By Lambert Strether of Corrente

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

Fowl Tune of the Day

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

In Case You May Miss…

(1) Biden’s post-defenestration speech.

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

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

(4) Trad wives.

(5) Worker possession.

Politics

“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are the truth is 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 record. 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 recognize, in current weeks it’s change into clear to me that I wanted to unite my celebration on this crucial endeavor. I imagine my file as president, my management on the planet, my imaginative and prescient for America’s future all merited a second time period, however nothing, nothing can are available the way in which of saving our democracy, and that features private ambition. So I’ve determined one of the simplest ways ahead is to go the torch to a brand new era. That’s one of the simplest ways 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 new voices, contemporary voices, sure, youthful voices, and that point and place is now.” • So that is all the reason we’re going to get. “Latest weeks” contradicts the narrative that Biden’s determination was made shortly over the weekend when aides Ricchetti and Donilon confirmed him polling knowledge. 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 shortly underneath stress. Oh, and Kamala is youthful solely notionally; she doesn’t code as 59, certainly. And he or she’s neither a brand new nor contemporary voice. Assuming one leaves the sound up.

“July 24, 2024” [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]. I’ve by no means been capable of convey myself to learn Richardson, and now I see why. Limitless 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 with a view to show 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 lots of 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 Celebration 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 known as it — was advised by way of 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 individuals requested anonymity to talk candidly about issues they weren’t approved to debate.” Shorter: “The Interior Celebration: That is their story.” This caught my eye: “Inside 48 hours, Ms. Harris had functionally cleared the Democratic area of each severe rival, clinched the assist of extra delegates than wanted to safe the celebration nomination, raised greater than $100 million and delivered a crisper message in opposition to 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” concerning the “outpouring.” Clicking by way of to the hyperlink, we discover the reply: fundraising (as one would possibly anticipate). “Greater than $100 million” is obscure — and if we have been students, we’d await the studies 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 laborious to imagine that there was a pent-up demand amounting to 880,000 individuals, randomly distributed throughout the Democrat voters, 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 another marketing campaign. So how “natural” was the donor-gasm, actually? Speculating very freely, I can consider two causes it may not be, one roughly reliable, the opposite not reliable in any respect.

Taking the reliable clarification first: Kamala is a valued member of AKA (Alpha Kappa Alpha), “the primary intercollegiate traditionally African American sorority.” “The AKAs is not going to formally endorse any political candidate, however together with fellow Black Greek-letter organizations — referred to as the ‘Divine 9’ — they’ve launched an enormous 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 kind. (Observe that I’m not completely in sympathy with this vital identification vertical within the Democrat Celebration, 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 individuals, disproportionately working class, by way of 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 usually are not mine.) AKA has 360,000 members. So you may see how a completely unofficial and completely spontaneous outpouring of assist from AKA would go a great distance in the direction of 880,000. However not completely. Main us to–

The illegitimate clarification: 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 can be every under the reporting threshold.” On this case, the squillionaire would take a really massive sum and distribute it by way of a lot of small donor accounts by way of, say, ActBlue, conveniently on-line and providing an answer that scales. (As of 2023: “Not like practically 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, incorporates the next intriguing passage: “The foremost 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 studies and clearly inaccurate or deceptive studies. . . . Consequently, the true affect that enormous donors wield in American elections is chronically underestimated. . . . Current knowledge 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 allows 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 embody the concept till I may do some work on it.)

888,000 = reliable (AKA) + illegitimate (smurfing) is completely potential, too.

As I be aware, affected person readers, these are each speculations, albeit intriguing and plausble ones. You probably have proof to verify or disconfirm both clarification, please depart your ideas (and hyperlinks) in feedback.

The “Bait and Change”:

I feel “coup” isn’t the correct descriptive, so I’ll use “bait and swap” 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 might be mentioned to have begun (alert reader Rolf started an attention-grabbing dialogue right here, with contributions from readers Acacia, Sam, and Tom). To a Martian trying down on the entire course of over time and from 30,000 ft, Kamala’s coronation would possibly appear like an unlimited bait and swap operation. In spite of everything, the Interior Celebration cleared the first ballots for Biden, Biden himself declared many occasions that he was “all in,” as we are saying, lots of of tens of millions have 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 all of the sudden, after about three weeks of Interior Celebration 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 imagine that Interior Celebration 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 the truth is a “bait and swap” operation — I’ve checked out Wikipedia’s “rip-off” entry, and may’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 cause — 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 Celebration all the time have Biden’s defenestration in thoughts? Or did they defenestrate him solely on the final potential minute, making as sure as they might that no different to Kamala would materialize?

