Links 4/7/2026

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1. The Rev Kev April 7, 2026 at 7:51 am

   “Suspected Chemical Shipments From China to Iran Raise Concerns Over Potential Missile Expansion”

   ‘China could have held these vessels at port, imposed an administrative delay, invented a customs hold, any number of bureaucratic tools, but didn’t. That’s a deliberate policy choice.’

   This is all assuming that China would act as a vassal state to the US and would follow US dictates and sanctions. Ummm, no. Iran is an ally of China and is a major source of oil for its industries while the US constantly provokes China and set up missiles on Taiwan off their coastline. If China wants to aid a fellow country then that is their business in the same way that the US aids the Ukraine is their business. It means that China, like Iran, is a sovereign nation and does not need to ask Trump for his permission about what they export and to who.
   1. jrkrideau April 7, 2026 at 2:01 pm

      Yes, I almost lost a keyboard over that.

      The level of naiveté or utter political ignorance was amazing. It’s much like people being shocked that China and Russia just might be supplying Iran with intelligence. Who would have expected something like that?
   2. Kouros April 7, 2026 at 3:57 pm

      Oh, it is just the patronizing style that everything that happens in the world must have the approval of US, the west, the civilized ones, the aristoi, etc… And if it is not done, it is due to malevolent intentions breaking the ordained order of things, blah, blah, blah. We know the discourse, it is thousands of years old and just changes hues, not actual content/meaning.

      All common sense “barbarians” never bothered to listen to such messages.
2. paul April 7, 2026 at 7:55 am

   RE: UK: Labour’s Universal Credit Act set to throw hundreds of thousands into deeper poverty

   Rather than feverishly concocting new ways to punsh the poor, the alleged uk government should be printing up ration books.

   (UC is actually a reasonable enough redistribution framework, it’s implementation, however, has been relentlessly vindictive.)
   1. The Rev Kev April 7, 2026 at 8:19 am

      If things go bad as I expect they will because of the war on Iran, then the UK will be in a helluva mess – and Starmer won’t make things any better. You won’t have ration books but more likely a Government app on your mobile to scan received food like how you had the same sort of app in the early years of Covid. But rationing sucked in WW2-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk6Tcw_5WEI (19:56 mins)
      1. paul April 7, 2026 at 8:43 am

         I suspect they’re more likely to be putting in place the post crisis inquiry that will deliver the relevant lessons to be learned in about a decade or so.
         1. ambrit April 7, 2026 at 4:13 pm

            Is Sir Humphrey available? Call him out of retirement.
      2. BillK April 7, 2026 at 8:50 am

         You may find it hard to believe, but there are still people that don’t have a smartphone. If your food ration depends on having a smartphone, then the government may have to supply a smartphone along with food rations.
         1. jefemt April 7, 2026 at 9:07 am

            I believe their are some bazillionaires that would be delighted to show largesse bby donating phones. See Sheinbaum and Mexico article on NC today.

            No place in the modern world for Trogluddites like me.
         2. Kouros April 7, 2026 at 3:58 pm

            and the usage fees for the phone….
         3. ambrit April 7, 2026 at 4:08 pm

            Don’t forget Neoliberalism Rule #2, “Go die.”
            Roughly, “No phone, no food. Sorry mate, go die somewhere. You are of no use to us.”
            Therein lies the paradigm shift resulting from the change over from the Civic Model to the Consumer Model of Governance.
            All profits from social activities are privatized while all costs incurred are shifted to the public.
            Stay safe.
         4. LawnDart April 7, 2026 at 7:10 pm

            What? No pagers?
         5. Anthony Noel April 7, 2026 at 11:23 pm

            You’re assuming they want you to survive. I no longer do.
      3. Bugs April 7, 2026 at 11:25 am

         The supermarkets have already figured out how to manage it with their “loyalty” cards and apps that I only use because I’ve actually saved a lot of money with them. But I can see rationing functionality easily added to these things.
         1. Wukchumni April 7, 2026 at 12:36 pm

            ‘Not happy with your ration of edible grasshoppers, consumer?

