Links 5/14/2026

Subscribe to Post Comments

73 comments

1. The Rev Kev May 14, 2026 at 7:21 am

   “CDC not requiring hantavirus cruise passengers to isolate at home”

   ‘The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday that the hantavirus remains a low public health risk and while the agency is “encouraging” American passengers of the infected cruise ship to isolate at home, the absence of a formal quarantine order means these individuals can go out in public if they choose.’

   If ever a Zombie virus came to America, the CDC will ensure that most American will be moaning within a year. It is no longer a serious organization.
   1. Jeff W May 14, 2026 at 8:09 am

      When asked about individuals quarantining at home, [David] Fitter [incident manager for the CDC’s hantavirus response] said the CDC is currently taking a “conservative approach” that involves “encouraging” people to stay home during the monitoring period.

      That doesn’t sound like a “conservative approach” to me—it seems pretty liberal (in the sense of “not strict or exact, loose”).
      1. JP May 14, 2026 at 10:28 am

         The liberal and conservative have long ago lost any specific meaning. They now indicate any general prejudice one desires.
   2. Tom Stone May 14, 2026 at 8:54 am

      The center for disease communication IS doing its job, ensuring that as many people as possible die without upsetting current power dynamics.
   3. Jason Boxman May 14, 2026 at 9:45 am

      CDC officials further emphasized that the hantavirus is a “known virus” that has been found in the U.S. before. Given the virus’s incubation period, the CDC is maintaining a 42-day monitoring period, which they consider having begun on May 11 and set to end on June 22.

      Hantavirus is generally considered to not be transmissible from person-to-person, apart from the Andes virus strain that spread on the MV Hondius. Even then, person-to-person transmission requires prolonged contact with an infected person, such as among members of the same household sharing a bed, intimate partners and medical providers.

      I mean, holy s**t. This isn’t even true. This strain is airborne, which is what matters here, and substantially easier to contract. It is not “prolonged” contact.

      If we’re doing this again, it will be with an extra helping hand from public health.

      This timeline is smoked.

      During the briefing, it was noted that adherence would be hard to guarantee, and Fitter was asked about concerns over the people who are monitoring for symptoms at home. They are currently only testing people who are symptomatic.

      We know you can test positive without symptoms now as well. I’m not clear on whether it is transmissible prior to testing positive. With all the lies from public health on this, it is hard to be entirely clear on any of it. Stuck relying on a Twitter feed and people that have been right about COVID for 7 years.

      fml
      1. Socal Rhino May 14, 2026 at 10:47 am

         A virologist I follow on X, a few days ago: The pooch is fully screwed, we are now counting on luck. And others since: bad public health measures, combined with long incubation periods and periods of asymptomatic contagion, plus a mortality rate estimated at 30%..about the worst case scenario that gives us nightmares.

         I once played a computer simulation where you designed viruses with the goal of killing 99% globally. Had to try it a few times until I found a “winning” formula: long incubation and asymptomatic contagion.

         Consensus today seems to be that risk of mass fatalities is probably low but we will know better in a couple of months depending on the appearance (or not) of secondary or tertiary contagion. And public health better embrace aerosol contagion and the precautionary principle pronto.
2. mrsyk May 14, 2026 at 7:22 am

   Bring me a shrubbery!
3. The Rev Kev May 14, 2026 at 7:53 am

   “Glasgow Man Crashes Car Into Mural Resembling Tunnel Entrance”

   Fortunately videos have emerged that recorded the whole incident-

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heZFx8WRKac (46 secs)
   1. Randall Flagg May 14, 2026 at 9:21 am

      Umm, looks like you found footage of Trump’s negotiating team with the Iranians…
4. Isanthrope May 14, 2026 at 8:06 am

   Some progression info on Hantavirus:

   “A15 year old girl died in an ICU in Esquel from contact with a confirmed hantavirus case weeks before the cruise ship made international headlines. Her death was part of an active outbreak that health authorities in Patagonia were already responding to. The fact that this timeline existed before the Hondius story broke and is only now being connected publicly is the most important piece of context that the no cause for concern messaging left out entirely.” @Iam_InioluwaJ on X(engineering student)

   I find engineers (I’m not one BTW) often do a better job of understanding low probability high impact situations (they don’t focus all their attention on the low risk of the event happening) and they’re outside the public health dogma.

   What this pre-existing outbreak may suggest is that the MV Hondius patient zero may not be patient zero. It would mean that there was no initial rodent-to-human exposure for the 70 year old who boarded the MV Hondius on April 1 but rather a human-to-human exposure in Patagonia making the 70-year-old a second generation cluster. Possibly.

   And we have possible onward transmission posted as of five hours ago by St Helena government for a medical staff member on Ascension Island who had “high risk contact” with a confirmed case and is now symptomatic. Initial PCR negative however investigation ongoing. The individual had had contact with other a family member on St Helena after the exposure and that person is being asked to quarantine as a result. https://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/hantavirus-response-update/

   The PCR for the ANDV strain is ROU (research only use) and is not validated for patient management. That isn’t to say it’s not utterly solid but it does seem that some countries are just going with no symptoms as the identifier for release from quarantine (bad idea).

   https://www.newsweek.com/three-people-high-risk-exposure-hantavirus-monitored-kansas-11944500

   No outbreak of this strain to date has ended absent old fashioned tracing and quarantine.
   1. amfortas May 14, 2026 at 9:14 am

      stepdads former nurse showed up for eggs. so i asked her about this. she says that so far nothing for us to worry about out here, but it bears close attention.
      she was a go-to source of insider info regarding covid…almost as good as NC.
      (one thing esp: she was the second person, after me, out here to get crazy with masking when around humans)
   2. Socal Rhino May 14, 2026 at 10:53 am

      Last point is important and does not seem to have registered with the CDC.
   3. Jason Boxman May 14, 2026 at 2:18 pm

      Argentina Races to Find Origin of Hantavirus Contagion (NY Times)

      As health authorities raced to trace the origin of a contagion that was unnerving a world still scarred by the global coronavirus pandemic, the scientific investigation became entangled with international finger pointing.

