story of how Ms. Harris so effectively and successfully locked down the nomination — ‘an ideal 48 hours,’ Robby Mook, who managed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 marketing campaign, has referred to as it — was instructed by interviews with greater than two dozen people who find themselves supporting Ms. Harris, concerned together with her marketing campaign or who interacted with it. Lots of these folks requested anonymity to talk candidly about issues they weren’t licensed to debate.” Shorter: “The Interior Occasion: That is their story.” This caught my eye: “Inside 48 hours, Ms. Harris had functionally cleared the Democratic discipline of each critical rival, clinched the help of extra delegates than wanted to safe the celebration nomination, raised greater than $100 million and delivered a crisper message towards former President Donald J. Trump than Mr. Biden had mustered in months. It amounted to a exceptional show of early dominance for Ms. Harris and an natural outpouring of enthusiasm.” • Utilizing the experience-based heuristic — expanded on under — that something a public-facing Democrat says is a lie till confirmed in any other case, we naturally ask what was “natural” in regards to the “outpouring.” Clicking by to the hyperlink, we discover the reply: fundraising (as one may count on). “Greater than $100 million” is obscure — and if we had been students, we’d look ahead to the reviews to the FEC — however Harris marketing campaign claims (“with out proof,” as we are saying) “888,000 donors had contributed in her first day,” and ActBlue says they took in $90 million in the identical 24-hour interval.

Name me cynical, however I discover it very arduous to consider that there was a pent-up demand amounting to 880,000 folks, randomly distributed throughout the Democrat citizens, simply ready to donate to Kamala; the polls definitely haven’t proven that, for instance; nor have any anecdotes I’ve seen. Nor has Kamala’s efficiency in some other marketing campaign. So how “natural” was the donor-gasm, actually? Speculating very freely, I can consider two causes it may not be, one kind of respectable, the opposite not respectable in any respect.

Taking the respectable rationalization first: Kamala is a valued member of AKA (Alpha Kappa Alpha), “the primary intercollegiate traditionally African American sorority.” “The AKAs won’t formally endorse any political candidate, however together with fellow Black Greek-letter organizations — often called the ‘Divine 9’ — they’ve launched a large voter mobilization marketing campaign.” An precise political advocacy group, “Win With Black Girls,” organized a 40,000 member digital name that raised $1.5 million, so these establishments have type. (Notice that I’m not completely in sympathy with this vital identification vertical within the Democrat Occasion, since they gave us Obama, Clinton, and Biden, and nobbled Sanders. Obama was a catastrophe for the working class, and Biden even worse, since he slaughtered round 700,000 folks, disproportionately working class, by his coverage of Covid an infection with out mitigation. The destruction and erasure of the probabilities that Sanders opened was one other catastrophe for the working class. The AKAs are additionally about as PMC as you may get, and so their priorities will not be mine.) AKA has 360,000 members. So you possibly can see how a completely unofficial and completely spontaneous outpouring of help from AKA would go a great distance in the direction of 880,000. However not completely. Main us to–

The illegitimate rationalization: A squillionaire “smurf.” From Investopedia, “What Is a Smurf and How Does Smurfing Work“: “A smurf is a colloquial time period for a cash launderer who seeks to evade scrutiny from authorities businesses by which are every under the reporting threshold.” On this case, the squillionaire would take a really giant sum and distribute it by a lot of small donor accounts by, say, ActBlue, conveniently on-line and providing an answer that scales. (As of 2023: “Not like almost each different particular person political marketing campaign and political motion committee, ActBlue doesn’t require a card verification worth (CVV) quantity as a requirement for donating.”) A dialogue of the 2012 election, when Obama was on the poll, comprises the next intriguing passage: “The key sources of knowledge on political cash are the Federal Election Fee and the U.S. Inner Income Service. . . . each businesses routinely settle for severely incomplete reviews and clearly inaccurate or deceptive reviews. . . . Because of this, the true affect that enormous donors wield in American elections is chronically underestimated. . . . Current information administration instruments that attempt to match these up generally fail to acknowledge [i.e., smurfing] In flip that nourishes illusions that small donors play larger roles in campaigns than they actually do. Particularly the place Democrats are involved, the parable of small donors is a robust instrument of miseducation.” Akerlof and Shiller’s notion of phishing equilibria lends credence to this hypothesis. In my paraphrase: “If a system permits fraud, fraud will have already got occurred,” the fraud on this case being smurfing. (I bumped into the smurfing idea in right-wing Twitter, however the entire dialogue was a rats’ nest of self-reference and didn’t appear well-evidenced, so I didn’t embrace the thought till I might do some work on it.)