I don’t assume we all know; and I don’t assume 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 received a single major, neither in 2020 nor in 2024; a candidate who took energy solely by way of a marketing campaign of leaks orchestrated by a small group of Interior Celebration figures, by which neither voters nor Democrats on the precinct and even the State Celebration stage had any say; a candidate put in on the ticket by a single particular person, 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 website of her personal for the workplace she seeks; and a candidate who, in 48 hours of cellphone work, grew to become the de facto nominee of your entire Celebration; 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 particular person on the celebration platform,” lol). Clearly, this isn’t a small-d democratic course of, and it’s unattainable to rid oneself of the suspicion that that is the Interior Celebration’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 Celebration and its belongings within the press have been mendacity to donors (and, to be truthful, themselves) about Biden’s deteriorating cognitive talents. Since 2020 is a very long time (though points have been clearly seen at the moment, as NC readers — and most boring normals — know). Nevertheless, the common and vehement dogpiling that occured when anybody advised Biden would possibly slip a cog simply predated George Clooney fundraiser and the talk. So it’s truthful to say that the mendacity continued for at least months, and per week is a very long time in politics. And all this mendacity concerning 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 potential, 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 sure.

* * *

The Marketing campaign Path:

The Hundred Days. As you may see, Kamala has 100 days (properly, 103) to win the Presidency (be aware once more the dominance of the calendar). Does this assist her, or harm her?

“Might 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 a number of time — particularly contemplating former President Donald Trump launched his marketing campaign in November 2022 — nevertheless it’s a timeline not too totally different from that of different nations, a lot of which have quick marketing campaign cycles…. Harris could, to an extent, have the perfect of each worlds: She already has the advantage of 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 could 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…. Nevertheless, the shorter marketing campaign cycle could imply much less alternative for errors like the talk efficiency that in the end precipitated Biden to step down. And there can be much less time for Trump and the Republican Celebration to create damaging narratives about Harris that overshadow her coverage and efficiency — supplied she creates a story about herself first.”

“James Carville Warns of ‘Realism’ Dealing with Kamala Harris Marketing campaign: ‘Powerful Sledding Forward’” [Mediaite]. Carville: “[T]hey’re having to place a marketing campaign collectively instantly. They have been clearly fascinated about this forward of time, however they obtained they obtained to perform between now and the conference, they obtained accomplish what most campaigns have eight months to do.” And: ” It’s going to be very shut, and I perceive that persons are feeling quite a bit higher and excited. However that pleasure has obtained to be tempered with realism, and the realism is she has a tricky marketing campaign on, and as you say, she’s obtained a number of issues she’s obtained to perform on the similar time. However having mentioned that, there’s been actual progress in Vice President Harris. I imply, you may simply see the distinction. And he or she 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 advocate 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 keep 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 contemporary face (she shouldn’t 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 working roughly even with Trump, although, in fact, 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 power, thereby overlaying up the big cracks of their coalition that Trump will quickly exploit. She and her working mate could come out of the conference even with, or maybe even barely forward of, the Trump-Vance ticket. The honeymoon is not going to final very lengthy.” • The honeymoon will, nevertheless, eat an appreciably bigger share of the marketing campaign than it normally does.

* * *

Harris (D), litmus take a look at: 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 take a look at: 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 robust 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 assume Hoffman fairly understands the place the decimal level would have to 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 Examine” [HuffPost]. “At one level, the AP appeared to have one other headline ― ‘Posts unfold baseless rumors about GOP vice presidential choose JD Vance having intercourse with a sofa’ ― however all variations of the article have been scrubbed from the web lower than 24 hours after publication. Why waste all that journalistic effort? In response to Mediate, the AP did a PDF search of the e-book 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 Reduce did its personal investigation and reported that the pages supposedly recounting Vance’s alleged furnishings tryst really point out no such factor.” • Similar 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 printed 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 couple of joke social media posts which were circulating that declare the Republican vice presidential nominee wrote in his e-book Hillbilly Elegy about having intercourse with a sofa…. ‘The story, which didn’t exit on the wire to our prospects, didn’t undergo our normal modifying course of. We’re trying into how that occurred,’ AP spokesperson Nicole Meir advised The Verge in an e-mail. Information studies (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 obtained 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 lots of of 1000’s of individuals, the New York Instances reported. The order is available in response to the June Supreme Court docket ruling permitting cities to implement bans on sleeping exterior in public areas…. In response to the Instances, the chief order represents the nation’s most sweeping response to the ruling. Roughly 180,000 persons are unhoused in California…. LA County is the nation’s most populous, with about 10 million individuals. Greater than 1 in 5 of all homeless individuals within the U.S. stay within the county, in accordance with The Related Press.” • You possibly can wager 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 Assets, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; contains many counties; Wastewater Scan, contains drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide knowledge). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Normal 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!