            It’s all relative, but we could have only had edible ants instead.’
            1. ambrit April 7, 2026 at 4:11 pm

               “Remember Citizens! Zeepsday is Soylent Ultra Violent Day!” Talk about your purple prose!
               Naturally, the confused babblings emanating from the White House of late are definitely Imperial Purple Prose.
               1. ambrit April 7, 2026 at 4:15 pm

                  I think she drew the line at roast Corgi.
      4. hereweare April 7, 2026 at 12:35 pm

         I like the idea of the queen – or was it the queen mum? – eating the same as the rest of us, though I doubt she actually did when it came down to it.
         1. ambrit April 7, 2026 at 4:16 pm

            I think she drew the line at roast Corgi.
3. Mark Gisleson April 7, 2026 at 8:07 am

   Hamilton Nolan lost me right off the bat by lionizing a Louisiana Republican U.S. Senator for having voted for Trump’s first impeachment. Some of us remember quite well that Trump was impeached because he asked the Ukrainians to look into Joe Biden’s extralegal activities in Ukraine.

   Tulsi Gabbard has smoking guns showing Democrats intended to funnel $200 million in USAID funds to Ukraine with the understanding that $180 million would find its way back to the DNC in the form of donations. Wanting to investigate that and other crimes was Trump’s impeachable “crime” and that’s the frame Hamilton Nolan uses to initiate his tired screed.

   Getting rid of Trump accomplishes nothing if the same liars are still running the Democrat party and its pundit corps, none of whom have ever explicitly acknowledged that Russiagate never happened, and who still insist it was Trump — not us! — who committed crimes in Ukraine.

   The leaders of both halves of the Duopoly need to be primaried out of office. THEN remove Trump who currently represents the only actual alternative to the Duopoly/Blob. That he is the shittiest alternative ever only speaks to unfathomable depravity of our current American political system.
   1. Screwball April 7, 2026 at 9:30 am

      Only the leaders? Why stop there? A mass cleanup is needed.

      All this talk by so many about removing Trump – will Vance be any different? Isn’t our foreign policy set by Bibi and his henchmen anyway?

      I think we are at FUBAR.

      Be safe all.
   2. Bugs April 7, 2026 at 11:31 am

      Yeah he’s got his heart in the right place but is terrifically naive about the Dems and already existing unions. I think Boots Riley has a more interesting concept of a shock doctrine response. The whole thread is good.

      @BootsRiley
      The disgust itself can be exhausting.

      We need to build power-
      Starting w a mass militant radical labor mvmnt that uses withholding of labor 2 shut down whole industries, whole economies & dictate what happens next. We need radical parties to grow that into a revolutionary mvmnt.

      https://x.com/BootsRiley/status/2041359034918285685
   3. Hank Linderman April 7, 2026 at 2:54 pm

      I can’t find anything that backs up the claim about funneling $180B to the D Party by Ukraine. I did find this, a denial: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/nov/26/instagram-posts/theres-no-evidence-half-of-all-ukrainian-aid-was-l/

      Do you have some links to share supporting your statement?

      Best…H
      1. Mark Gisleson April 7, 2026 at 5:37 pm

         No clue about the site Yandex pulled up first, but the information provided is the same as the initial coverage and consistent with the facts as I know them: https://stonezone.com/under-dni-gabbards-direction-declassified-intel-reveals-ukraines-plan-to-divert-hundreds-of-millions-in-u-s-taxpayer-aid-from-fake-clean-energy-projects-to-biden/

         This is real and hardly the only provable example of Biden’s corruption. I worded what I wrote carefully because I have yet to see anyone saying this was actually done. Politico dutifully seizes on this to go full “nothing to see here now move along.” There is plenty to see here. This is why Gabbard didn’t resign over Iran. Restoring some semblance of integrity to our elections is job one for any true believer in democracy.

