By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, I am traveling. If you can read this, I have experienced a conntectivity debacle. –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
Nepal House-Martin, Trongsa, Trongsa, Bhutan. “Gave two types of calls; flight call & another as they are swarmed near the nests which were located on a rock face above the road; individuals were see.”
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
The Constitutional Order
“Appeal Pursuant to § 1-1-130(3) C.R.S. District Court, City and County of Denver, Case No. 2023CB032577, Honorable Sarah B. Wallace, Judge [The Supreme Court of the State of Colorado]. Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment Appeal. Key point, though said in several different ways throughout the brief:
The claim (summarizing) is that any person who holds an “office” is in fact an “officer of the United States,” since any other construction leads to absurd outcomes. (To me, this begs the question, since it assumes that an elected President is of like kind to an appointee. Here once again is the wording of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
If Section Three applied to an elected President, why not just say so, and enumerate the title? If absurd results are to be sought, surely we would not want to prevent Lincoln from running for a second term because his intitial suspension of habeas corpus was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court? Further, for another absurd result, suppose — the Section Three being “self-executing” — that Lincoln’s name was stripped from the ballot by one or more states, and that the election ended up being thrown into the House, even though Lincoln won the popular vote. Would the House (and the Senate) then determine the election winner by voting to “remove such disability” from Lincoln? Or not? To me, the entire mishegoss comes from trying to substitute the judgement of the Judicial and Legislative branches for the judgement of voters (who are surely the best judges of what an “insurrection” is in any case, even if putatively instigated by a President). Fiercely defending my priors here, I know!
Capitol Seizure
When he’s right, he’s right:
TUCKER: “The amount of lying around January 6th, and it was obvious in the tapes that I showed, is really distressing and anyone who’s covering for those lies should be ashamed of themself and that would include almost the entire American media, including Fox News”… pic.twitter.com/ZLEF2u9HFw
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) November 18, 2023
They should let Buffalo Headress Dude off with a stern warning; after all, the videos show that he was let into the Senate Chamber by the Capitol Hill police. Vladimir Ilyich Ulanov he was not!
“In breakthrough, Congress obtains footage of undercover cops conducting surveillance on Jan. 6” [Just the News]. “The footage reviewed by Just the News ranges from the mundane — such as chronicling moments when Capitol Police officers are impacted by tear gas fired into the crowd – to more provocative scenes that appear to show plainclothes [Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)] officers exhorting rioters to climb scaffolding near the Capitol or talking about being undercover with liberal fascist protesters in a crowd. ‘Well, we go undercover as Antifa in the crowd,’ one officer that congressional investigators believe is a member of the MPD electronic surveillance unit is captured on video saying.” • Liberal fascists? Anitfa? What kind of sense does it make to go “undercover” as antifa at a Trump afterparty?
“Time for Truth and Accountability J6 Committee” [Declassified with Julie Kelly]. “After months of promising to do so, House Republicans finally released the first tranche of surveillance footage captured by security cameras on January 6…. Millions of Americans will now see video of police officers standing by as protesters walked in the building, some exchanging handshakes and fist bumps…. But perhaps most important is hearing from the victims of this reckless, vengeful prosecution. In fact, Johnson might be well served to launch the committee with a public hearing featuring J6 defendants and their families—particularly those who lost a loved one to suicide—who can explain to the American people the torment they’ve endured at the hands of line prosecutors, FBI agents, and federal judges. House Republicans have America’s attention on January 6. The dam is breaking on the official narrative—time to bust it wide open.”
Biden Administration
“No Exit From Gaza” (free) [Foreign Affairs]. The deck: “Why Israel—and the United States—Has Only Bad Options for the Day After.” •Well worth a read. If one views Israel’s strategy as similar to the Tatmadaw’s “Four Cuts,” they’re seeking to asphyxiate the fish (Hamas) by draining the water (the Gazan population). Then they get to take the land and hand it over to another tranche of goat-sacrificing “settlers.” (The tunnels, etc., would then be a distraction; not strategic in the slightest). So how exactly do you tell a nuclear powier “no”? (Thinking like a state, it’s interesting to see nuclear weapons as a bid for immortality, because how to get rid of them?)
