Links 5/9/2026

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1. none May 9, 2026 at 7:12 am

   June 2 election incoming in California. Any voting recommendations? Is Saikat a poseur or for real? Anyone else? I’ve had near zero exposure to much of anything on the ballot (no TV and good adblocking online). Thanks!
   1. Adam May 9, 2026 at 4:16 pm

      Saikat likely left AOC’s employment because he was going very, very aggressively after centrists. His main opponent is a Zionist. No one can say for certain is he is real, but if I was in that district I would be voting for him. From what I’ve heard, he’ll likely come in 2nd in the jungle primary but then likely be in better position in the general because the 3rd place candidate is a similar ideology (gotta love that ticket splitting, but it likely doesn’t matter in this particular race thanks to CA’s primary quirks).

      For Governor, I’m voting Tom Steyer. Beccera (or Basura as he is known around here) is a centrist masquerading as a progressive who takes money from fossil fuel and energy companies. Meanwhile PG&E has spent $8 million on anti-Steyer ads. Not wild about voting for a billionaire, but he has the best platform. Even DSA just endorsed him while noting they also hate voting for a billionaire. Katie Porter was somewhat screwed but then has proceeded to kind of blow it anyways.
   2. LilD May 10, 2026 at 12:51 am

      I’m going to vote for Steyer as a fellow class traitor.
      Hedge fund managers for Bernie…

      Still like Porter a bit

      My neighbors are all in for team blue so it’s Becerra for them as he’s the most mainstream Dem
      Manan is potentially interesting but have not spent much time on research…
2. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 7:36 am

   ‘Dances_with_Bears
   @bears_with
   The Chinese Foreign Ministry has just repeated again today what it said yesterday, the day before, and the day before that – no confirmation that the visit of President Trump will proceed on May 14, when Trump thinks it will.’

   This is a weird one this. When you have a visit on this level, you have to have both countries coordinate transport, accommodation, security, protocols, preliminary negotiations, etc., and you would need weeks if not months to get this all set up. Trump has already proven that his team does not have the technical depth to negotiate international agreements, hence Witkoff and Jared, so it looks like this is true for diplomatic meetings as well. The only question if Rubio – as SecState – has stuffed up or whether Trump imagines that meeting a leader like Xi is exactly like meeting a big business leader like he has done in the past and just jumped on a jet to meet them.
   1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 9, 2026 at 9:23 am

      Recall that Russia has badly conditioned Trump on that front. Remember the summit Trump announced with Putin in Budapest after a phone conversation? The Russias were surprised but did not say not but also did not change behavior (as in stop attacks, in fact, IIRC they made a pretty big missile and drone attack shortly after the chat.

      The summit was to happen on short order, again IIRC in a week.

      It fell apart in days due to heated objection by US hawks, the Brits and the EU, and Ukraine.
   2. Dr. John Carpenter May 9, 2026 at 9:36 am

      I’d say it’s more likely the people surrounding Trump have him in the dark and he has no idea Xi hasn’t confirmed. It seems Trump being in the dark, either by design or by his own sundowning, explains a lot of what’s going on in the government.
      1. Aurelien May 9, 2026 at 9:51 am

         Except in the most extraordinary circumstances imaginable, you do not, and cannot, organise a summit meeting like that. Usually, preparation begins months before with teams of experts discussing the detailed arrangements and the agenda, then there would normally be meetings between foreign ministers to iron out major problems and prepare documents for signature, and then, perhaps a month later, you’d have the summit, which always has a large element of theatre to it. This makes no sense, and I can only assume that Trump is surrounded by people who believe, like him, that big players can sort things out in improvised face-to-face meetings. It may be like that in real estate: it’s not like that in politics.
         1. t May 9, 2026 at 1:50 pm

            Fox is, as of right now, reporting as if it is happening.
            1. ChrisFromGA May 9, 2026 at 2:08 pm

               They’re notorious shills. I would apply a heavy discount to whatever they’re reporting.
         2. Paradox of Unrealized Power May 9, 2026 at 4:39 pm

            “Usually, preparation begins months before with teams of experts discussing the detailed arrangements and the agenda, then there would normally be meetings between foreign ministers to iron out major problems and prepare documents for signature, and then, perhaps a month later, you’d have the summit, which always has a large element of theatre to it.”

            Sorry for the naive question, but I think you are the only person I know who can answer this: Given all the time and energy that goes towards such meetings and given how little comes out of them, are they really worth the effort?

            I have no preconceived notions as to what the answer should be, incidentally–I am just curious
            1. Aurelien May 9, 2026 at 4:51 pm

               The best answer I can give is it depends on the underlying level of agreement and broader relations between the two countries. Sometimes, it’s theatre but useful theatre, in the sense that countries with difficulties between them meet, agree a few things and the world calms down a bit. Sometimes there’s a desire for a substantive agreement to resolve tensions and it takes a lot of heavy lifting to iron out the difficulties so that something that can be signed. But in the case of US and China, or in the old days Russia, and a few major states like India, Japan and parts of Europe, it’s something you have to do from time to time, and it’s partly a matter of optics and partly a matter of keeping up contacts, checking that people are on side and moving things along. It’s almost infinitely variable.
               1. Paradox of Unrealized Power May 9, 2026 at 9:32 pm

                  Thanks for the reply and insight–much appreciated!
      2. jonboinAR May 9, 2026 at 5:30 pm

         It seems Trump being in the dark, either by design or by his own sundowning, explains a lot of what’s going on in the government.

         The idea of this is just SO alarming. With Biden, at least, those really running the show seemed to have some kind of basic competence with Biden seemingly docile to it all, cooperative, and trying to play his assigned role. With the Trump administration and his rambunctiousness and (again,seeming) unpredictability, especially on social media, it seems as though no one is really accountable, also, is there anyone who’s capable of their assigned position? It’s like one of those madhouse European king-ships we read about… with a nuclear trigger among a whole slew of other potential disasters. –This dire picture I paint here depends on Trump actually entering age dementia as we speak, and not really playing “4-D chess” as the optimists portray occurring. I fear the former, pray for the latter, hope we can muddle through.
         1. MH May 9, 2026 at 9:50 pm

            Biden is drooling in a cup senile, Trump is yells at cloud senile. The latter is worse, think of it like Thanksgiving. Biden is the elderly relative who sits in a chair and stares at the TV and answers “Wednesday” when you ask how they are doing. Trump is the elderly relative who insults half the people there, brings a mixed race kid to tears and tries to fight the kid’s the mother.
   3. Craig H. May 9, 2026 at 9:50 am

      Maybe the Chinese have figured out a way they can dangle Trump and minimize new attack intensity at Iran.