      The two first known hantavirus victims — a Dutch couple — had embarked on a sprawling voyage across Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, making it hard for investigators to trace the origin of the infection.

      And as deflections of the potential origin flourished, answers remained scant.

      The Andes species of the hantavirus, which can be transmitted between humans and most likely caused the death of the two first patients who traveled on the ship, is endemic in three provinces across Argentina’s Patagonia, with several cases reported there every year, according to health authorities.

      But the Argentine health ministry said on Tuesday that the Dutch couple had not visited any of those areas during the days in which it is believed they got infected.

      The Andes species also exists in the Patagonian region in Chile, but the Chilean health ministry said in a statement that the Dutch couple had visited the country before the incubation period for the virus and ruled out that the contagion could have originated there.

      Federico Lada, a spokesman for the Argentine health ministry, rejected the claim, saying that infection in Chile remained a possibility. “It’s not true,” he said, referring to the Chilean health ministry’s statement.

      Fun.

      Meanwhile, the origin story is suspect

      Several passengers aboard the MV Hondius were passionate bird watchers and the landfill in Ushuaia is a prime location for birders to spot the white-throated caracara, a local raptor bird. Still, several bird watchers in the area said such birds can be observed from outside the landfill, and tour guides said they were not aware of the Dutch couple visiting the area.

      Juan Pavlov, the secretary of foreign policy at the Tierra del Fuego Tourism Institute, said it was unlikely the virus originated in the landfill, since the truckers and garbage collectors who work at the dump site never reported any symptoms.

      “They would be sick, they would be infected and maybe dead,” he said.
5. Quintian and Lucius May 14, 2026 at 8:59 am

   I must admit to, to my shame perhaps, certain atavistic monarchist tendencies, mostly arising from aesthetic preference but tastefully seasoned with crystallized ideological conviction besides –
   Which is why that Charles clip ‘pon the bird corpse app is so unnerving. He is radioactive with contempt, not a trace of noblesse oblige in the august body that is allegedly the British state as man. Suddenly I find common cause with Robespierre…or, more nationally appropriate, Guy “Guido” Fawkes. In fact, are there any Anonymous alumni with a spare mask I could borrow?
   I say Charles don’t you ever crave
   To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
   Expanding the power to surveil~
   1. hk May 14, 2026 at 11:48 am

      Kings named Charles and British history, just saying. (I was honestly a bit surprised that he went with Charles as the regnal name.)
6. Earl May 14, 2026 at 9:00 am

   Re Self-report fraud and walk free is probably not limited to the Southern District. The practice is codified in Medicare financial regulation and is frequently used to minimize the consequences of discovered fraud by doctors, hospitals and other providers. A scenario is a hospital allows a doctor to use it to commit fraud. The hospital which should have been aware of it and shared in the proceeds, learns that the fraud has been discovered and then self-reports to get leniency. A related practice is the use of consent agreements to allow offending doctors who commit fraud to escape prosecution through consent agreements. “How doctors buy their way out of trouble” https://www.reuters.com/investigate/special-report/usa-healthcare-settlements/

   This report notes that a benefit is not just avoiding prosecution but also immunity from a medical board licensing investigation and discipline, although fraud is grounds for investigation in most states. Medical boards are reactive and seldom investigate if a complaint has not been lodged. Absent a conviction even stealing millions will not result in discipline. In my own state I have never seen a malpractice judgement even in cases of blatant incompetence, with severe patient harm and even wrongful death result in medical board discipline. This is despite the requirement that malpractice awards are required to be reported to a state’s medical board as well as to the National Practitioner Data Bank.
   1. NotDownUnder May 15, 2026 at 12:33 am

      Dear O dear!

      How widespread is that practice?

      When it becomes routine to avoid using laws that one regulatory body administers to prevent exploitation and patient harms, (death among them), which historically can be seen as a guide to public trust, and ethical medical practice oversight, you no longer have a health system, where people are remunerated for necessary public service, you have a system people are remunerated for a standard-less public service.

      Under those conditions, given the present political climate, I wouldn’t like to have a system wide challenge like a serious virus showing up about now. Good job no one is reporting anything dangerous right now…err….the…Hanta what?
7. amfortas May 14, 2026 at 9:08 am

   ive had a quote simmering at the edge of consciousness…couldnt remember where it came from until a few minutes ago…seems rather uncomfortably germane:

   “What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.”
   ― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
   1. amfortas May 14, 2026 at 11:03 am

      the whole relevant conversation:https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htm
      1. flora May 14, 2026 at 11:06 am

         Thank you.
8. Wukchumni May 14, 2026 at 9:16 am

   Hungary ran out of strategic reserves, many fuel stations close: diesel shortage looming? Daily News Hungary
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   Gonna be in Budapest in a fortnight, guess i’ll just have to Magyar do.