2024
Less than a year to go!
“Trump poll lead expands with Biden losing black, Hispanic support” [New York Post]. “The latest poll by Emerson College, released Wednesday, finds Trump leading 47% to 43% — with Biden’s edge among historically Democrat-supporting minority groups dropping significantly in just one year. The 81-year-old incumbent’s lead among Hispanic voters narrowed to 3%, down from 14% in an Emerson poll last November — an 11 percentage-point shift. Biden’s lead among African Americans was a still-substantial 47%, but down 15 percentage points from this time last year…. It’s unclear what’s behind the dramatic swing in support among minorities, though polls have consistently shown that economic concerns — including inflation and high interest rates — are the leading issue for voters.” • The Trump Adminisration CARES Act “spur[ed] a record drop in poverty.” Then the Democrats got rid of it. Maybe that? Plus, Joe Biden owes me six hundred bucks.
“Univision CEO defends Trump interview after uproar, says network won’t be ‘deterred by partisan interests’” [FOX]. “Journalist Enrique Acevedo sat down with Trump for a wide-ranging interview from Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, and some liberals have expressed outrage that the Spanish-language network offered a platform to the former president. Others have insisted liberal anchor Jorge Ramos should have conducted the interview because he would have pushed back harder on Trump’s remarks.” • Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Trump’s running for office. Of course he should be interviewed. Liberal Democrats should stop the pearl-clutching about “platforming” and beat Trump on the merits. Surely that shouldn’t be hard? (And if it is, why is that?) Of course, to do that — as opposed to the current strategy of “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP” and “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” — they’d have to pop their embubblement, and who wants that?
“Stormy Daniels’s conflict complaint against Trump hush money lawyer tossed” [The Hill]. “A New York attorney grievance committee on Tuesday dismissed a complaint filed by adult film performer Stormy Daniels alleging one of former President Trump’s lawyers in his hush money case has a conflict of interest…. Trump’s trial in the case is currently scheduled to begin March 25. It is one of four criminal cases the former president faces as he looks to return to the White House. He has mounted various pre-trial attempts to toss the charges, and the judge is set to consider those motions during a Feb. 15 hearing. The judge at that hearing could also change the trial schedule.”
“Donald Trump has worst day yet in NY civil fraud trial as underling’s scribbled note ties him to conspiracy” [Business Insider]. “The witness was Jeffrey McConney, who was the comptroller and spreadsheet czar at the Trump Org…. McConney was handed People’s Exhibit 3054, a draft of Trump’s net-worth statement for 2014. He was asked to look at a note scribbled in thin blue ink on the draft’s first page, ‘DJT TO GET FINAL REVIEW,’ which he said he’d written… Trump has denied involvement in preparing a decade’s worth of these annual net-worth statements, which New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, has alleged — and the trial judge has agreed — were each year riddled with billions of dollars of exaggerations…. McConney’s blue-ink handwriting is all over the net-worth statement drafts, showing he revised language and even added cautionary notes that were then passed along for Trump’s “final review,” as McConney said in his own description of the drafting process.”
“Dana White storms training facility, eradicates Peloton inventory in response to RFK threat — ‘Pelo-gone’ (Video)” [MMA Mania]. “UFC CEO, Dana White, promised to rid the premises of all Peloton exercise equipment after the fitness company, which previously sponsored Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast, threatened the controversial comedian for hosting an episode with political guest, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The deed is done.” • Not my world at all; I don’t know what to make of this. Readers?