      Wasn’t the date supposed to be 7 or 8 weeks ago and there was an episode of the Chinese getting stood up (re-scheduled)? Diplomacy is kind of like dating and vice versa.
   4. ChrisFromGA May 9, 2026 at 11:19 am

      I thought I read that not only Trump, but a gaggle of CEO’s were supposed to travel with him as well. Boeing, Apple, etc. These guys and gals calendars are notoriously packed with meetings. You would think that some enterprising reporter for the LA Times or maybe Salon would get a hold of one of their calendars, through a tipster with access like their executive assistant. And leak out the fact that none of them are going.

      There is a very low likelihood that these types are going to be traveling at the last minute’s notice.
3. hereweare May 9, 2026 at 7:43 am

   re: Isaac Saul’s X post, ‘We are in deep, deep trouble.’:
   It looks like ChatGPT got one thing right. Jared Kushner is not a negotiator in the war. I’m not sure how best to describe his role – message delivery boy? negotiations saboteur?
   1. CanCyn May 9, 2026 at 8:06 am

      Seeker of profits?
   2. ThirtyOne May 9, 2026 at 10:12 am

      Bibi’s meat puppet?
   3. Yves Smith Post authorMay 9, 2026 at 11:05 am

      I hate to be a pedant, but we care about exact information here.

      Trump has appointed Kushner as a special envoy:

      https://thehill.com/policy/international/5745129-trump-kushner-peace-envoy/

      And past presidents have had private parties act as negotiators and emissaries

      The fact that Kushner is incompetent does not change the fact that he is operating as a negotiator.
      1. hereweare May 9, 2026 at 11:39 am

         “The fact that Kushner is incompetent does not change the fact that he is operating as a negotiator.”
         My comment wasn’t meant to be taken too literally!
   4. Jonathan Holland Becnel May 9, 2026 at 8:11 pm

      I know we here at NC hate AI, but all the American Kids are using it. Especially private school kids.

      It sucks major ballsack that no one has created a Political AI based off of classical economics AKA THE TRUTH and actually give the right answers.

      You’d think a political scientist would have done this by now!

      Instead all we have is Epstein Maxwell Reddit trained garbage.

      What a waste.

      ***

      Happy Victory Day, Everyone.

      My grandpa fought in the Navy during WWII against the Japanese Imperialists.

      Looks like we need to quash another zionazi insurgency from the LOSERS of WWII!

      Patriots of the world unite against the Epstein Empire!

      For Liberty & Truth!

      OMINA FAUSTA CANO
4. farmboy May 9, 2026 at 7:48 am

   I gotta say there is nothing in this world like the love and affection for, by, and of a horse. My Dad used to say the outside of a horse is good for the inside of man.
   1. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 8:07 am

      We got some horses here and there are plenty of horses in the surrounding countryside. You look at cattle grazing in a paddock and you think meh! But horses grazing in a paddock always seem to belong there.
   2. .Tom May 9, 2026 at 8:20 am

      Yeah, good ‘dotes today.

      While I’m opposed to amputating the tails of Doberman puppies for cosmetic and breed standard reasons, that’s a cute scene. I’m sure the babysitters had every idea why the pups were acting as they do: because they are pups.
      1. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 8:28 am

         Here in Oz, ear cropping, debarking and tail docking of dogs is illegal in all States, especially Dobermans, for the past two decades. It can be done.
         1. vao May 9, 2026 at 9:18 am

            “…ear cropping, debarking and tail docking of dogs…”

            It may seem like a stupid question, but I never was into dogs: cutting off their vocal cords is cruel, but is vaguely understandable (although I suspect ultimately useless — if the dogs cannot bark they will perhaps resort more to their teeth to make themselves “heard”), but why on earth would one lop off tails and ears of the poor animals? It might even lead to uncertainty when dealing with dogs, as they express their feelings (excitement, joy, watchfulness, fear) with their ears and tails.
            1. cfraenkel May 9, 2026 at 9:59 am

               Well, yes, exactly. That’s the point. Dobies are for the most part super friendly, smart and loyal dogs (unless trained otherwise). If they still had their original expressive ears, and the wagging tail, they wouldn’t be very frightening and scary, would they?
               1. jonboinAR May 9, 2026 at 9:46 pm

                  I was a pest-control man (exterminator). I’d back any dog down in a yard by rattling my equipment at him and spraying the ground between us,… except, if a doberman or a german shepherd was determined to keep me out, I didn’t mess with it. Both breeds can be very serious about protecting the family territory.
            2. .Tom May 9, 2026 at 10:45 am

               Spot on, vao. Dogs are very sophisticated communicators with other dogs, humans and any other animals they’ve been socialized with. They use body language literally all their waking time and vocal sounds only sometimes. Losing the tail is like, idk, losing 30% of your vocabulary.
            3. Bazarov May 9, 2026 at 6:30 pm

               There are some good reasons to crop a dog’s tail. I know somehow who rescued a dog with a natural uncropped tail. They’re quite long, or at least this one was. The tail wagged into objects all around the house, accumulated nicks and cuts, got infected, and nearly killed the dog.

               It would’ve saved that dog a lot of grief if its tail was cropped as pup.
               1. .Tom May 10, 2026 at 7:47 am

                  Happy tail (as it is know) can be a problem and it’s well known at the shelter but there are usually mitigations that don’t require amputation.
      2. CanCyn May 9, 2026 at 9:33 am

         Agreed re tail amputation and I also hate the ear ‘straightening’ that I believe is still done? I knew some people who adopted an already altered Doberman. They lived in Thunder Bay ON – said dog had to wear a wool hat in winter because the scarring in her ears meant that she had very little blood flow to keep them warm.
         But away from Debbie Downerism – yes, the pups are cute. The shepherds are obviously having fun with them and the headline is just weird – as .Tom says, they’re pups that’s why! Fun clip.
      3. show_me May 9, 2026 at 9:55 pm

         Dobermans, and others, were bred and trained as defensive/attack dogs. I was told the ears and tail were cropped so as to make it more difficult for their targets to grab hold of them.
5. Michael Fiorillo May 9, 2026 at 7:59 am

   There are some problems with the Covert Action article about Walter Reuther.