         I honestly believe that even under the constraints imposed by our inbred duopoly, Americans would have better government today if the two parties had to run open primaries and fair elections.
4. Wukchumni April 7, 2026 at 8:23 am

   The Tungsten Trap Warwick Powell
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~

   49’ers would have been so disappointed prospecting around these parts as the only mineral of note is Scheelite-a Tungsten ore.

   Right after Pearl Harbor, dozens of mom and pop Scheelite mines open up, all small affairs. I could show you where half a dozen of them are.

   The only Tungsten mine in the country is about 60 miles away as the crow flies, closed since the turn of the century, it could be reopened-but as of last month when I was there, no activity whatsoever.

   The Pine Creek Mine is an operating mine and closed to the public. However Pine Creek Road, running from Highway 395 outside of Bishop up to the Pine Creek Pack Station at the end of the road is open year round.

   The Pine Creek Mine is the only existing Tungsten Mine in the United States. It sits in the Pine Creek Canyon off of Iconic Highway 395 in Bishop, surrounded by numerous mountain peaks and trails to the high country.

   https://sierranevadageotourism.org/entries/pine-creek-mine/f5ede7a6-1b1c-458f-9d0d-b98b4b8b474a
   1. jefemt April 7, 2026 at 9:17 am

      Whenever I hear of folks touring the West, I make a point that they should see two front-lit sunrises:
      East of Jackson, WY, looking west at the Tetons,
      NE of Bishop, on the pass between NV and CA, looking west toward the Ansel Adam’s World Famous Sierra Front. The latter, with all the yummy pink granite, front-lit at sunrise… rivals the Trango Towers, Ruth Gorge, El Chalten/ Fitzroy in its grandeur.

      Sorry to hear there is a mine there, but hey, ‘we’ got after the Sierras pretty hard in the 1800’s…

      Tangentially, I was very disheartened to hear the passion and enthusiasm of the Artemis crew that we are heading out to inhabit our first additional orb, soon a third in Mars.

      Wish we could isolate and contain the plague that is Homo ‘sapiens’. Y M M V
      1. Wukchumni April 7, 2026 at 9:47 am

         The Pine Creek Mine is about 10 miles off of Hwy 395, the most majestic stretch of mountains in the country from a driving standpoint. Unlike the western slopes here which abide by climatic zones, it just goes up in a mighty whoosh to the High Sierra!

         I must have driven by the mine a hundred times until I finally got curious in a ‘hey, where does this road go? fashion.

         You really want to have to go there, and there is zero indication of anything from Hwy 395.

         There’s a pack station there in the summer months and if you weren’t the curious type poking around, you might not know there was ever a mine in the vicinity.
         1. B24S April 7, 2026 at 5:21 pm

            A good friend of mine, now unfortunately laid low by dementia, lives right below the Tungsten Hills, and fished Pine Creek for decades, though I never had the chance to accompany him.

            They have a lovely view of Mt. Tom.
5. flora April 7, 2026 at 8:48 am

   re: “Unique sudden atmospheric CO2 spike over 2 weeks.
   This is a confirmed (NOAA) atmospheric CO2 measurement, which is not supposed to happen.”

   No surprise. Shooting wars, especially wars blowing up oil fields and launching hundreds of missiles, will do that.
   1. jefemt April 7, 2026 at 9:18 am

      Might be the permafrost, too. And carbon sequestration with re-injection might not be as secure as the tax incentives and relaxed permitting might lead one to believe.
      1. flora April 7, 2026 at 10:04 am

         It’s the change-over-time-frame of 2 weeks that gets my attention. Permafrost has been melting for a long time. The shooting war in the Gulf started about 6 weeks ago.
         1. jefemt April 7, 2026 at 12:26 pm

            Here in Montanny, we skipped winter, and appear to be giving Spring a pass, too… straight into summer. Permafrost gassing might be accelerating.
            We seem to live in the era of the hockey- stick graph logarithm ?