888,000 = respectable (AKA) + illegitimate (smurfing) is completely attainable, too.

As I word, affected person readers, these are each speculations, albeit intriguing and plausble ones. If in case you have proof to verify or disconfirm both rationalization, please go away your ideas (and hyperlinks) in feedback.

The “Bait and Swap”:

I feel “coup” isn’t the correct descriptive, so I’ll use “bait and change” till we are able to give you a greater time period.

The timeline that led to Kamala’s coronation is attention-grabbing in that it’s not likely clear when it may very well be stated to have begun (alert reader Rolf started an attention-grabbing dialogue right here, with contributions from readers Acacia, Sam, and Tom). To a Martian wanting down on the entire course of over time and from 30,000 toes, Kamala’s coronation may appear to be an unlimited bait and change operation. In any case, the Interior Occasion cleared the first ballots for Biden, Biden himself declared many occasions that he was “all in,” as we are saying, a whole bunch of thousands and thousands had been raised in Biden’s identify (and it’s no good saying that it was the Biden/Harris ticket, everyone is aware of the Vice Presidency is the proverbial [container] of heat [subtance].) And out of the blue, after about three weeks of Interior Occasion leaks and stress, Biden was off the ticket, Kamala was in, and all the cash was hers (and sure, Biden’s debate efficiency was horrid, however are we actually to consider that Interior Occasion propaganda couldn’t have minimized it, when it has minimized a lot else? Or, extra exactly, that they thought “This time, we are able to’t get away with it”?).

But when Kamala’s coronation was in reality a “bait and change” operation — I’ve checked out Wikipedia’s “rip-off” entry, and might’t discover anything that matches the sample; readers? — then when did it start? In 2020, when she was placed on the poll for no obvious purpose — granted, they beloved her within the Hamptons and The Winery — and when Biden promised to serve a single time period? In (say) 2022, when the “Pink Wave” didn’t materialize, and lots of electeds beat Biden’s 2020 numbers? As late as George Clooney’s enormously profitable fundraiser, the one the place Obama led him gently off the stage? Or just a little underneath a month later, after the talk? Did the Interior Occasion at all times have Biden’s defenestration in thoughts? Or did they defenestrate him solely on the final attainable minute, making as sure as they may that no various to Kamala would materialize?

I don’t suppose we all know; and I don’t suppose we can know. That claims one thing about how Democrats outline “our democracy” operationally. As a result of we now have a candidate on the high of the ticket who by no means confronted the voters and gained a single main, neither in 2020 nor in 2024; a candidate who took energy solely by a marketing campaign of leaks orchestrated by a small group of Interior Occasion figures, through which neither voters nor Democrats on the precinct and even the State Occasion degree had any say; a candidate put in on the ticket by a single individual, her superior within the Govt department, with out dialogue or advance discover of any type; a candidate who swapped in her ActBlue donation’s web page earlier than she even had a marketing campaign web site of her personal for the workplace she seeks; and a candidate who, in 48 hours of telephone work, grew to become the de facto nominee of the complete Occasion; and whose candidacy will shortly be ratified by Zoom name, rendering the precise, bodily Conference mere window-dressing (“Democratic leaders say they’ll nonetheless have a ceremonial roll name on the Chicago conference the week of Aug. 19, and the delegates will vote in individual on the celebration platform,” lol). Clearly, this isn’t a small-d democratic course of, and it’s not possible to rid oneself of the suspicion that that is the Interior Occasion’s mannequin for choosing candiates, going ahead. Pesky voters!