   First, while Reuther had broken with the government and most Labor officials over the Vietnam War, he was still a Cold Warrior who’d gained his position by red-baiting and banning the Communists who were integral to the birth and early success of the UAW, and still controlled important UAW Locals. He also spent much time and energy on “raids” (membership poaching) against Left-led unions like the UE (United Electrical Workers) and FE (the farm equipment workers union) that were actively resisting the post WWll Red Scare, and which Reuther encouraged.

   Second, the mention of the UAW funding SDS (and using a much-later SDS poster as evidence), is a partial truth, at best. While Reuther’s UAW did fund SDS’s progenitor, the Student League for Industrial Democracy, and SDS’s seminal Port Huron Statement was crafted at the UAW retreat of the same name, it was the SLID, then led by ex-Schactmanite and future DSA founder Michael Harrington, that infamously sought to purge the younger authors of the Port Huron Statement for being insufficiently anti-Communist. That rift was partially healed, and Harrington later regretted his actions, but the event speaks to the anti-Communist hysteria of the time, and the susceptibility of even progressive labor leaders to get caught up in it.

   The SDS poster shown in the article, ostensibly to “prove” official UAW consonance with the radicalism of the time, would have been been produced much later, probably by the Progressive Labor Party (PLP, à Maoist group expelled from the CPUSA, and which became an aggressive caucus within SDS, leading to its fragmentation at the 1969 convention which produced the Weatherman (“You Don’t Need a Rectal Thermometer to Know Who the A*%holes Are”) faction.

   I’m not saying Reuther wasn’t murdered – he might have been, since the Dulles/Angleton/Cointelpro faction of the State was/is capable of anything – but the history presented in the article is too pat and is false in important ways.
   1. AG May 9, 2026 at 9:09 am

      thanks!
   2. earthling May 9, 2026 at 9:15 am

      As much as the murder of the US labor movement and of democracy has been covered up and hidden from the view of the public all these decades, while false narratives were spread far and wide, I could not care less if this fellow had faults. I’m just angry that the article tells us more about Reuther than any of us who weren’t labor movement scholars ever learned in history classes or books.

      The point is that highhanded un-elected schemers pretending to be public servants, on government payrolls, were willing to use any means necessary to crush the political power of working people, even murdering anyone who was emerging as a strong leader. And frankly, with all the propaganda that has been woven into our system and history, at this point it’s hard for any of us to know what is ‘false’.
   3. Henry Moon Pie May 9, 2026 at 9:22 am

      Agreed on the Reuthers’ commitment to purging Communists. The picture in the article of Reuther and bloodied Richard Frankensteen is a bit ironic because after the Battle of the Overpass, the two fought each other for years until the Communist Frankensteen finally left the UAW.

      Perhaps Victor’s squawking about the CIA’s (Angelton shows up again!) infiltration of U. S. and foreign unions was enough to knock Walter off. After all, Angelton is accused of going after bigger game. Otherwise, the motive would be more about the direction Walter might have been headed rather than what he had done previously. After spending an awful lot of energy and resources on an alliance with the Democrats and LBJ, Reuther was waking up to the errors of merging the CIO with the AFL (and the reactionary Meany) and relying on Dems. Was that enough to kill him?

      It’s ironic that the Reuthers behaved the way they did toward Communist UAW leaders when those two had spent a chunk of the 30s working in a factory in Gorky.
      1. Michael Fiorillo May 9, 2026 at 11:05 am

         Yes, and there were rumors that Reuther briefly belonged to the Party.

         The main sources for my comment are “The Communist Party and the Auto Worker Unions” by Roger Keeran (an excellent history by a Left historian from an auto workers family) and “SDS” by Kirkpatrick Sale.
   4. Sibiriak May 9, 2026 at 11:18 pm

      Footnote in the Covert Action article:

      A more negative view of Reuther is presented in a 2015 article by Tom Mackaman on the World Socialist Website. According to Mackaman, Reuther “stood for class compromise and acceptance of the capitalists’ “right” to a profit, together with political support for the Democratic Party, unequivocal defense of US imperialism and anti-communism.”

      Mackaman further wrote that “the UAW’s transformation into a corporatist adjunct of big business and the state, and its role as an industrial police force deployed against the workers it nominally represents, is not the negation, but rather the outcome of Reutherism. ” ↑
   5. Sibiriak May 9, 2026 at 11:52 pm

      Covert Action : Parenti and Noton make clear that the evidence of foul play in Reuther’s plane crash is considerable. A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found seven abnormalities in the altimeter, including a loose screw caused by someone deliberately loosening it . [Emphasis added]
      —————————————————————————————–

      No source link is provided for that claim.

      The linked Parenti and Noton article states that:

      …the final NTSB report utters not a word one way or the other about sabotage. It notes how numerous unusual defects in the altimeter may have caused a malfunction, but it says nothing about what caused the defects themselves… [Emphasis in original]
6. Huey May 9, 2026 at 8:10 am

   4GB is a lot of data, would it be too much to hope this causes a massive uninstall and replacement of Chrome?
   1. ThirtyOne May 9, 2026 at 10:42 am

      Just uninstalled chrome. I rarely used it.
      FWIW, here’s an article on Firefox’s AI:
      https://www.pcmag.com/explainers/before-you-turn-on-firefox-ai-kill-switch-consider-keeping-these-6-features
      1. Huey May 9, 2026 at 3:45 pm

         Thanks, didn’t know about that. I’m pretty sure I turned them off already, I think the only one I was concerned about was the auto-translate which (I think) still worked without it, post-update, but nice for people whp do want some features.