Assets, 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 studies); 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).

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

Assets, 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!

Movie star Watch

Tedros sends Olympians to sickness and demise:

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

They won’t stop superspreading occasions, as measures in opposition to airborne transmission (air flow, respirators) are solely beneficial for individuals with signs. https://t.co/OOaWPhtQMm pic.twitter.com/eMyCeHHdjs

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

Masking and air flow beneficial solely after signs seem. However handwashing is all the time acceptable!

Lambert right here: Appears to be like 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 individuals 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 12 months’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 Fee” [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% improve.”

Tech: “Alexa Is in Thousands and thousands 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 extensively bought product that can 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 sensible residence gadgets with its Alexa voice assistant in 2014, it pulled a web page from shaving big Gillette’s basic playbook: promote the razors for a pittance within the hope of creating heaps of cash on purchases of the refill blades. A decade later, the payoff for Echo hasn’t arrived. Whereas lots of of tens of millions of shoppers have Alexa-enabled gadgets, the concept that individuals would spend significant quantities of cash to purchase items on Amazon by speaking to the enduring voice assistant on the underpriced audio system didn’t take off. Clients really used Echo largely at no cost apps similar to setting alarms and checking the climate. ‘We apprehensive we’ve employed 10,000 individuals and we’ve constructed a sensible timer,’ mentioned a former senior worker. Consequently, Amazon has misplaced tens of billions of {dollars} on its gadgets enterprise, which incorporates Echos and different merchandise similar to Kindles, Fireplace TV Sticks and video doorbells, in accordance with inside paperwork and folks accustomed to the enterprise. Between 2017 and 2021, Amazon had greater than $25 billion in losses from its gadgets enterprise, in accordance with the paperwork. The losses for the years earlier than and after that interval couldn’t be decided.” • That’s a rattling disgrace.

As we speak’s Concern & Greed Index: 45 Impartial (earlier shut: 41 Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 53 (Impartial). (0 is Excessive Concern; 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 tens of millions of followers. Their life-style is commonly, although not all the time, certain 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 delicate and breathy, their youngsters free vary.” • Price studying in full.

“Fossil Hints That Jurassic Mammals Lived Gradual and Died Previous” [New York Times]. “The prolonged timeframe for tooth substitute, together with the older Krusatodon’s age, led the crew to conclude that these historical mammals loved surprisingly lengthy life spans. This most probably 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 tough. Dr. Panciroli thinks improvement was most probably 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.” • Appears like I’d desire 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, and so they’re not all within the C-Suite. Lots of them are drivers or machinists—blue-collar employees for the corporate. How? The corporate is owned by its staff. Each employee will get a wage but additionally a share of their wage in inventory possession. When the corporate does properly, so do the workers—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 mentioned we need to be a billion-dollar firm and have 1,500 individuals, we’re on observe to be each of these this 12 months,’ Tim Ruger, president of Central States, tells me. That’s proper, this manufacturing firm will change into a unicorn this 12 months—one in every of solely 6,000 firms on the planet 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 p.c of the corporate is owned by administration and the remainder is owned by staff, it’s very well unfold throughout all capabilities,’ Ruger tells me. ‘We’ve obtained a variety of individuals which were right here 15, 20 years and so they have $1 million plus balances, which is actually 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’ve got any readers who’re accustomed to 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 a number of return-to-office mandates have been meant to make employees stop” [Quartz]. “1 / 4 of bosses admitted that they hoped return-to-office (RTO) mandates would result in staff quitting, in accordance with a brand new survey…. That expectation isn’t completely unfounded. Twenty-eight p.c of distant staff mentioned they’d take into account quitting their jobs if RTO insurance policies occurred at their firms. But it surely seems fewer stop than the bosses needed. Some executives even blamed layoffs on staff who didn’t stop after RTO insurance policies have been put in place, Bamboo mentioned. Virtually two in 5 (37%) of managers, administrators, and executives mentioned their firms had layoffs within the final 12 months as a result of they anticipated that extra staff 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 be taught extra about how our extinct kin ready bird-based meals, researchers in Spain tried cooking like Neanderthals utilizing solely instruments and strategies that may have been accessible in prehistoric occasions…. ‘Utilizing a flint flake for butchering required vital precision and energy, which we had not absolutely valued earlier than this experiment,’ mentioned Mariana Nabais of the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social in Spain, lead writer of the brand new examine. ‘The flakes have 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 every day life and survival methods.’”

Yum:

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