   It’ll be interesting being on the front lines of an oil crisis, if I had my druthers with Hantavirus lurking on the continent et al, i’d rather stay home and secluded-as is my norm, but life goes on.
   1. ChrisFromGA May 14, 2026 at 12:52 pm

      You’re a braver man than I, Wuk. I’m flying to Connecticut in a month, and I’m worried about ending up stranded there due to jet fuel unobtanium. Not worried enough yet to cancel the flight or use the eCredit during better times.
9. The Rev Kev May 14, 2026 at 9:48 am

   “China Sent a Tough Message to Trump… Did He Understand It?”

   Pretty sure that Trump understood them. Here are China’s red lines-

   The Taiwan issue,
   Democracy and human rights in China,
   The political system,
   Beijing’s rights to development.

   But what I think will happen is that Trump and his cohort will take those red lines and interpret them to be China’s weak points. So Trump will then press Xi on those exact four lines thinking that they are giving him leverage against China to make them do what he wants. But he will find Xi to be in no mood to tolerate this sort of bs and leaving Trump nothing to take back home with him. But Trump being Trump, he will claim to have reached the greatest agreement with China ever seen and say that China has agreed to abandon Iran while shipping the US all the refined rare earths that they could ever need.
   1. t May 14, 2026 at 11:33 am

      what I think will happen is that Trump and his cohort will take those red lines and interpret them to be China’s weak points.

      Tragically, I believe you are correct. Trump had zero negotiation skills and no interest in outcome. He wants good TV and viral moments. Complicated by his being a dullard with dementia. Having hack instincts to play to a crowd is literally his only skill.
10. Steve H. May 14, 2026 at 9:52 am

    > Late Capitalism at War Dmitry Pozhidaev, Savage Minds
    > The Empire Is Not Being Saved. It Is Being Liquidated. William Murphy
    > Marxism is childish Kaimataara

    There is a substrate of reified Capital that misses how easily great inequality has manifested with so little class conflict, and even the collusion of the middle classes.

    From Why Class Formation Occurs in Humans but Not among Other Primates:
    >> How Can the Top Rankers Improve Their Payoff?
    >> The second option for the top ranker is the manipulation of the [tradability or exploitability, Ŧ ]… the top rankers can achieve high skew by making the fitness-improving resources more exploitable, for instance by making the resource “more expensive.”
    >> By definition, the currency decided by a group will have Ŧ = 1.

    The more the middle classes can be convinced to covet currency, the greater the flow rate of wealth from bottom to top. It shifts the ‘means of happiness’ away from concrete material benefits like the means of production. The sell for the worker on a 401k over a house is that they’ll be able to act with extractive freedoms:

    > Hume viewed the sale of government debt to private citizens in the form of bonds as a profound threat to this social structure, because the passive income it generated them offered a means of opting out of social responsibility… There was nothing to prevent a British stockholder from deciding his money would be better invested in the French government, say, even if the two countries were at war.

    This suggests that capitalism itself is an advanced class structure, and that financialization is a late stage of capitalism adjacent to Ŧ = 1. A remedy is in the statement, You’re money’s no good here. I cannot exchange my love for Janet for anything of equal value.

    (The linked articles do have reference to making resources more expensive, ie forced artificial scarcity. As Murphy notes, “Late capitalism commodifies crisis itself.” Induced bottlenecks spiked prices in the early 2020’s, and the Strait is a paradigmatic case. What I’m lensing in on here is the lack of class struggle, and how that’s happened.)
    1. Alphonse May 14, 2026 at 4:10 pm

       This is a good trio of articles.

       I only scanned the paper you posted. If I understand correctly the conclusion is intuitive: class structure emerges when the necessities of life can be traded and accumulated. Class inequalities increases as the market encloses more of the commons and as prices rise. When rents go up the rich get richer.

       Financialization turbo charges the process. A landlord who buys a building outright probably doesn’t care about a few dollars more each month. But when he borrows and pays financing costs out of cashflow he cares very much. Say I borrowed $800k to buy a $1m million building and I am able to increase net operating income by 5%. Now the building is worth $1,050,000. If I refinance to extract cash I get a 25% return on my $200k. Darned right I’m going to charge fifty cents more for laundry! Meanwhile refinancing lets the bank extract more while I can turn around and do it again, sucking more homes into the system.

       What if I work for a living? Everyone knows that hard work doesn’t make you rich. It makes you poor, and your children too. “Own assets or be left behind.”

       The Pozhidaev article reminded me of Georges Bataille’s idea of the accursed share: an economy produces a surplus. If that surplus is reinvested it will eventually destabilize the system. To avoid this, it must be expended or wasted in non-productive ways. David Fleming talks about this in Lean Logic under Intentional Waste:

       Fertile ecologies have one big problem in common: they are too productive for their own good. Surplus is produced that—unless checked, managed, destroyed or removed—will eventually destroy the system. Lakes can become so rich with life that they die; many forests rely on periodic fire to clear out their choking abundance; the spruce fir forests of North America, left undisturbed for long enough, become so richly and closely entwined that the birds can’t get to the spruce budworm which, left to breed in peace, will in due course destroy the forest.

       Festival, sacrifice, luxuries and war are traditional ways of expending the accursed share. War is obviously not an ideal means of stabilization. Rene Girard examines how sacrifice is often linked to scapegoating and moments of collective brutality. The peasant tradition of consuming the harvest surplus in a feast is a better model.

       A stable system must destroy the accursed share. It may do this consciously, or the behaviour may emerge. So there is war.