         I feel companies may feel compelled to not look like they’re falling behind, hence why AI is being added (though optionally, like with Mozilla) even to more privacy-focused things. Not that Mozilla, or even many others, is a saint, but I’m interested to see where this all goes post an AI-crash. Will it really stick around, in some form, like post the dot-com bubble, but for something somewhat dangerous?
7. TimH May 9, 2026 at 8:22 am

   Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device

   I use de-googled Chromium, the 2nd choice here:

   https://chromium.woolyss.com/

   You can grab the portable version and unzip that into a separate directory for banking etc stuff, and use the installer version for general.
   1. das monde May 9, 2026 at 8:38 am

      The big AI companies are paperclip maximisers, almost literally. Every hard disk and every switched on computer are for their pet LLMs to run on, the humanity and the planet be damned.

      https://aicorespot.io/the-paperclip-maximiser/
   2. Frank May 9, 2026 at 8:42 am

      The issue of Google Chrome installing 4 GB on your machine was touched on yesterday in links.
      Here’s a bit more explanatory article in Ars Technica
      https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/05/no-google-hasnt-changed-chromes-local-ai-features-its-just-as-confusing-as-ever/
      The Ars commentariat appear to be well informed.
      1. earthling May 9, 2026 at 9:25 am

         Hmmm…lots of explanatory detail doesn’t really help me. The fellow’s outlook seems to be, Google overreaches sometimes, but that’s okay. They should try to do better. This attitude from the tech press is part of what has allowed big tech to run wild with no guardrails.

         I went to install a better browser on my phone and uninstall Chrome. Was not allowed to. This malign piece of software is a permanent part of my phone, and apparently it is free to update itself by downloading who knows what at any time. I can ‘disable’ it, but apparently that can be overriden by the Borg at any time. It’s okay for some of us to be upset and say ‘no, it’s not okay’.
         1. Escapee May 10, 2026 at 1:15 am

            I bought a Huawei MatePad 11.5 tablet last month running China’s Harmony OS instead of Android. It tries to be Android-app compatible by using microG to work with Android apps (didn’t work for my ReadEra Premium install last night, though–awaiting their support reply).

            But the nice thing about it is that it does allow deletion of Chrome and other Google apps.

            At this point I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Chinese surveillance tech is preferable to the Western alternatives.
            1. thoughtfulperson May 10, 2026 at 7:37 am

               My thinking is it may depend on where you live.
8. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 8:52 am

   ‘SubRosa )✿( Magick @subrosamagick.bsky.social
   @SubRosaMagick
   For over a thousand years, historians thought the Viking “sunstone” was nothing more than a myth, until the ocean gave up its secret.’

   This is an amazing story this and the whole tweet is worth the read. I’m going to assume that “sunstones” were first used for land navigation when you cannot see the sun because of cloud cover. It did not take long before the Scandinavians realized that these could be used for navigating at sea as well. Like the Antikythera mechanism, another example of lost technology.
9. Isanthrope May 9, 2026 at 9:13 am

   The International Hantavirus Society pushed out a position paper signed by multiple experts and members yesterday (now circulating more broadly on X). It’s a sprinkle of calm mongering statements around it not being Covid (just elite panic stuff there) but of note is the statement it’s inappropriate to suggest that there is no pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic spread of the ANDV strain of hantavirus and that it is airborne in mode of transmission.

   https://zenodo.org/records/20075274

   Many many experts repeating the same mistakes as they made in 2019. At present most are failing to understand that transmission and impacts of any outbreak must now incorporate the mass immune incompetence across our population from rounds of SARS2 infection. There is no proof as yet in the approximately 400k+ published papers that any human being is capable of clearing SARS2 from the body once they have moved past the acute phase of initial infection.

   Evidence of ongoing damage and disability from those who have survived the acute phase of hantavirus (admittedly the data only encompasses the strains that are exclusively transmitted via airborne rodent faeces and urine breathed into the lungs) is also in the literature.

   We are so hobbled by a lack of common sense and public health oversight that we could feasibly take an outbreak like this and drag it kicking and screaming into a full blown pandemic. We probably won’t but it won’t be for lack of trying.
   1. johnnyme May 9, 2026 at 10:24 am

      Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, in an emotional appeal addressed to the people of Tenerife, is asking for trust and trying to convince people that this is not another COVID-19.
   2. Skip Intro May 9, 2026 at 10:54 am

      Never believe anything until they trot out the experts to deny it!
   3. hereweare May 9, 2026 at 11:09 am

      Where in that paper (Statement from the International Hantavirus Society …) does it say that it is airborne in mode of transmission, or that it’s inappropriate to suggest that it is?
      1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 9, 2026 at 11:19 am

         I assume that is a drafting error in the comment.
         1. hereweare May 9, 2026 at 11:47 am

            The comment says, apparently referring to the paper, “of note is the statement it’s inappropriate to suggest that there is no pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic spread of the ANDV strain of hantavirus and that it is airborne in mode of transmission”.
            That seems ambiguous to me – inappropriate to suggest it’s airborne, or of note is the statement that it is airborne. Neither looks like a drafting error; it looks to me like one or the other was the intended meaning. So far as I can see, the paper says nothing about airborne transmission.
            1. Isanthrope May 9, 2026 at 12:04 pm

               My apologies that was sloppiness on my part. It does not reference its airborne transmission status in that specific paper.

               Its airborne transmission is established through prior published papers both for non human to human hantavirus strains (disturbed dried urine and faeces in the air then sucked into the lungs) and the current H2H strain as per the exposure pathways outlined in the paper reviewing the outbreak of patient zero at the birthday party and the subsequent exposure at his funeral from his wife in 2018.

               Of note was one interface with patient zero that involved merely passing him near the washroom and saying hi. The other cases were seated nearby and the patient was febrile and presumably at peak viral load. Furthermore the studies on the H2H strain are retrospective and there will be murkiness in those recollections.

               Nonetheless, precautionary principle would require airborne precautions for those managing this outbreak. Droplet dogma however is our modus operandi.