            I recall David Suzuki opining that we just don’t know , until we have passed it, when precisely the various limits, the petri dish doubling, will happen. Frogs in a simmering pot?

            ‘Tis the season of the hockey playoffs… but I think that might just be coinkydink.
            Go DU, Go U ND, Go Wisconsin, (Thursday 4/9) Go Avs… whenever…
6. mrsyk April 7, 2026 at 9:20 am

   Casually discussing WW3 and the destruction of a Country which is home to 90,000,000 people, whilst stood next to giant Easter Bunny is next level insanity.

   Paging Salvador Dali.

   My wife and I watched half a dozed versions of this last night. Despite the sinister atmosphere, we could not stop laughing.

   Surreal!
7. jefemt April 7, 2026 at 9:25 am

   The Noo / Woo article made my head spin. Thank you!

   Big Doin’s tonight at 6:00 PM Eastern? What does ploymarket and the other site say?

   Where did Pete and The Trump Organization ™ place their bets?

   Good luck to all!

   I’ve sung this song, but I’ll sing it again
   Of the place that I lived on the wild, windy plains
   In the month called April, county called Gray
   And here’s what all of the people there say

   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home
   And I’ve got to be driftin’ along

   A dust storm hit, and it hit like thunder
   It dusted us over, and it covered us under
   Blocked out the traffic and blocked out the sun
   Straight for home, all the people did run
   Singin’

   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home
   I’ve got to be driftin’ along

   We talked of the end of the world, and then
   We’d sing a song and then sing it again
   We’d sit for an hour and not say a word
   And then these words would be heard
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home
   And I’ve got to be driftin’ along

   Sweethearts sat in the dark and sparked
   They hugged and kissed in that dusty old dark
   They sighed and cried, hugged and kissed
   Instead of marriage, they talk like this
   Honey

   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ our home
   And I’ve got to be driftin’ along

   Now, the telephone rang, and it jumped off the wall
   That was the preacher, a-makin’ his call
   He said, “kind friend, this may the end
   And you’ve got your last chance at salvation of sin”
   The churches was jammed and the churches was packed
   And that dusty old dust storm blowed so black
   Preacher could not read a word of his text
   And he folded his specs, ad’ he took up collection
   Said

   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   So long, it’s been good to know ya
   This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home
   And I’ve got to be driftin’ along

   Source: LyricFind
   Songwriters: Woody Guthrie
   Dusty Old Dust lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Songtrust Ave, T.R.O. Inc.
8. vao April 7, 2026 at 9:41 am

   Regarding Rearming Germany: how a €10bn warship project turned sour: this is by far not the only German project that is running into massive design problems, coming late, with costs exploding.

   1) I recently commented on the D-LBO programme (new battlefield communication and management system). The system does not work, the devices could not be mounted on existing vehicles, it is already costing more, and will be very late.

   2) A mention of the German IFV Puma is unavoidable: too heavy, too high a profile, not armoured enough, too fragile (all 18 vehicles involved in an exercise in 2022 broke down), as expensive as a main battle tank.

   3) Just when Ursula von der Leyen was defence minister, the most recent German designed and built submarines (class 212A) exhibited a number of design and reliability shortcomings (shaft, radar, battery, beacon, fume exhaust — minor things, as everybody can see) that eventually led the entire fleet of that class docked for repairs and overhauls for a couple of years. Since then, TKMS, the responsible firm, is under contract for a 2021-launched programme to develop the successor class 212CD jointly with Norway (6000 requirements; submarines to be delivered somewhere around 2040, €2.79b for the first two of 6 units ordered by Germany), as well as for modernizing the older six units of the 212A class (€800m over 10 years).