       The Murphy article reads remarkably like claims on the contemporary right. As I think he is aware: he writes of a “conspiracy mythology” of “controlled demolition.” But,

       The empire is not being destroyed because a handful of evil individuals secretly wish to burn America down. The empire is being liquidated because the economic foundations that once sustained American global dominance are collapsing under the contradictions of capitalism itself.

       Myself, I cannot decide among multiple overlapping explanations, e.g. energy, capitalism, financialization, institutional rot, liberalism, psychology, loss of religion, technology, health (environmental contaminants), collapse of the family, media aggression, elite overproduction, historical cycles, McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis. For so many systems to fail at once implies a common cause, with effects ramifying through a complex system. Joseph Tainter’s theory is a good candidate.

       Murphy’s analysis reads like so much of the analysis I see on the right. He writes:

       The American bourgeoisie effectively cannibalized its own industrial foundation for short-term accumulation.

       The dominant sectors of contemporary capital are increasingly transnational rather than national. Their loyalty is not to populations, workers, or states, but to accumulation itself.

       capitalism increasingly resembles a parasitic system feeding on social collapse itself.

       A society built on commodification ultimately commodifies human life itself.

       Sections of capital attempt to build techno-feudal governance under permanent crisis conditions.

       With so much in common, should these factions be fighting? What are the differences, and can they be bridged? Set aside wokeness and identity politics. I don’t see Murphy mention it and I have a feeling he’s not into it. Some thoughts on the differences:

       Nostalgia. Much of the right looks backwards, often to the 1950s. Even if that were a desirable it’s not going to happen. I think the cost of oil alone settles the issue.

       Revolution. Murphy asks whether the future will lead to “Techno-authoritarianism? Ecological barbarism? Or renewed revolutionary organization?” Sometimes my heart wants revolution, but my mind warns me it never turns out well.

       Nationalism, which represents something deeper. The Marxist tradition holds that the remedy for human suffering is material equality. I would say that the right, in contrast, prioritizes meaning over equality, and sees spirituality and community, not economics, as its sources. (Of course is not true of everyone on the right. The materialist left is a coherent ideology whereas the right has been described as more of an attitude. And on both sides there are many who are simply self-serving.) Those on the right may object to current levels of inequality, but they are not against inequality per se: they see hierarchy as a necessary and natural source of stability and meaning. The right is particularist where the left (and liberalism) is universalist.

       I mentioned David Fleming. When he died in 2010 he had long believed that industrial civilization would not last. Lean Logic was his attempt to sketch out what a decent human future in harmony with nature could look like – not an imagined utopia, but in ways of living that have proved the test of time. There is no need to bring revolution. Collapse is inevitable; despite its problems we will miss all this when it is gone. I think John Michael Greer intends much the same when he advises to “collapse now before the rush.” Both have characterized their outlook as somewhat conservative. Fleming argues that culture and human relationships are what we need to build. Asked the first thing one should do to prepare he responded, “join a choir.”

       Murphy writes, “The old world is cracking open. The only question now is what forces will seize the opening.” Yes, and it worries me.
       1. amfortas May 14, 2026 at 5:20 pm

          Among the numerous and pretty random examples of grafitti out here at the wilderness bar(i encourage every visitor to ‘sign the bar’, preferably with something pithy or profound)…are 2 things i put there that are germane:” dont feed the world, feed yer neighbor’…and ‘ the revolution starts at your doorstep’.
          these are not, of course, original aphorisms,lol.
          i stole them shamelessly from others i cannot remember, now.
          as an actual lefty…anarchosocialist, with libertine and druidy features….i find that i get along just fine with the front porch republic/wendell berry type conservatives…and can easily co-exist with my neighbors, who run on a spectrum from small c conservative like that…to cowboy church religious nutters.
          like not noticing the fart in church…politeness, and avoiding shit we are all aware that we disagree on, there can be peace.
          even the thumpers right over there know that i am a decent guy, and have their back…in spite of my pagan commie ways,lol.
          as it has always been, its about building relationships…and changing one mind at a time, challenging one unexamined assumption at a time.
          ive currently got too many eggs…so i am delivering a shit ton to my neighbors manana.
          gratis…just show up with 4-6 dozen,lol.
          they always want to pay, and i always say, nope…”shore up yer treasures in heaven”, and all.
          ill do the same when the gardens really get going…late due to a late freeze, excessive rain, hail and generally strange weather.
          1. Alphonse May 14, 2026 at 7:27 pm

             as an actual lefty…anarchosocialist, with libertine and druidy features….i find that i get along just fine with . . .

             I am with you. I don’t know exactly where I stand, don’t want to label it, have changed my mind before and hope to change it again. I do believe that human beings are more important than ideas or ideologies. I will take a tolerant person I disagree with any day over an intolerant one who shares my ideas (such as they are, and assuming such a person exists). I’ll try to listen to the intolerant person too. (People misunderstand the paradox of tolerance when they “solve” it by being intolerant of the intolerant. It’s a paradox. There is no solution.) Sadly I feel I am becoming less tolerant myself with age, but maybe there’s merit in that too. It’s often better to take a stand and be wrong than to go all mushy.