“Senate hopeful Hill Harper says he was offered $20M to run against Rashida Tlaib instead” [Detroit News]. “U.S. Senate hopeful Hill Harper said Wednesday he was offered a sizeable campaign donation from a Metro Detroit businessman if he dropped out of Michigan’s Senate race and instead ran against Democratic U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit… ‘I said no. I won’t be bossed, bullied, or bought,’ Harper said on X. ‘Yes, telling the truth here will put a target on my back. But if we ALL come together we can win.’: And: [Marshall Wittman, a spokesperson for AIPAC] stressed that AIPAC was ‘absolutely not involved in any way in this matter.” I guess that means they were? And the lot thickens: “Harper later said the offer was proof of a broken political system tilted toward the wealthy and evidence that ‘establishment donors’ don’t believe Harper’s Senate Democratic primary opponent, U.S. Rep Elissa Slotkin of Holly, can defeat him.” • Slotkin is, of course, a CIA Democrat. Two birds with one stone?
Democrats en Déshabillé
Patient readers, it seems that people are actually reading the back-dated post! But I have not updated it, and there are many updates. So I will have to do that. –lambert
I have moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Party (“the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing the addition here in a “live” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It turns out that defining the Democrat Party is, in fact, a hard problem. I do think the paragraph that follows is on point all the way back to 2016, if not before:
The Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Party is as “unreformable” as the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. If the Democrat Party fails to govern, that’s because the PMC lacks the capability to govern. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community.
Note, of course, that the class power of the PMC both expresses and is limited by other classes; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial model’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to mind. Suck up, kick down.
“Conservative Group Accidentally Reveals Its Secret Donors. Some of Them Are Liberal Orgs” [Daily Beast]. “A conservative nonprofit tied to a controversial ‘White House-in-waiting’ for a second Donald Trump presidency has apparently unintentionally revealed its top donors—and two of them are foundations famously associated with liberal causes. The nonprofit, called American Compass, included the names of five donor organizations on a schedule in its 2022 tax statement…. Of the five groups, two stand out for their prominent histories of supporting liberal causes—the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Omidyar Network Foundation…. According to the tax statement, the Omidyar Network has contributed a total of $400,000 to American Compass since 2020…. The Hewlett Foundation—a longtime supporter of National Public Radio—has accounted for more than one-third of American Compass’ total public support, giving a combined $1,486,000 over the same period, with an extra $475,000 dose this January.” And now the kicker: “The donations are striking because American Compass is a partner organization in Project 2025, a controversial right-wing think tank that has been building the policy and personnel firmament for a second Trump administration.” • Wait, what? I thought Project 2025 was something goodthinking liberal Democrats were supposed to be hysterical about?
“House Democrat apologizes after saying Trump ‘has to be eliminated’” [The Hill]. “Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) apologized Monday for his “poor choice of words” when he said former President Trump must be ‘eliminated’ to protect democracy…. ‘It is just unquestionable at this point that that man cannot see public office again. He is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy, and he has to be, he has to be eliminated,’ Goldman said Sunday on MSNBC’s ‘Inside with Jen Psaki.’” • Goldman is among the wealthiest members of Congress.
“Trump ‘more dangerous’ than Hitler, Mussolini: McCaskill” [The Hill]. “McCaskill said Trump is a unique type of authoritarian figure, noting he ‘is not trying to overcome a neighboring country like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is in Ukraine. He is not going for a grandiose scheme of international dominance.’ ‘All he wants … is to look in the mirror and see a guy who’s president,’ she said. ‘All he cares about is selfish self-promotion. That’s the only philosophy he has. Which makes him even more dangerous.’” • “Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president.” –Richard Cohen. So (former Senator) McCaskill is saying Trump is dangerous because he’s like a Senator?
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Brothels that serviced politicians and military officials raked in millions: ‘Record keeping was impeccable’” [New York Post]. The lead is at the end: “The US Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said at the time of their arrests that the ‘commercial sex buyers allegedly included elected officials, high tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, military officers, government contractors that possess security clearances, professors, attorneys, scientists, and accountants, among others.’ ‘The investigation into the involvement of sex buyers is active and ongoing,’ the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office noted at the time.” And I’m sure won’t be politicized in any way! More: “No information about the identities of the prostitution ring’s alleged clients has been made public.” • Weighing the firm and its service providers vs. the clients in the balance, which population, in the aggregate, has done more harm? I’d say the populatoin with the pharma executives and government contractors, for starters. Cf. Dan 5:26-27.