               Again, apologies for confusing the contents of the position paper with other studies I have looked at.
               1. hereweare May 9, 2026 at 12:23 pm

                  “Nonetheless, precautionary principle would require airborne precautions for those managing this outbreak.”
                  The US CDC seems to agree. “In healthcare settings, for patients with suspected or confirmed Andes virus infection, CDC recommends patient placement in an airborne infection isolation room”

                  And yes, from what I’ve read about it, there does indeed seem to be evidence for airborne person to person transmission. What worries me is the possiblility this particular strain (as in not the Andes one generally, but this specific cruise ship one) has become or may become more adept at spreading via this route.
10. KD May 9, 2026 at 9:26 am

    On the one hand, Starmer and Labour got what they richly deserved, at the same time, Reform seems to promise everything that the Labour had on offer, just deeper and harder. Heighten the contradictions, I guess. On the other hand, making your country such an active dumpster fire that your natives have to flee probably is a good solution for reducing immigration in the tradition of Nero.
    1. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 9:35 am

       Starmer is determined to see out his full term as Prime Minister, even if doing so he takes down every Labour seat that there is.
11. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 9:30 am

    “North Korea acknowledges ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine for first time | NK PRO”

    I don’t see the problem here. It is only logical that the North Koreans would want to test their weapons systems under actual battle conditions to see if they are fit for purpose or not. And I think that the Russians purchased some of their weapons systems for themselves as they were pretty good. This is no different to the west using the Ukraine to test their own weapons systems with an eye to international sales. Of course through the battle experience of a modern battlefield, the North Koreans will be getting an upgrade of their military forces at home. As I quipped last year, what do you call a North Korean combat vet after he returns to North Korea? An instructor.
12. Jack S. May 9, 2026 at 9:57 am

    You state: ‘The only good news here is the high mortality rate of a pretty transmissible hantavirus should force fast and stringent official action, as happened in Asia with SARS-1.’
    Perhaps in Asia – or not. Perhaps doubtful in Europe and North America? Didn’t US gov’t just evacuate over a dozen US citizens stranded for many days on the hantavirus cruise, after other passengers also exposed to the virus already had left the infected ship to return to Europe, previous to the US ‘rescue’ of its citizens?
    1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 9, 2026 at 10:36 am

       Not yet the same. A meaningful death rate will lead to citizen panic and economy-wrecking self-isolation, forcing official action. It was 10% for SARS-1. It is 40% for regular hantaviruses. Not yet clear if this seemingly more contagious Andes version will be as deadly (serious epidemiologists have debunked the claim that viruses always mutate to be more contagious and less lethal; if they are at peak contagion before they kill the patient, there is no virus-survival reason for that to occur). But even 5% would focus a lot of minds and kill air travel stone cold dead.

       Having said that, the public health apparatus in the US was bad even before Covid. Its fragmented nature (run by states) impedes coordinated action. Rochelle Walenksy’s misrule at the CDC made things worse. Now Trump has gone to war with science and medical orthodoxy. And the this Administration is bad at administration. So the US would be unable to contain hantavirus even if it got religion and wanted to.
       1. Jason Boxman May 9, 2026 at 11:45 am

          My last fantasy of effective government was the CDC; Heading into 2020, I’d naively believed it had been spared neoliberal rot.

          Sigh.

          Experience is a cruel teacher. Although few Americans seem to have gotten the message on COVID.

          But a high death rate definitely focuses the mind, and if this thing really happens, … this timeline is lit.
       2. Roxan May 9, 2026 at 1:18 pm

          The Hanta virus ‘episode’ seems so similar to early Covid I wondered–was gain of function research done on Hanta? Google says ‘yes’. Anyone know if that’s true?
          1. ambrit May 9, 2026 at 5:16 pm

             I have no ‘inside’ information on this, but the Babylon Bee is on the case.
             See: https://babylonbee.com/news/dr-fauci-reports-amazing-results-in-gain-of-function-research-at-new-cruise-ship-laboratory
    2. brian wilder May 9, 2026 at 12:44 pm

       I just read that article about taking the 17 Americans to Omaha and the paltering in the reporting was palpable to me — like the reader was meant to infer from proximity to an isolation facility, a higher level of care and precaution than is likely to be observed in the actual processes and procedures.
       1. Robert Gray May 10, 2026 at 4:33 am

          > … and the paltering in the …

          Thanks. Good word.
13. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 10:00 am

    Good news everybody. The US has just gone in and seized all that enriched uranium. Oh, wait. That was Venezuela, not Iran-

    ‘The US has triumphantly announced that it has removed highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Venezuela in what the US Department of Energy (DOE) hailed as a victory for America and “the world.”

    In a statement on Friday, the DOE said it had completed the “removal of all remaining enriched uranium from a legacy research reactor” in the South American nation and transferred it to the US for processing and reuse. The quantity removed was 13.5 kg (30 pounds).’

    https://www.rt.com/news/639770-us-removes-venezuela-enriched-uranium/

    So did they just steal it or did they pay Venezuela for it?
    1. Jack S. May 9, 2026 at 11:20 am

       Venezuela’s RV-1 reactor, officially shut down in 1991 and decommissioned in 1997, is 65 years old as of this year. I visited IVIC – the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Investigation – several times in the 1980s when I worked as a reporter in Caracas. IVIC is long-dead, gutted and hollowed out. Given the progressively greater institutional and administrative chaos of Venezuelan governments since the early 1980s it’s probably not a bad thing to remove the enriched uranium, whether or not it was bought and paid for, or simply taken.
14. AG May 9, 2026 at 10:08 am

    re: RU memory politics mostly “bad”

    2x items of different degrees of flawed analyses:

    
    1) Russian Imperative (Русский императив)
    National Myth and the Management of Collective Emotion

    by John Sjoholm SUBSTACK
    May 08, 2026
    https://johnsjoholm.substack.com/p/russian-imperative

    “(…)
    The modern Russian state increasingly appears less interested in reconciling with Soviet repression than in subsuming it beneath a renewed mythology of patriotic sacrifice, anti-fascism, civilisational struggle, and historical destiny. The memory of victims of the Gulag becomes increasingly less useful, possibly even damaging, whereas the victory over Nazism remains useful.
    (…)”

    about the author:

    Geopolitical and political-business intelligence consultant since 2005. Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Writing on statecraft, grey-zone activity, and decision-making where theory meets practice. A degree of vanity is assumed.