             If there was a big red button that I could press to make people agree with me, I would not push it. I would not want to live in a world where everyone agreed. I believe that belief is too fundamental a freedom, and I believe that truth – too hard and definite a word, but I’m not sure what to use instead – is in the tensions and contradictions. If I could spread one thing with the words I write, it is doubt – not the kind that closes one down, but that opens one up. Maybe these incompatible positions both have merit. Maybe these bad people have something valuable to say. Not everything perhaps, but something.
             1. amfortas May 14, 2026 at 9:20 pm

                would that you were nearer to mason, texas,lol.
                we could speak much around my fire
                1. Alphonse May 15, 2026 at 1:17 am

                   I would like that very much. I’m afraid I’m in Vancouver. Beautiful nature; soulless sprawl; intellectually, historically and culturally vacant; polite; distant; many of the people have the vague air of having been hypnotized into a cult. Concisely captured by a friend from back east who simply said “spandex bicycle shorts.”
                2. Glenda May 15, 2026 at 1:49 pm

                   Same here – “as an actual lefty…anarchosocialist, with libertine and druidy features”
                   Nothing like a great Festival or joining a Choir to make life a blessing.
       2. Steve H. May 14, 2026 at 8:32 pm

          Thank you, Alphonse, Lean Logic is a deep work to help fill an interregnum.
11. The Rev Kev May 14, 2026 at 10:23 am

    “Classified CIA Analysis Finds Trump Can’t Count on Gulf Allies for Wider Iran War”

    Not hard to work out why. If Iran is hit, they will hit back. The US itself is several thousand miles away but those Gulf States are all within missile range so those Gulf states know that they are right on the firing line. The US assets in the region are harder to hit. Most of the US bases are a cold pile of ashes while the US Navy hangs back well out of missile/drone range – mostly. It’s akin to someone shouting ‘Let’s him and you fight’ while standing way clear of the fighting itself.
12. flora May 14, 2026 at 10:53 am

    Uh oh…. dis don’t look good…. no matter what Scott Bessent is saying. (all caps in original)

    FOR RELEASE AT 8:30 AM EDT, THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2026

    ADVANCE MONTHLY SALES FOR RETAIL AND FOOD SERVICES, APRIL 2026

    https://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf
    1. flora May 14, 2026 at 11:09 am

       And, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the latest

       Producer Price Index

       https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ppi.pdf
       1. Kurtismayfield May 14, 2026 at 12:31 pm

          Its awful. Inflation is baked into the cake. The Fed needs to react, and if they don’t it tells you all you want to know about their inflation targets.
          1. Mikel May 14, 2026 at 12:53 pm

             Something to put on the calender when thinking about global Central Bankers’ responses to the current situation:

             Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, August 27–29, 2026

             This year’s theme is “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy.”

             (Well, that’s the theme thus far…)
          2. ChrisFromGA May 14, 2026 at 12:54 pm

             Kevin Warsh has been confirmed by the full Senate, just in time to stroll into the Marriner Eccles building and spend the next two weeks figuring out where the bathroom is. He can also get up to speed by practicing saying phrases like “transitory”, “short-lived”, and “’tis but a flesh wound!”
             1. Mikel May 14, 2026 at 1:46 pm

                Take it from Clubber Lang:
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSPNQ82Sq4E/
                1. ChrisFromGA May 14, 2026 at 2:51 pm

                   Love that clip, thanks!
       2. skippy May 14, 2026 at 3:27 pm

          @flora …

          Funny how Trumpo whinged about fake[tm] economic metrics when they did not support his – supreme powers – in making America[financial elites] “Great Again” ….

          Those in the know understand CPI is being fiddled* with, more so, issues with petroleum financial price mechanics aside … physical supply dynamics is a lagging indicator which will wash through the entire economy many many months later.

          On that note I had an interesting conversation with a client on the Qld’er I am working on at the moment. 60 odd yr old sort with a lifetime working in the printing business, owner of a label mfg mob. Asked him about oil effecting ink issues, informed me that the industry has shifted to Soy based ink awhile back and abandoned use of some nastiest chem in etching etc processes. Most work is done with mixing 4 colours and occasionally a few more. On my side the big paint supplier here in Oz was concerned with an ingredient for red but, that was sorted. Not that only a few own the world Mfg of paint or anything …
    2. Lefty Godot May 14, 2026 at 12:21 pm

       But, but, the Dow is over 50,000! Happy days are here again! Biden Trump told us so!
13. pjay May 14, 2026 at 10:59 am

    Drop Site:

    “One day after New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published a meticulously sourced investigation—drawing on 14 survivors, the UN, and several international rights groups—documenting systematic rape and sexual torture of Palestinian prisoners, the Times, along with other major media outlets, published largely uncritical coverage of a new report by the Civil Commission, an Israeli NGO claiming Hamas committed systematic sexual violence on October 7.”

    Not a “new report,” but simply recycling the old debunked claims by the same discredited sources, as the Drop Site story makes clear. Those sources include the “Civil Commission” propagandist Cochav Elkayam-Levy, and the 2023 UN report by Pramila Patten that simply regurgitated information provided by Israeli officials from completely unreliable sources and who allowed no opportunities for any independent investigation. CNN, AP, BBC, and the NY Times itself just echo-chambered this crap again with no independent verification.
14. Who Cares May 14, 2026 at 11:23 am

    I disagree with the line taken by Kautilya the Contemplator about Russian red lines.
    It isn’t so much that Russia hasn’t responded to red lines being crossed. It is that NATO has dismissed any such response as being the result of them gleefully ignoring them while taunting Russia.
    The most visible reaction to that behavior is the war in Ukraine. NATO is still in denial that that was a red line response and is still claiming it is unprovoked.
    Stopping Ukrainian grain exports, NATO claims that is not a retaliation. Going after the port in Odessa, NATO claims that is not a retaliation.
    Same thing with the initial attack on the energy network of Ukraine early in the war. Or the one at the end of 2025 which Russia only stopped after they brought the total network to the brink of collapse, seems Russia wasn’t yet ready to turn that into a humanitarian catastrophe.
    Or every single time Russia blew up ‘advisors’ and/or planning units that stepped past a red line, if they were stupid enough to be/stay in Ukraine.
    The launch of the first Oreshnik, similarly dismissed as not a reaction.