The place the timeline begins issues, as a result of it issues how lengthy the Interior Occasion and its belongings within the press have been mendacity to donors (and, to be honest, themselves) about Biden’s deteriorating cognitive talents. Since 2020 is a very long time (though points had been clearly seen at the moment, as NC readers — and most boring normals — know). Nonetheless, the common and vehement dogpiling that occured when anybody recommended Biden may slip a cog simply predated George Clooney fundraiser and the talk. So it’s honest to say that the mendacity continued for no less than months, and per week is a very long time in politics. And all this mendacity in regards to the man who controls the nuclear codes _{MR SUBLIMINAL One assumes}! That implies the heuristic that, going ahead, any public-facing Democrat ought to be assumed to be mendacity till confirmed in any other case. It was attainable, for awhile, to think about that public-facing Democrats would lie for given operations or campaigns (RussiaGate; Ukraine). However, sadly, now we have to regard mendacity as their default setting. It’s the one approach to make certain.

* * *

The Marketing campaign Path:

The Hundred Days. As you possibly can see, Kamala has 100 days (properly, 103) to win the Presidency (word once more the dominance of the calendar). Does this assist her, or damage her?

“May a brief marketing campaign be precisely what Kamala Harris wants?” [Vox]. “Vice President Kamala Harris has 103 days to persuade the American public to vote for her for president. It’s not quite a lot of time — particularly contemplating former President Donald Trump launched his marketing campaign in November 2022 — however it’s a timeline not too completely different from that of different international locations, a lot of which have brief marketing campaign cycles…. Harris could, to an extent, have one of the best of each worlds: She already has the good thing about being in nationwide management positions. She has the Democratic equipment behind her, together with Biden and former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and he or she can have entry to Biden’s fundraising {dollars}. However voters haven’t been seeing her campaigning all over the place for months now, which implies she’ll appear new…. Nonetheless, the shorter marketing campaign cycle could imply much less alternative for errors like the talk efficiency that finally prompted Biden to step down. And there will probably be much less time for Trump and the Republican Occasion to create damaging narratives about Harris that overshadow her coverage and efficiency — offered she creates a story about herself first.”

“James Carville Warns of ‘Realism’ Going through Kamala Harris Marketing campaign: ‘Powerful Sledding Forward’” [Mediaite]. Carville: “[T]hey’re having to place a marketing campaign collectively straight away. They had been clearly interested by this forward of time, however they received they received to perform between now and the conference, they received accomplish what most campaigns have eight months to do.” And: ” It’s going to be very shut, and I perceive that individuals are feeling rather a lot higher and excited. However that pleasure has received to be tempered with realism, and the realism is she has a tricky marketing campaign on, and as you say, she’s received a number of issues she’s received to perform on the identical time. However having stated that, there’s been actual progress in Vice President Harris. I imply, you possibly can simply see the distinction. And she or he simply seemed so assured to me yesterday. I didn’t put the sound on. I simply left the video, and I favored what I noticed, I’ll be sincere with you.” • I personally additionally suggest watching Kamala with the pontificate, however not, I feel, for a similar causes Carville does.

“Kamala Harris’s Michael Dukakis second” [The New Criterion]. “People over the age of fifty could bear in mind the 1988 presidential election marketing campaign, when Governor Michael Dukakis surged to a seventeen-point lead over Vice President George H. W. Bush following the Democratic Nationwide Conference in mid-July. … Kamala Harris is now having fun with this sort of second as she racks up endorsements in anticipation of the Democratic Nationwide Conference in August. Democrats and media allies are busy portraying her as a recent face (she will not be) and a youthful candidate (additionally uncertain) who will electrify the nation, impress ladies and minority voters, and trounce Donald Trump within the fall marketing campaign. Some polls present her operating kind of even with Trump, although, in reality, Biden was not doing all that badly in the identical polls when he determined to drop out. Harris’s honeymoon will proceed till and thru the Democratic conference, at which period delegates will placed on a present of unity and energy, thereby masking up the big cracks of their coalition that Trump will quickly exploit. She and her operating mate could come out of the conference even with, or even perhaps barely forward of, the Trump-Vance ticket. The honeymoon won’t final very lengthy.” • The honeymoon will, nevertheless, eat an appreciably bigger proportion of the marketing campaign than it normally does.