   So there are indeed plenty of troubled military projects in Germany. We could add the two Franco-German projects for a new fighter aircraft (SCAF/FCAS), and for a new battletank (SPCT/MGCS), which are both on their death beds.
9. The Rev Kev April 7, 2026 at 9:49 am

   “Moldova to the EU: Let us in and we’ll help you fend off the Russians”

   There should be a translation for that title-

   ‘Let us in the EU and we will send many, cheap workers your way while you give us lots and lots of money for ourselves.’
   1. Kouros April 7, 2026 at 4:14 pm

      It is interesting that there is no mention about the present rumblings going through Moldovan and Romanian (who has the western half of historical Moldova within its borders) public and elites as well about the idea of re-unification (in fact legally, the first one done in Dec 1917 and ratified by the Ad-hoc parliament was never rescinded…). Nobody wants to pedal on the issue of nationalism in Europe, except the Germans that got their re-unification.

      F to that.

      Alrady more than half of Moldovan citizens have Romanian passports and thus can travel unrestricted in the EU. The word is in the internets that ethnic Russians in Moldova have finally started to be interested to learn to speak Romanian. One would be amazed at the stark difference between how ethnic Russians are trated in Moldova compared to the Baltic States. Romanians go with slow, steady assimilation. They assimilated the Slavs once, can do it again. The best example of that is the following: the penis is pula (Lat) while the vagina is pizda (the most encountered word in the clips coming from the Ukrainian front, and which is Slavic). No rabid Russophobia necessary. Especially if you want to go in the hey with one of their beauties, eh?!
      1. Chris April 7, 2026 at 5:56 pm

         Pizda is an extremely vulgar word. It is c*nt, not vagina.
         1. Kouros April 7, 2026 at 8:55 pm

            Not in Romanian it is not. In the common tongue it is either pizda or one uses some round about words, little bird, etc. You can also say pizdulica, pizdutza, pizdulitza, all afectations of sorts…Vagina is more of a medical term…
            1. Chris April 8, 2026 at 6:08 am

               That is wild. In Russian it is super-vulgar. I wonder if Romanian de-vulgarized the Russian word, or if it is was originally not vulgar and then acquired an obscene meaning.
               1. Ignacio April 8, 2026 at 6:42 am

                  In Romanian it is quite vulgar too most of the time. I am quite sure about it.
10. AG April 7, 2026 at 9:57 am

    Trump reminds me of the alter ego “Tony Clifton” of comedian Andy Kaufman in the 1999 biopic “MAN ON THE MOON”.
    e.g.
    50 sec.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZt_kLMzZz4
11. The Rev Kev April 7, 2026 at 10:07 am

    “Soon after massive honeybee deaths, Trump moves to close the nation’s premier bee lab ”

    This is pretty bad news. The place has been going for over a century but now the effort is to shut them down. It could be on ideological grounds but it could also be that Big Agriculture was unhappy how those scientists were identifying their chemical with massive bee die-offs. Something tells me that their 6,500 acre Beltsville campus will be turned into a housing development that certain critics will financially benefit from.
12. leaf April 7, 2026 at 10:09 am

    KMT Chairperson Cheng Li-wun arrives in Shanghai, leading the KMT delegation. I assume the mention of visiting Jiangsu province includes visiting Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum. Curious timing with everything going on and I do think she is expected to meet with President Xi at some point.

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202604/1358350.shtml
13. flora April 7, 2026 at 10:12 am

    File under South of the Border:

    Panama’s Bridge of the Americas Closed After Fuel Truck Blast

    https://ticotimes.net/2026/04/07/panamas-bridge-of-the-americas-closed-after-fuel-truck-blast
    1. The Rev Kev April 7, 2026 at 10:20 am

       Lots of cars had a damn close call there-

       https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7zBvVjggQ7k
14. Jason Boxman April 7, 2026 at 10:14 am

    LOL No Labels returns

    There’s a Third Political Party in Arizona. Just Don’t Call It ‘Independent.’ (NY Times)

    Arizona’s Democratic and Republican parties sued to stop the group, originally a chapter of the centrist No Labels organization, from using the word, arguing it was meant to mislead sought-after voters into a camp they had no intention of joining. In a blistering ruling last month, a judge in Phoenix sided with the major parties, ruling the rechristening amounted to “a political bait and switch.”