    The piece also ignores the legalistic mindset of first setting up a warning, then presenting evidence, then reacting. As now seems to be happening with the Baltic States allowing their airspace be used for attacks on Russia.

    The piece does point out the problem. It is that not a single, visible, retaliation has been done directly into NATO territory. And as long as that doesn’t happen it seems NATO is quite willing to pretend that anything Russia does as a reaction to a red line being crossed as not happening due to that red line being crossed. Worse if such a red line retaliation happens then it will still be denied as such and declared to be aggression by Russia and Russia being the country that started WW3 since NATO has to defend themselves.
    1. Gaianne May 15, 2026 at 10:53 pm

       Yes, exactly, Who Cares, Kautilya has gotten it wrong. And it is worse than that–if Russia WERE to respond to a provocation with a direct, violent response, NATO would scream unprovoked aggression!

       At some point you have to realize the West can never be honest about anything, and must be dealt with at the level of simple physical reality.
15. Mikel May 14, 2026 at 11:38 am

    “California has 6 weeks of gas supply. After that, it gets expensive” Cal Matters

    The state that has Newsome as governor, a Democrat rumored to be seeking the Presidency.

    Get ready for a giant spitball…here it comes…brace yourselves…

    The current members of the executive branch would have no problem with enough economic disruption that could push Cali back to the kind of swing state that gave the world Reagan and Nixon.
    1. Socal Rhino May 14, 2026 at 1:50 pm

       I have not agreed with Newsom’s handling of energy policy and I believe a good governance non-crazy Republican would be good for California. But I am confidant the coming energy shock will be blamed on Trump, not Democratic governance.
       1. Mikel May 14, 2026 at 6:05 pm

          The search for those unicorns continues.

          Like the search for “New Deal Democrats”…LOL
16. hk May 14, 2026 at 12:02 pm

    Glasgow Man Crashes Car Into Mural Resembling Tunnel Entrance

    Am I the only person who thinks this is not funny? People often don’t have chance to think things, even seemingly obvious things, through, and anything that can cause undye confusion on roads is not a good thing.
    1. Mikel May 14, 2026 at 12:38 pm

       I checked and saw no reported death. Then chuckled…
    2. hereweare May 14, 2026 at 1:44 pm

       Driverless car makes emergency stop after being fooled by advert on bus
       A driverless car mistook an advertisement on the side of a bus for a group of real people and performed an emergency stop, it has been revealed.

       The poster – which was promoting the 2015 spy film The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – featured several actors who were identified by the vehicle’s AI system as pedestrians in the road.
       1. Mikel May 14, 2026 at 2:53 pm

          Imagine the fun that could be had with mannequins.
17. nothing but the truth May 14, 2026 at 12:57 pm

    “How Europe Stopped Fearing Russian Deterrence ”

    Putin is mostly to blame for this mess. He let the west trample Russia during Maidan (he even recognized that post coup govt!), then got hoodwinked by Minsk 1, 2, Isantbul, and so on.

    He really is a paper tiger in many senses. He is a small time lawyer bureaucrat for whom the only reality is the word salad of the files.

    His reluctance to “escalate” has caused unimaginable number of deaths – now estimated around 2.5 million, and eventually Russia will be forced into a first strike on Berlin. After that hundreds of millions will perish.

    All this because he couldn’t put his foot down and wanted to “negotiate”.
    1. ForFawkesSake May 14, 2026 at 3:22 pm

       America or Europe would be so lucky to have a world leader with conviction and foresight like Putin. His track record of pretty much rescuing Russia from Western pillaging speaks for itself.

       Are you aware of the dunning-kruger effect? Basically it’s when cognitively limited people overestimate their own ability to mentally grapple with a topic or scenario. A significant marker is an extreme overconfidence of how a situation should have been handled.
       1. nothing but the truth May 14, 2026 at 3:47 pm

          so you’re basically making a snide remark about my IQ?

          can’t stick to the topic, has to go ad hominem.
       2. Old Jake May 14, 2026 at 11:01 pm

          Careful there, you’re as guilty as the rest (of us). Dunning-Kruger applies to *everyone*, though the corollary being everyone is cognitively limited is very much in order. Extreme overconfidence happens a lot.
          1. tegnost May 15, 2026 at 12:58 am

             Dunning Kruger says that (paraphrasing) 10 people who qualified for and entered a class would contain people who over estimated their own ranking. The study applies primarily to the professional class who basically silo, mba, lawyer doctor, and etc… among the people who one graduates with, some are more competent than the others, but they generally all rate themselves at the higher level.
             It takes no qualifications other than being born here to be american. Using D-K as as a metric by the pro class to claim that “we all know that a certain percent of people (not us of course) are dumb and shouldn’t be able to have a say” is the pure form of the technocracy. Dunning Kruger does not apply to the general population of the US
             Dunning Kruger does not apply to everyone, it applies to particular silos.
             Misusing DK is misstating a scientific study to validate a personal prejudice, which is that the dumb people are someone else.
    2. bertl May 15, 2026 at 12:48 am

       I look to the example of Baldwin and Chamberlain during the 30’s when they bought time by forally seeking peace during the inter-war period whilst rearming when the bulk of the British people refused to accept the possibility of the UK involving itself in another war in Europe.