#COVID19
“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
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 (dashboard); 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, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: 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, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Covid is Airborne
“How to Ventilate Your Home For Thanksgiving to Help Reduce COVID Risks” [KQED]. Worth reading in full. Regarding opening windows, this seems useful: “Try to seat your guests as close as possible to the fresh air coming in — and don’t park them all by the window where airflow is going out. Because if COVID-19 particles are in that airflow, that “air out” area will be heavy. How do you know which is the ‘air in’ window and which is the ‘air out’ one?…. The simplest is to stand in front of the open window and hold up a small piece of string, ribbon, or anything similar in front of it, letting it hang down. This way, ‘you can kind of see which way the stream moves and then understand if the air is coming in or going out.’ You could also use a candle for this.” • Might be useful to have candles at table, too.
Sequelae
“How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Sleep Quality?” [MedScape]. “[A}n ICOSS substudy conducted in 2311 patients with COVID‑19 revealed that individuals with a history of insomnia before the pandemic were at greater risk for long COVID, compared with those without a history of insomnia. Also, patients with long COVID seem to be at greater risk of insomnia, compared with those who quickly recovered from COVID‑19. The data will be published soon in Sleep Medicine….. In the case of sleep disorders related to postacute sequelae of SARS‑CoV‑2 infection, ongoing research is analyzing the effects of behavioral therapy and strategies that modify the circadian rhythm. One group of participants is taking melatonin and the other is taking a placebo.”
“Something Awful”
Lambert here: I’m getting the feeling that the “Something Awful” might be a sawtooth pattern — variant after variant — that averages out to a permanently high plateau. Lots of exceptionally nasty sequelae, most likely deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we might add brain damage, including personality changes therefrom.
Lambert here: Lots of new results yesterday, most up, starting with wastewater. (The one I worry about the most is ER visits, since I think that data is hard to game, and who wants to go to the ER, anyhow?) I think it’s time to send the relatives those clippings you saved on brain damage (also, of course, the 2022 clippings: here, here. And the 2020 one). And break out the Corsi-Rosenthal boxes at the family gathering!
Case Data
NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater data, November 20:
Lambert here: Cases up, just in time for Thanksgiving (and tinfoil hat time: This is the, er, inflection point CDC was trying to conceal when they gave the contract to Verily and didn’t ensure a seamless transition).
Regional data:
Everywhere!
Variants
NOT UPDATED From CDC, November 11:
Lambert here: Top of the leaderboard: HV.1, EG.5 a strong second, with FL.1.15.1 and XBB.1.1.16.6 trailing. No BA.2.86 (although that has showed up in CDC’s airport testing). Still a Bouillabaisse…
From CDC, October 28:
Lambert here: I sure hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart depends, don’t all move on the green fields and pastures new (or have their access to facilities cut by administrators of ill intent).
CDC: “As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.
Covid Emergency Room Visits
NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, November 18:
Lambert here: Slight increases in some age groups, conforming to wastewater data. Only a week’s lag, so this may be our best current nationwide, current indicator until Verily gets its house in order (and working class-centric, since I would doubt the upper crust goes to the ER).
NOTE “Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period.” So not the entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message here being that Covid is “just like the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week period” is appropriate for bothMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these people so much. Notice also that this chart shows, at least for its time period, that Covid is not seasonal, even though CDC is trying to get us to believe that it is, presumably so they can piggyback on the existing institutional apparatus for injections.
Hospitalization
Bellwether New York City, data as of November 23:
Definitely up. New York state as a whole looks more like a spike. (I hate this metric because the lag makes it deceptive, although the hospital-centric public health establishment loves it, hospitalization and deaths being the only metrics that matter [snort]).
NOT UPDATED Here’s a different CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, but with a date, at least. November 11:
Lambert here: “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So where the heck is the update, CDC?