    Trash parties, all!

    But they understand the importance of the ballot line duopoly.
    1. Kouros April 7, 2026 at 4:17 pm

       I thought they both do bait and switch, no? No more wars said Trump… The cognitive dissonance in that judge must be huge.
15. Wukchumni April 7, 2026 at 10:19 am

    My mom related the she and every other hausfrau decimated grocery store shelves in LA of canned and dried goods* in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I was food shopping yesterday and didn’t notice any desperation whatsoever as we are coming up against an 8 pm nuclear war deadline.

    *returned it all for a refund after the crisis went away along with everybody else, she told me
    1. Jason Boxman April 7, 2026 at 11:40 am

       I’d wanted to panic buy some more stuff today, but I’m stuck waiting for someone to look at the hot water heater that died (runs non-stop, electric bill tripled) after 9 months, brand new.

       They really don’t make them like they. used to in America, I guess.
    2. Kouros April 7, 2026 at 4:21 pm

       They would have reacted the same if they had similar adds to prepare for nuclear attacks as the New yorkers got: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-5d7V4Sbqk
       1. The Rev Kev April 7, 2026 at 6:50 pm

          So a nuclear attack is just like a regular bombing then. Nice to know.
16. The Rev Kev April 7, 2026 at 10:47 am

    ‘Amin Khorami
    @aminismyname
    Satellite images from March 28 show destroyed pistachio warehouses near Rafsanjan Airport in Kerman—the heart of #Iran’s pistachio industry. Iran was once the world’s largest pistachio exporter, but years of trade embargoes have allowed the US to cut into its market share. The choice of target in Rafsanjan points to a deliberate economic strategy.’

    Maybe not in the way that the author of this tweet means. Back in the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, the IDF bombed some factory in the north. It was not a strategic thing or anything or could help Hezbollah. But it did have a competitor in Israel. My suspicion at the time was that that Israeli mob bribed the IDF to bomb their Lebanese competition using the war as cover. Maybe the same here. Certainly no reporter will ask Hegseth why they bombed a pistachio farm. In passing, the comments to this tweet are worth reading-

    https://xcancel.com/aminismyname/status/2041084508628193706
17. Jason Boxman April 7, 2026 at 2:14 pm

    Tariff evasion

    ‘Definitely a Sham’: As Tariffs Climb, Trade Fraud and Accounting Tricks Proliferate (NY Times; paywall)

    As President Trump’s stiff tariffs on China went into effect, a curious thing happened to the metal containers carrying Chinese goods to the United States.

    The average value of the products in a 20-foot container plunged nearly 40 percent from January 2025 to February 2026, according to data compiled by ImportGenius, a trade data provider. Yet the average value of a container headed to the United States from elsewhere in the world remained relatively flat.

    The reason? Experts say companies most likely began finding ways to reduce the value of the goods they were sending to the United States. Lowering the value of the toys, couches and other products headed for America’s shores meant that companies could also reduce the amount of tariffs they had to pay for those imports.

    Some firms turned to new suppliers outside China to lower their tariff bill, setting up factories in Vietnam, Mexico and other nations that faced lower U.S. tariffs. Others have found ways to substantially reduce the recorded value of their Chinese shipments without finding new factories, using tactics ranging from legal accounting tricks to outright fraud.
18. Wukchumni April 7, 2026 at 2:43 pm

    Was there any good reason why pistachios in the shell had to be dyed red back when we were kids?

    A small bag would leave a red stain on your fingers~
    1. Alex Cox April 7, 2026 at 4:39 pm

       Wasn’t that to identify the Iranian ones? Howard Hughes (Dean Stockwell) talks about Iranian pistachios obsessively in Coppola’s fine film Tucker. “I don’t know how they get the blood off…”
    2. john brewster April 7, 2026 at 5:36 pm

       What I heard was that pistachios used to have a parasite that discoloured the shells, so the color was added to hide the problem. By now, the parasite problem has been eliminated, and with it, the need for the color.