* * *

Harris (D), litmus check: Palestine:

Learn my full assertion on the protests in Washington, D.C. yesterday. pic.twitter.com/zJpZvdQDt9

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 25, 2024

Harris (D), litmus check: Anti-trust:

Donor or proprietor? LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman thinks he owns Kamala Harris. Think about giving $7 million after which publicly demanding a complete reversal of powerful on company crime insurance policies. Harris took the cash, she must repudiate this. https://t.co/dqPldxMH4R

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 25, 2024

I don’t say Harris can’t be purchased, however I don’t suppose Hoffman fairly understands the place the decimal level would should be.

Extra:

One hopes, anyhow!

— Basel Musharbash (@musharbash_b) July 25, 2024

Certainly one does.

Our Famously Free Press

“AP Declares That ‘JD Vance Did Not Have Intercourse With A Sofa’ In Truth Test” [HuffPost]. “At one level, the AP appeared to have one other headline ― ‘Posts unfold baseless rumors about GOP vice presidential decide JD Vance having intercourse with a sofa’ ― however all variations of the article had been scrubbed from the web lower than 24 hours after publication. Why waste all that journalistic effort? In accordance with Mediate, the AP did a PDF search of the guide that yielded 10 mentions of ‘sofa’ or ‘couches,’ however none of them described Vance performing the act in query. The phrases ‘couch’ and ‘glove’ didn’t seem wherever within the memoir, AP wrote. The Lower did its personal investigation and reported that the pages supposedly recounting Vance’s alleged furnishings tryst really point out no such factor.” • Identical heuristic: Assume any public-facing Democrat is mendacity till confirmed in any other case.

“The Related Press removes a fact-check claiming JD Vance has not had intercourse with a sofa” [The Verge]. The Related Press has apparently retracted a fact-check revealed yesterday with the headline, ‘No, JD Vance didn’t have intercourse with a sofa.’ As of Thursday morning, the article web page displayed a ‘web page unavailable’ error message. The actual fact-check references a number of joke social media posts which have been circulating that declare the Republican vice presidential nominee wrote in his guide Hillbilly Elegy about having intercourse with a sofa…. ‘The story, which didn’t exit on the wire to our prospects, didn’t undergo our customary modifying course of. We’re wanting into how that occurred,’ AP spokesperson Nicole Meir instructed The Verge in an e mail. Information reviews (and fact-checks particularly) are sometimes worded in a approach that fastidiously threads a needle — there’s a distinction between saying one thing definitively didn’t occur versus saying there’s no proof of it. My guess is that the AP headline was the issue right here as a result of it claims to debunk one thing that’s unknowable. A headline like, ‘No, JD Vance didn’t write about fucking a sofa’ maybe would have been extra correct.” • That’s a foolish argument; you repair the headline, you don’t take the web page down. Sounds to me like AP received whipped into line. The Snopes debunking continues to be on-line.

Democrats en Déshabillé

“Newsom To Order Dismantling Of CA Homeless Encampments” [Banning-Beaumont Patch]. “Gov. Gavin Newsom will order state officers on Thursday to dismantle homeless encampments with a sweeping government order, affecting a whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals, the New York Occasions reported. The order is available in response to the June Supreme Courtroom ruling permitting cities to implement bans on sleeping exterior in public areas…. In accordance with the Occasions, the manager order represents the nation’s most sweeping response to the ruling. Roughly 180,000 individuals are unhoused in California…. LA County is the nation’s most populous, with about 10 million folks. Greater than 1 in 5 of all homeless folks within the U.S. reside within the county, in response to The Related Press.” • You possibly can guess Newsom checked with Kamala first, too. Cleansing up California’s picture, and all.