Positivity
NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, November 20:
0.5%. Decline arrested. (It would be interesting to survey this population generally; these are people who, despite a tsunami of official propaganda and enormous peer pressure, went and got tested anyhow.)
NOT UPDATED From Cleveland Clinic, November 11:
Lambert here: Increase (with backward revision; guess they thought it was over). I know this is just Ohio, but the Cleveland Clinic is good*, and we’re starved for data, so…. NOTE * Even if hospital infection control is trying to kill patients by eliminating universal masking with N95s.
NOT UPDATED From CDC, traveler’s data, October 30:
Down, albeit in the rear view mirror. And here are the variants for travelers, October 30:
Deaths
Total: 1,183,227 – 1,182,999 – 1,182,945 = 228 (228 * 365 = 83,220 deaths per year, today’s YouGenicist™ number for “living with” Covid (quite a bit higher than the minimizers would like, though they can talk themselves into anything. If the YouGenicist™ metric keeps chugging along like this, I may just have to decide this is what the powers-that-be consider “mission accomplished” for this particular tranche of death and disease).
Excess Deaths
NOT UPDATED The Economist, November 18:
Lambert here: Based on a machine-learning model.
Stats Watch
There are no officals statistics of interest today.
Tech: “Democrats can’t quit Elon Musk’s X” [Politico]. “Politicians are finding they just don’t have a competitor for X’s free, real-time ability to reach voters and journalists. X is still the closest thing to a virtual town square for the Washington conversation.” • Maybe just accept that every billionarire is a policy failure, not just Musk? (And heck, why not just nationalize Twitter? That’s what a Democrat’s Democrat would do.) Also: Twitter remains the number one source for Covid material, in fact pandemic material generally. Of course, given Biden’s record, I can see why Democrats would want such a source to go away.
Manufacturing: Tern is a bit of a doomer. Nevertheless:
I wonder how many other industries this is true for?
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 67 Greed (previous close: 66 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 56 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 22 at 8:59:44 PM ET.
The Conservatory
“The Rolling Stones are hitting the road next year on a tour sponsored by AARP” [CNN]. • Ooof. From an earlier, less innocent time:
[embedded content]
I say “less innocent” because, really, the Stones are pretty harmless at this point, no?
Feral Hog Watch
“A population of hard-to-eradicate ‘super pigs’ in Canada is threatening to invade the US” [Associated Press]. “In Canada, the wild pigs roaming Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba pose a new threat. They are often crossbreeds that combine the survival skills of wild Eurasian boar with the size and high fertility of domestic swine to create a ‘super pig’ that’s spreading out of control. Ryan Brook, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and one of Canada’s leading authorities on the problem, calls feral swine, ‘the most invasive animal on the planet” and ‘an ecological train wreck.’ Pigs are not native to North America. While they’ve roamed parts of the continent for centuries, Canada’s problem dates back only to the 1980s when it encouraged farmers to raise wild boar, Brook said. The market collapsed after peaking in 2001 and some frustrated farmers simply cut their fences, setting the animals free.” • The Threat From The North! (And more invasive than humans? Really?)
The Gallery
Generally I don’t like constructs like this much. But I like this one:
News of the Wired
“The Secret Language of Ships” [Hakai]. “Tugboat crews routinely encounter what few of us will ever see. They easily read a vessel’s size, shape, function, and features, while deciphering at a glance the mysterious numbers, letters, and symbols on a ship’s hull. To non-mariners, the markings look like hieroglyphs. For those in the know, they speak volumes about a particular ship and also about the shipping industry…. To the left of the draft lines are different versions of the bulbous bow and bow thruster symbols. BT|FP tells you the position of the bow thruster: between the ballast tank (BT) and the forepeak (FP), the forwardmost part of the ship. It’s important for a tugboat operator to know the location of the bow thruster, as it creates turbulence that the tug would rather avoid.” • Neat stuff!
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 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 jsn:
jsn writes: “Dave grew this as a visual garnish for his Datil Pepper garden.”
Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:
Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:
If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!