    Regardless of the question in how far memory “politics” and art exhibitions in Russia may or may not be offering justifiable criticism – it will always be beyond me how intellectuals in the name of humanitarianism and ethics still dare to abuse and instrumentalize May 8th for their agenda. I know this is banal. But the duplicitous nature, the covert Russia-hatred is shocking. Finding it thriving every day.

    2) And this is an example why I have serious issues with Ukrainian historian Marta Havryshko in certain areas of scholarship and political commentary.

    While her opposition against fascists in Ukrain is very important and brave she fails intellectually when it comes to geopolitics of pre-war Europe and of today. Her work is representative for the European left at large and it is evidence for why for a long time to come Europe´s stance towards Russia will not change.

    
    Marta Havryshko in BERLINER ZEITUNG, her own translation:

    “(…)
    My new piece on memory politics in Ukraine regarding Victory Day:

    Victory Day is the founding myth of Putin’s Russia. A civic religion that sanctifies authoritarianism, glorifies militarism, and portrays Russia as a uniquely “victorious nation” claiming dominance over its neighbors.

    For decades after the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine largely shared this Soviet-Russian culture of remembrance. May 9th remained one of the country’s most popular holidays.

    However, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine began to dismantle this imperial mythology. The country distanced itself from the narrow Soviet interpretation of the “Great Patriotic War” and turned to the broader history of the years 1939 to 1945—a perspective that also acknowledges the Hitler-Stalin Pact and the joint Soviet-Nazi division of Europe.

    The focus of remembrance shifted from May 9 to May 8, bringing Ukraine into line with the European tradition of commemorating the end of World War II in Europe.

    More importantly, however, the underlying philosophy changed. The day is no longer a national celebration of military glory or nostalgic fantasies of “our grandfathers reaching Berlin.”

    Victory Day in Ukraine is a day of mourning—for all the victims of the war, for all the lives destroyed, and for those who were sacrificed to save others.

    One of the most controversial aspects of Ukraine’s new politics of remembrance is the demolition of Soviet war memorials—despite the fact that nearly seven million Ukrainians served in the Red Army during World War II. Their role in the defeat of Nazism is not disputed, but they are no longer celebrated as national heroes.

    As a result, monuments to Soviet commanders like Pavel Rybalko or Ivan Chernyakhovsky are disappearing from Ukrainian cities. Streets that once bore their names are being renamed after figures like Roman Shukhevych, the UPA commander and former member of the German-backed Nightingale Battalion, which invaded Lviv in 1941.

    This reflects a broader shift. The OUN and UPA, once relatively marginal regional movements, have become central heroic symbols of the new Ukrainian national myth.

    But this narrative often glosses over darker realities. OUN members participated in anti-Jewish pogroms in 1941, collaborated with auxiliary police structures, took part in the Holocaust, and UPA units killed Jews in hiding.

    Furthermore, official memory politics tends to ignore the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Polish civilians in Volhynia and Galicia during and after the war.

    Ukraine’s growing attempt to equate today’s soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with the Ukrainian national liberation movement of World War II—and Putin’s Russia with the Soviet Union—contains dangerous historical contradictions.

    Some of the figures celebrated today as national heroes were simultaneously involved in Nazi crimes and ethnic violence.
    “Eighty-three years ago, thousands of Ukrainian volunteers joined the defense of Europe against a Moscow invasion – just like we are today,” declared an officer of the Third Assault Corps, affiliated with Azov, at a public commemoration for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (“Galician No. 1”).

    The message was clear. Modern Ukrainian soldiers were symbolically equated with men who swore allegiance to Hitler and fought for the Third Reich. The speaker’s vision of a “united Europe” seemed indifferent to the form Europe should take—as long as it fought alongside Ukrainians against Moscow, just as it had 80 years earlier.

    In this logic, Nazi Germany appeared as the lesser evil compared to the Kremlin. Life under Hitler was better than life under Stalin, so the argument went. A dangerous slide into historical revisionism and Nazi apologetics.
    
    By attempting to escape the Soviet-Russian myth of the “Great Patriotic War,” Ukraine’s political elite is constructing another dangerous myth. This myth reframes Nazi collaborators and war crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists in order to promote political mobilization and the formation of a national identity. (…)”
    1. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 10:25 am

       It’s not just the Ukrainians but the west that have been rewriting the history of the Second World War and trying to make out that Russia was equally responsible for that war along with Germany. And that Russia did not do that much for the war effort but that it was the other Allies that really won the war. It gets pretty bad when they have commemoration events at Auschwitz and the Germans who ran that camp are invited but the Russians that freed that camp – along with others – is deliberately not included. Gets even worse when a UN vote to ban the glorification of Nazism has 51 countries vote against it – mostly western countries.
       1. AG May 9, 2026 at 12:52 pm

          None of your examples have made it into the current mainstream narrative. Or more precise: They are no more part of it.

          The news come and pass. And elite Europe simply chooses to ignore those votes, those scandals, those lies.

          “1984” par excellence.

          And I guess they are still teaching this shit without addressing how much our time is actually captured by Orwell´s description.

          It´s these parallels that can drive insane. Para-realities.
15. johnnyme May 9, 2026 at 10:15 am

    The Centers for Disease Control has issued its first advisory to its Health Alert Network:

    2026 Multi-country Hantavirus Cluster Linked to Cruise Ship

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is issuing this Health Alert Network (HAN) Health Advisory to inform clinicians and health departments about a new cluster of hantavirus disease cases caused by infection with Andes virus. Hantavirus disease can cause severe illness and can be fatal. Clinicians should be aware of the potential for imported cases, although the risk of broad spread to the United States is considered extremely unlikely at this time. As a precaution, this Health Advisory summarizes CDC’s recommendations for U.S. public health departments, clinical laboratories, and healthcare workers about hantavirus disease case identification, testing, and biosafety considerations in clinical laboratories.
    1. hereweare May 9, 2026 at 11:22 am

       “Recommendations for Healthcare Providers
       …

       In healthcare settings, for patients with suspected or confirmed Andes virus infection, CDC recommends patient placement in an airborne infection isolation room”
16. LawnDart May 9, 2026 at 10:31 am

    Re;AI

    ChatGPT told some of us at the local watering-hole the other day that our local chain-of-lakes were formed by glaciers about yay-so-many million-years ago…

    “Wait… wha..?”