       —-

       The disappearance of red-dyed pistachios is closely tied to the expansion of domestic pistachio production in the United States. Before the 1970s, most pistachios in the U.S. were imported from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. These imported pistachios often bore unappetizing stains and discolorations due to traditional harvesting methods where the nuts weren’t hulled and washed immediately after picking. To counter this, Middle Eastern producers and exporters dyed their pistachios red, and American producers followed suit, aligning with consumer expectations of bright red-pink nuts.

       But the 1980s saw a decline in imported pistachios as an embargo on Iranian pistachios was enforced, and further economic sanctions on Iran levied on and off for years. The number of American pistachio producers increased in response and began to increase the domestic supply of pistachios quickly. The new mechanized harvesting processes used by American producers now pick, hull, and dry the nuts before the shell can become stained, rendering the need to dye the nuts to hide imperfections unnecessary. Today, 98% of pistachios sold in the United States are produced in California, and the U.S. is the second-largest producer of pistachios after Iran.

       https://www.thespruceeats.com/red-pistachios-overview-1807049
19. JustAnotherVolunteer April 7, 2026 at 2:49 pm

    From the annuls of healthcare failure. Saw this last night on cable and couldn’t believe it was real.

    https://www.ispot.tv/ad/gg5o/amazon-health-care-fish-tank

    Kid with measles featured in an open doctor’s office lobby. No other context. No mask…

    Really?
    1. ambrit April 7, 2026 at 4:29 pm

       File it under AIEeeeeeeee!
       When I had measles as a kid, it was isolation at home, in bed. Boy did it itch!
20. Mikel April 7, 2026 at 5:56 pm

    An update on the seafarers:
    https://houseofsaud.com/hormuz-seafarers-legal-void/

    “Damien Chevallier, Director of the IMO’s Maritime Safety Division, offered the institutional assessment on April 2: “There is no precedent for the stranding of so many seafarers in the modern age.” He added: “They have been working in an active war zone for a month. It is a very scary situation.” The word “working” is precise. These are not refugees. They are employees, contractually bound to vessels they cannot leave, anchored in waters they cannot cross, employed by companies that in many cases have no diplomatic channel to the state controlling the chokepoint.”
21. LawnDart April 7, 2026 at 7:32 pm

    While we were watching the birrr-deeee:

    U.S. Health Insurers Rally As Medicare Advantage Payments Jump Beyond Expectations

    Yeah, they got a piece of the “Bomb Iran” pie too.

    United Healthcare… Ha-ha-ha!!!

    We’re getting raped to f**k while just getting f**ked by the s**t in the Gulf.
22. Alice X April 7, 2026 at 7:47 pm

    NYT:

    Iran War Live Updates: U.S. and Iran Agree to Cease-Fire, Avoiding Trump’s Threats of Imminent Devastation

    The Pakistan-brokered deal was reached shortly before President Trump’s deadline for Iran to agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the death of a “whole civilization.” An Iranian official said the shipping channel would be reopened, with conditions.
    1. AG April 7, 2026 at 7:54 pm

       With this new lie Trump´s threat would make more sense.
       First articulate bombing horrors never heard of.
       Then plant this fake story as a reaction to those publicly stated threats everybody talks about (“WILL TRUMP DO IT?!”), by decent “Pakistani middlemen”.
       Propose a new deadline.
       Gain another week.
23. AG April 7, 2026 at 7:48 pm

    Bomb back to the Stone Age has a tradition in the US.

    re: Vietnam in 1965, threat by LeMay
    re: Hanoi in 1972, called “Christmas bombing”
    re: Iraq in 1991, threat by James Baker
    re: Pakistan in 2001, threat by Richard Armitage

    I am sure there are more. I doubt Trumpy has heard of any.
    On the other hand do we know he writes that BS himself?
    It wouldn´t live up to the usual PR professionalism of Republicans.

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