       I believe Russia is doing what Russia does best, and is preparing herself for a war against the US’s European partners in NATO, and Russia will act when she is fully prepared for a successful war and and her allies overcome any objections they may have. The US will pay lip service to NATO’s charter whilst accepting that the Russian state has been attacked by the European powers and it will refuse to be engaged in this venture – other than selling arms to already bankrupt European states.

       Under the circumstances which will exist at the time, it is unlikely that the US will be willing – or even capable if it does prove willing – to supply targeting and other satellite based information to it’s fellow members of NATO, not least because US owned satellites will be considered more valuable than any relationship with any European state.

       Just a casual thought.
18. Brain Freeze May 14, 2026 at 1:32 pm

    https://cambridgeanalytica.org/surveillance-privacy/ice-palantir-iphone-surveillance-20-million-50981/
    Link without subscribe wall, this may be a different take or the source from the 404 media article.
    Did they go weep at the great wall?
19. In Cold Chud May 14, 2026 at 1:48 pm

    Re: TNR Democrats/climate change

    There is a sense among poorer Americans–the ones Democrats need, when they need them–that any meaningful response to climate change will make life more expensive for them, take away yet more of what little they still have, and overall act as yet another round of upward wealth-siphoning. This has historically played well for Republicans (remember Solyndra?), including Trump, for whom all of renewable energy is a “scam” (though our nascent energy crisis could change that). The fact that the author either misses this, or chooses to eumphemize it beyond recognition with affordability, should be disqualifying. The Data For Progress poll she cites is of likely voters, a term for an affluent-skewed roughly 60% of adult US citizens, a sample of whom is arrived at by opaque methods.

    More broadly, I’m continually appalled that those who occupy the part of the Venn diagram where actual leftists and environmentalists overlap make no effort to explain how less consumption=/=lower standard of living. One probably does not need a Big Truck. One would be healthier without a suburban lawn soaked with poison and a quarter-pound of beef a day. These are things you have been sold as consolation prizes for living in a society that does not care about you.
    1. alrhundi May 14, 2026 at 3:44 pm

       I would argue that it’s not limited to poor Americans but people of all incomes.
       1. In Cold Chud May 14, 2026 at 5:07 pm

          Yes, but we should distinguish between necessities and lifestyle choices.
          1. flora May 14, 2026 at 5:26 pm

             We all do. We all have different choices. Unless someone wants to revive the old sumptuary laws, which some billionaires have floated as a carbon tax, etc.

             Meanwhile, Greta flying private jet and Leonardo DeCaprio sailing on his mega private yacht lecturing the lesser people about the profligate lifestyle of the poor and middle classes doesn’t find an audience with me. / ;)
             1. In Cold Chud May 14, 2026 at 6:47 pm

                To be a little more concrete, I spent a number of years around people who regarded two international vacations per year as normal, and anything less as missing out. I would say they imagined they had the same moral claim on this as a poor person would make on a studio apartment, but that is not true–most poor people (whatever else their faults) are practical enough about the revocability of life’s goods to avoid such judgments. These people were all around or perhaps even a little below the 90th percentile, in terms of income; they were not rich. I have no reason to believe that they were exceptionally cartoonish or unself-aware.

                Even if we refuse to stop burning carbon, and let the ice caps melt, we will still have to collectively make do with less, and if we do this in a way that papers over really existing inequality, (which we probably will), the results will be uglier than most people can imagine.
                1. Henry Moon Pie May 15, 2026 at 5:55 pm

                   I can report from my 50th Anniversary Report of my Boomer college class that the overwhelmingly favorite basis for conspicuous consumption is the trip to a locale more exotic than anyone else’s. These people are almost all dyed-in-the wool liberals, with exception of a high school and college classmate of mine, a Propertarian Wall Streeter who railed against the university because “superstar” Bill Ackman was displeased.
    2. Henry Moon Pie May 14, 2026 at 4:11 pm

       Jason Hickel and Kate Raworth address the important issue you raise about the impact on the poor of policies enacted to deal with our exceeding planetary boundaries.

       Here’s an excerpt from a Jason Hickel essay in the Monthly Review:

       No political program that promises to analyze and resolve the ecological crisis can hope to succeed if it does not also simultaneously—that is, in the same stroke—analyze and resolve the social crisis. Attempting to address one without the other leaves fundamental contradictions entrenched and will ultimately give rise to monsters. Indeed, monsters are already emerging…

       What would such an economy look like? Several key objectives stand out.

       To secure the social foundation, first we must expand and decommodify universal public services.5 By this I mean health care and education, yes, but also housing, public transit, energy, water, Internet, child care, recreation facilities, and nutritious food for all. Let us mobilize our productive forces to ensure everyone has access to the goods and services necessary for well-being.

       Second, we must establish ambitious public works programs, to build renewable energy capacity, insulate homes, produce and install efficient appliances, restore ecosystems, and innovate socially necessary and ecologically efficient technologies. These are essential interventions that must be done as quickly as possible; we cannot wait around for capital to decide they are worth doing.