    Yeah, we knew differently… or thought we did. Being uncertain (I could swear that it was formed by a dam back in the 1800s!), I consulted Brave.

    A holdout pond is a term specifically used to describe a reservoir created by a dam primarily for recreational purposes rather than flood control. In the context of the Rice Lake Dam in Wisconsin, the structure was originally built around 1870 by the lumbering company Knapp, Stout & Co. to create a holdout pond that kept the lake open for activities like fishing, boating, swimming, and kayaking…
    Ah-Ha! So we were correct, and ChatGPT was wrong!

    None of us knew, however, that the lakes were created to provide recreational opportunities for lumberjacks … that’ll be useful on trivia-night.
    1. hereweare May 9, 2026 at 11:32 am

       “that kept the lake open” sounds like there was already a lake there. Wikipedia says “in 1870 the company dammed the Red Cedar to raise the level of Rice Lake to make a better holding pond for their logs”, which also sounds like there was already a lake there. (It cites something by Wisconsin Historical Society, which leads to 404 Page Not Found.)
       1. debug May 9, 2026 at 3:40 pm

          The Wayback Machine at Archive.org still has the content from the link you mentioned.

          https://web.archive.org/web/20210228213012/https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS2471

          The article says that the lake was, indeed, created by the logging company when they dammed a river.
          1. hereweare May 9, 2026 at 3:56 pm

             Thank you!
17. hk May 9, 2026 at 10:34 am

    WRT Tibetans speaking Tibetan, the same can be said for pretty much every minority language in China, and not just “historical” minorities either. Korean-Chinese are mostly fairly recent arrivals–for most part, they only go back to late 19th century or even later. They are almost entirely bilingual, capable of speaking Korean fluently. However, the Korean diaspora in Japan and US, despite being more recent groups, are far less able to speak the lingo. And it’s not even that the former are less integrated: the Korean speaking Chinese citizens are Chinese to the core in their loyalty and orientation, even more than their US counterparts perhaps and the Japanese certainly (The giveaway is that when the former say “we” or “our country” in Korean, they mean China. “We” or “our country” in Korean always means Korea for the latter.)
    1. leaf May 9, 2026 at 11:56 am

       The most powerful /energetic ‘wumao’ I ever met was an extremely proud patriotic Tibetan who also had family in the PLA. Portraits of Mao in their pretty nice looking state provided house in their newly built village
       I guess the Dalai Lama and his fellow aristocrats are not very much missed in Tibet if at all
18. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 10:43 am

    “A small town in Germany braces for end to decades of life with U.S. troops”

    About 5,000 soldiers may be leaving but that still leaves some 30,000 there. I have seen a few interviews with locals and they are sad that the Americans are going and will miss them but none saying that it is just as well. Back in the 80s I knew a German middle-class couple and the husband told me that the Americans in Germany were occupation troops which surprised me at the time. Now no longer.
19. The Rev Kev May 9, 2026 at 10:55 am

    ‘Spetsnaℤ 007 🇷🇺
    @Alex_Oloyede2
    🇷🇺🌐 Russian journalists have been officially and permanently expelled from the International Federation of Journalists.
    Reason for expulsion:
    – Creating media branch in “occupied” territory
    – “Russia kiIIs journalists and uses information as weapon”
    No, Israel wasn’t expelled.’

    As one reply put it, not so much the International Federation of Journalists as the International Federation of Presstitutes. Israel has killed hundreds of journalist but that is cool. No problem there. Russian journalists in the Ukraine never wear tags labeling them as “Press” as that would make them a target for the Ukrainians. That’s OK. So the International Federation of Journalists is yet another international organization that has been totally compromised.
    1. Bad Coffee May 9, 2026 at 2:29 pm

       Here is journalism:

       Russia provoking Ukraine to bomb Moscow parade, threatening strikes on Kyiv city centre
20. pjay May 9, 2026 at 11:02 am

    – ‘Weird: Epstein Suicide Note Printed On Hillary Clinton’s Personal Stationery’ – Babylon Bee

    From the “article”:

    “A review of the letter indicates that Epstein wrote he was definitely going to kill himself and assured readers that no one strangled him. “Well, at least this confirms it was a suicide and that there was no foul play,” said investigator Bradley Harmon. “Luckily, Epstein himself ruled out anyone else coming in and choking him to death. We can at least put that theory to rest.”

    Yesterday I commented about watching NBC News segments two nights in a row that almost said the same thing – which goes to show that our media “reality” is now so absurd that it is nearly impossible to satirize it anymore.
21. leaf May 9, 2026 at 11:32 am

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/conestoga-college-province-appoints-administrator-serious-concerns-9.7191623

    Waterloo had some insane scenario where Conestoga college at one point had taken in 30,000 international students and mostly turned it from a decent college into a fully fledged degree mill. During this time the housing and especially the student housing market was more or less totally destroyed by this huge influx. The college president, seems to have stuffed the board with his cronies which resulted in 55% salary increase to $636,000, and awarded himself 83 months severance pay (almost 7 years) for destroying its reputation. And now the inept Ford government will be personally overseeing this. I am not hopeful
    1. CanCyn May 9, 2026 at 3:55 pm