Syndemics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep secure on the market!

Celeb Watch

Tedros sends Olympians to sickness and loss of life:

No, @DrTedros, these @WHO suggestions will NOT “be sure these Video games are wholesome and secure for everybody concerned”.

They won’t stop superspreading occasions, as measures towards airborne transmission (air flow, respirators) are solely really helpful for folks with signs. https://t.co/OOaWPhtQMm pic.twitter.com/eMyCeHHdjs

— Maarten De Cock (@mdc_martinus) July 25, 2024

Masking and air flow really helpful solely after signs seem. However handwashing is at all times applicable!

Lambert right here: Appears like the vacation journey dumped accelerant on the pre-existing surge; see particularly the expansion in wastewater “scorching spots.” Keep secure on the market!

Employment Scenario: “United States Preliminary Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The variety of folks claiming unemployment advantages within the US fell by 10,000 to 235,000 on the interval ending July twentieth, under market expectations of 238,000. Regardless of this decline, the declare rely remained considerably above this yr’s common, indicating that though the US labor market continues to be traditionally tight, it has softened since its post-pandemic [sic] peak.”

GDP: “United States GDP Progress Price” [Trading Economics]. “The US economic system expanded an annualized 2.8% in Q2, up from 1.4% in Q1, and above forecasts of two%, the advance estimate confirmed.”

Manufacturing: “United States Sturdy Items Orders” [Trading Economics]. “New orders for manufactured sturdy items within the US slumped 6.6% month-over-month in June 2024, after 4 consecutive month-to-month will increase and lacking market expectations of a 0.3% enhance.”

Tech: “Alexa Is in Tens of millions of Households—and Amazon Is Dropping Billions” [Wall Street Journal]. “Amazon.com’s Echo audio system are the kind of enterprise success firms don’t need: a broadly bought product that can also be an enormous cash loser. Chief Govt Andy Jassy is making an attempt to plug that gap—and transfer away from the Amazon accounting tactic that helped create it. When Amazon launched the Echo good dwelling units with its Alexa voice assistant in 2014, it pulled a web page from shaving large Gillette’s basic playbook: promote the razors for a pittance within the hope of constructing heaps of cash on purchases of the refill blades. A decade later, the payoff for Echo hasn’t arrived. Whereas a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of consumers have Alexa-enabled units, the concept folks would spend significant quantities of cash to purchase items on Amazon by speaking to the long-lasting voice assistant on the underpriced audio system didn’t take off. Prospects really used Echo largely at no cost apps similar to setting alarms and checking the climate. ‘We nervous we’ve employed 10,000 folks and we’ve constructed a sensible timer,’ stated a former senior worker. Because of this, Amazon has misplaced tens of billions of {dollars} on its units enterprise, which incorporates Echos and different merchandise similar to Kindles, Hearth TV Sticks and video doorbells, in response to inside paperwork and other people acquainted with the enterprise. Between 2017 and 2021, Amazon had greater than $25 billion in losses from its units enterprise, in response to the paperwork. The losses for the years earlier than and after that interval couldn’t be decided.” • That’s a rattling disgrace.

In the present day’s Worry & Greed Index: 45 Impartial (earlier shut: 41 Worry) [CNN]. One week in the past: 53 (Impartial). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jul 24 at 12:37:17 PM ET.

Zeitgeist Watch

“Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight youngsters)” [The Times]. “Trad wives are an web phenomenon; ladies who’ve rejected fashionable gender roles for the extra conventional existence of spouse, mom and homemaker — and who then promote that life on-line, some to thousands and thousands of followers. Their life-style is commonly, although not at all times, sure to Christianity. They movie themselves cooking mad issues from scratch (chewing gum from corn syrup, waffles from a sourdough starter), their faces glowing in beams of daylight, their voices mushy and breathy, their youngsters free vary.” • Price studying in full.