       Third, we must introduce a public job guarantee, empowering people to participate in these vital collective projects, doing meaningful, socially necessary work with workplace democracy and living wages. The job guarantee must be financed by the currency issuer but should be democratically governed at the appropriate level of locality…

       Next, as we secure and improve the socially and ecologically necessary sectors, we also need to scale down socially less-necessary forms of production. Fossil fuels are obvious here: we need binding targets to wind this industry down, in a fair and just way.6 But—as degrowth scholarship points out—we also need to reduce aggregate production in other destructive industries (automobiles, airlines, mansions, industrial meat, fast fashion, advertising, weapons, and so on), while extending product lifespans and banning planned obsolescence. This process should be democratically determined, but also grounded in the material reality of ecology and the imperatives of decolonial justice.7

       Finally, we urgently need to cut the excess purchasing power of the rich using wealth taxes and maximum income ratios.8 Right now millionaires alone are on track to burn 72 percent of the remaining carbon budget to keep the planet under 1.5°C of warming.9 This is an egregious assault on humanity and the living world, and none of us should accept it. It is irrational and unjust to continue diverting our energy and resources to supporting an overconsuming elite in the middle of an ecological emergency.

       Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics is already part of the planning process in Amsterdam, Brussels and, of course, Barcelona. On the inside of the doughnut are social foundation goals derived from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). On the outside are the nine planetary boundaries. The idea is for planners to meet the SDGs while remaining within the planetary boundaries, quite different from maximizing shareholder value.

       There are others working on how degrowth can actually improve the lives of the poor in the Global North and South. At the same time, there’s another project that many are working on that aims to deepen our idea of the “good life” beyond “one who dies with the most toys wins.”
       1. Jason Boxman May 14, 2026 at 4:23 pm

          There are others working on how degrowth can actually improve the lives of the poor in the Global North and South. At the same time, there’s another project that many are working on that aims to deepen our idea of the “good life” beyond “one who dies with the most toys wins.”

          Yep, besides accounting for carry costs of the population, what activities do people really need to be engaged in? It seems like most people’s time in capitalism is spent gathering funds to pay economic rent to capitalists to afford food, shelter, and medical care.
       2. Jason Boxman May 14, 2026 at 4:32 pm

          Meanwhile, in fantasy land

          Still, the conflict between Stardust and some critics is not over the safety of its particles but whether a private company should be involved in geoengineering research at all and Stardust’s lack of transparency until now.

          Daniele Visioni, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University, said Stardust should follow the traditional path of announcing scientific discoveries by presenting data at a conference and answering questions from scientists working in the same field.

          “I keep seeing that all the moves they make are the wrong ones process-wise,” Dr. Visioni said.

          Can Some Very Tiny Particles Cool the Planet? One Tech Company Says Yes. (NY Times)
       3. In Cold Chud May 14, 2026 at 7:18 pm

          Just saw these–thank you for the links!
20. Lefty Godot May 14, 2026 at 2:53 pm

    From yesterday, Aurelien channels his inner Baudrillard in tracing the progressive program of disconnecting successive generations from physical reality. Having no younger family members, I have to wonder what today’s youth are supposed to be looking forward to, much less attempting to plan for in any sort of practical way.
    1. wetware_antenna May 15, 2026 at 3:27 am

       Great read.

       “I have to wonder what today’s youth are supposed to be looking forward to, much less attempting to plan for in any sort of practical way.”

       Wonder not.

       Lately in Greece: https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1303841/second-teen-in-ilioupoli-rooftop-jump-dies-in-hospital/

       As for planning in any sort of practical way, speaking from my cohort of being in the early 30s, many of the people I’ve come to know, just bought the lie and went all in for that degree acquisition – without necessarily having actual passion for the specialty or obtaining real skills for real world application, as Aurelien describes – for a promise of a brighter future that now is crushing down at record pace.

       A last thought: a statistic that comes to mind is that farmers under 40 years old represent only the 7% of the agricultural population here in Greece.
       Here in rural Thessaly region, there’s a constant lack of land workers for all sorts of agricultural work. Here in my area, a lot of the small land owners and farmers being close to retirement, sell their land away or turn them into solar farms.
       (Most of) the youth here apparently learned that putting your hands in the mud, working with the soil and caring for growing and living things throughout the seasons – unless we can extract substantial profit without any actual work/production, see OPEKEPE scandal – is despicable and out of date.

       We have some instagram profiles to curate for god’s sake!
21. juno mas May 14, 2026 at 9:56 pm

    RE:50,000 Lake Tahoe residents to lose power

    Um, this is classic reporting without being familiar with the neighborhood.

    There are NOT 50,000 residents in the Lake Tahoe basin. There are never 50,000 visitors within the Lake Tahoe basin at peak tourist season. The LakeTahoe basin majority landowner is the US Forest Service. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is the federally mandated overseer of the Lake Tahoe basin and tightly restricts ALL activity in the basin. (I was a Nevada rep on the panel in the 1990’s)

    The greater Reno area markets itself as Reno/Tahoe to attract business and unaware new residents. Lake Tahoe is a serious uphill drive from the sagebrush plain known as Reno.

    While the abrupt loss of electrical power will be a challenge to 50,000 customers along the Cal-Nev border. They don’t all live at Lake Tahoe.
22. Kouros May 15, 2026 at 1:02 am

    Good news everywhere. I am really looking for El Nino and more warming to bring havock and famine and revolts and uprisings. The French and the Russian Revolutions were caused by bad weather and shortages of food. Only when the stomach will run, some sanitizing of the current crop of elites will be pursued…But untold millions will die.

Comments are closed.