“Fossil Hints That Jurassic Mammals Lived Sluggish and Died Outdated” [New York Times]. “The prolonged time-frame for tooth alternative, together with the older Krusatodon’s age, led the group to conclude that these historic mammals loved surprisingly lengthy life spans. This most definitely prolonged their progress interval. Most fashionable mammals expertise speedy progress early in life earlier than plateauing as they method grownup dimension. Krusatodon and different early Mesozoic mammals could have slowly grown all through their lengthy lives…. Figuring out when the mammalian progress course of sped up is troublesome. Dr. Panciroli thinks improvement was most definitely turbocharged as mammals’ metabolism elevated, and as they grew to become warm-blooded. These traits would emerge later within the Mesozoic Period and assist early mammals undertake extra energetically demanding existence that included swimming and gliding.” • Seems like I’d choose to be a Jurassic Mammal; I don’t glide, and the closest I’ve gotten to swimming is shopping for a washing swimsuit (and possibly I ought to rethink).

Class Warfare

The Elysian]. “There are 47 millionaires working for Central States Manufacturing, they usually’re not all within the C-Suite. Lots of them are drivers or machinists—blue-collar staff for the corporate. How? The corporate is owned by its workers. Each employee will get a wage but additionally a proportion of their wage in inventory possession. When the corporate does properly, so do the staff—all of them, not simply those on the high. And the corporate is doing properly. ‘After we sat down eight years in the past, we stated we need to be a billion-dollar firm and have 1,500 folks, we’re on observe to be each of these this yr,’ Tim Ruger, president of Central States, tells me. That’s proper, this manufacturing firm will change into a unicorn this yr—one among solely 6,000 firms on the earth incomes greater than $1 billion in income. However not like Walmart, Amazon, and Apple, it’s not simply the executives getting paid out. ‘It’s not like 80 % of the corporate is owned by administration and the remaining is owned by workers, it’s very well unfold throughout all features,’ Ruger tells me. ‘We’ve received various folks which have been right here 15, 20 years they usually have $1 million plus balances, which is basically cool for an individual that got here out of highschool and runs our rollformer. You possibly can’t try this all over the place.’” • Do we have now any readers who’re acquainted with Central States Manufacturing? The identify sounds so generic, like “The Nice Lakes Paperclip Firm”:

“Microsoft’s ‘World of Warcraft’ Gaming Workers Votes to Unionize” [Bloomberg].

“It seems quite a lot of return-to-office mandates had been meant to make staff stop” [Quartz]. “1 / 4 of bosses admitted that they hoped return-to-office (RTO) mandates would result in workers quitting, in response to a brand new survey…. That expectation isn’t completely unfounded. Twenty-eight % of distant workers stated they’d take into account quitting their jobs if RTO insurance policies occurred at their firms. Nevertheless it seems fewer stop than the bosses wished. Some executives even blamed layoffs on workers who didn’t stop after RTO insurance policies had been put in place, Bamboo stated. Nearly two in 5 (37%) of managers, administrators, and executives stated their firms had layoffs within the final 12 months as a result of they anticipated that extra workers would stop after enacting RTO insurance policies.”

Information of the Wired

“Scientists Recreate Neanderthal Cooking Strategies and the Outcomes Are Eye-Opening” [ZME Science]. “To study extra about how our extinct relations ready bird-based meals, researchers in Spain tried cooking like Neanderthals utilizing solely instruments and strategies that might have been obtainable in prehistoric occasions…. ‘Utilizing a flint flake for butchering required vital precision and energy, which we had not absolutely valued earlier than this experiment,’ stated Mariana Nabais of the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social in Spain, lead creator of the brand new research. ‘The flakes had been sharper than we initially thought, requiring cautious dealing with to make exact cuts with out injuring our personal fingers. These hands-on experiments emphasised the sensible challenges concerned in Neanderthal meals processing and cooking, offering a tangible connection to their day by day life and survival methods.’”

Yum:

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