       Thanks for posting this Leaf. It has been a topic of discussion in my world for the last few days. I met Tibbits once, he struck me as an entitled blowhard. I don’t know how these people fool so many. So many college administrators are incompetent and yet completely arrogant. Back in the day, Ontario’s community colleges were run by those with education credentials. I worked in community colleges for a good portion of my library career and knew people at many institutions, no one respected their administration. I started at Mohawk college in Hamilton in 2005, while things were changing, at that time there were few bean counters or PMC types in evidence. They slowly infiltrated the colleges, and thanks to chronic underfunding, were somewhat forced into recruiting foreign students who paid much higher tuition. The new guard ran the colleges ‘like businesses’ and did it fairly poorly, being more interested in their perks and expense accounts, not to mention covering their own arses and each others’ in classic PMC behaviour. While Tibbits was old guard, he certainly adopted a business mindset and treated himself and his cronies very well over the years. I live in hope that somehow some criminal activity is uncovered, I hate to think that his greed and hubris will go unpunished. When I retired (early, I was so done with the nonsense) in 2019, I hardly recognized the colleges or the libraries where I’d started my dream librarian job in 2005. The neoliberals ruined the system. That coupled with recent caps on international students and the resulting huge lay-offs, Ontario colleges are mere shadows of their former selves. The feds are supposedly re-investing in higher ed in Canada. We shall see whether or not it’s too little too late.
22. flora May 9, 2026 at 12:06 pm

    re: Zelensky’s Isr Family (great read)
    and
    Keep Quiet so We Don’t go to Jail

    Shades of Meyer Lansky . / ;)
    1. Tom Stone May 9, 2026 at 3:48 pm

       Meyer Lansky is well known, Murray “The Camel” Humphrey who did for the Outfit what Lansky did for the Mob is much less well know.
       Some are aware that Truman was part of the Prendergast Machine, not as many are aware that Prendergast was part of the Outfit.
       The Mafia, or The Mob if you prefer was out of New York and new Jersey and of predominantly Sicilian ethnicity.
       The Outfit was out of the Mid West and had a more diverse ethnicity in the 40’s, 50’s and after.
       It’s fascinating to look at the influence of Organized crime on both American Politics and America culture, Pro Football and Hollywood were influenced big time over the years.
       MCA anyone?
       Or any of a half dozen now NFL football teams.
       1. AG May 9, 2026 at 10:08 pm

          THE OUTFIT
          the movie from 2022
          trailer
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgJL23HxyU

          It was the directorial debut of screenwriter Graham Moore who hit the circuit with his IMITATION GAME script about Alan Turing in 2014, taking away an Academy Award for it.

          Now what is interesting is that after this first success which could hardly be topped, he has struggled to get anything made. THE OUTFIT was the result of those efforts.

          A rather small film, taking place in basically only one location.

          It´s decent but as an event nowhere near the scale of the Turing piece which made about $230M worldwide on a production budget of officially $14M.

          Moore´s next credit as writer apparntly will be a mini-series based on the crypto-fraud of Sam Bankman-Fried.
23. thump May 9, 2026 at 1:06 pm

    Statement from the International Hantavirus Society and members of the international hantavirus research and clinical community regarding Andes virus transmission and the current outbreak investigation

    https://zenodo.org/records/20075274

    Excerpts:

    Numerous hantaviruses cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) in Europe and Asia, while other
    hantaviruses cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in the Americas. ANDV, which is found in
    Argentina and Chile, is unique among hantaviruses because multiple investigations have documented person-
    to-person transmission, usually in close-contact settings. However, there is currently no evidence for efficient
    community transmission of ANDV like that observed with highly transmissible respiratory viruses.

    ANDV transmission dynamics differ fundamentally from highly transmissible respiratory viruses such as
    measles virus, influenza viruses or SARS-CoV-2. Current evidence does not suggest efficient transmission
    through casual community contact.

    Some public discussions have characterized ANDV as having only minimal or negligible human-to-human
    transmission potential. The available scientific literature does not support such simplified conclusions.

    ANDV RNA has been detected in several clinical sample types, and infectious virus has been recovered from
    patient-derived materials. These findings support biological plausibility for close-contact transmission, while by
    themselves they do not establish the relative contribution of each route.
    1. Jason Boxman May 9, 2026 at 5:19 pm

       What does this even mean?

       close-contact transmission,

       This phrase is the death of public health. Do women get pregnant through “close contact”? What’s the route? It isn’t magic fairy dust.

       I hate this timeline.
       1. Ignacio May 9, 2026 at 5:59 pm

          It means that “Current evidence does not suggest efficient transmission through casual community contact” . This does not exclude airborne transmission and other paragraphs in the document are suggestive of possible airborne transmission. Yet, if there is airborne transmission, which I consider as quite likely, it would be much less efficient than that of SARS CoV2, the Omicron branch, with an estimated R0 of 10-12 according to sources (Measles R0 12-18 is possibly the virus more efficiently transmited). By contrast Influenza R(0) is about 2-3.
          For ANDV hantavirus R(0) in human-to-human transmission has been estimated at 2.1 (from the link by thump):

          Epidemiological analysis estimated an initial median reproductive number of approximately 2.1 before control measures were implemented, decreasing after isolation, quarantine and active contact tracing.These observations do not imply a broad pandemic risk.

          In contrast with Flu, ANDV elicits control measures (because high virulence) and changes in behaviour. It is suspected that there is some unreported community transmission in Argentina, some say with many unreported cases, (Argentina exited WHO, remember?) and here is where i see more risks, particularly if a less virulent strain of ANDV appears and settles there. IMO the ship outbreak is probably at R(0) below 1 with all measures taken.
       2. Oregon Lawhobbit May 13, 2026 at 5:29 pm

          Do women get pregnant through “close contact”?

          One might even call it “intimate!”
24. Jason Boxman May 9, 2026 at 5:17 pm

    Oh noes.

    All Those A.I. Note Takers? They’re Making Lawyers Very Nervous. (NY Times)

    Jeffrey Gifford is a lawyer in San Antonio who specializes in corporate governance, securities and M&A at the law firm Dykema. In the moments before virtual meetings begin, he doubles as a bouncer.

    “Before the meeting even starts,” he told DealBook, “when I see that A.I. note taker pop up, I’ll just say: ‘Hey, Mike, Jim, Barbara, I see the A.I. note taker popped up. I’m going to turn it off and kick it out of the meeting.’”

    This happens more and more. “Everybody and their mother is using these things,” Gifford said. “Executives are using them, boards are using them, nonexecutive businesspeople are using them.”

    I’ve never looked at any of these transcripts nor summaries.
    1. ChrisFromGA May 10, 2026 at 8:49 am

       The lawyers are right to be nervous because of the attorney-client privilege. These infernal AI pests seem to be auto-enabled in Zoom. They probably suck up all your data and send it off to the cloud, where Google and Microsoft can see any sensitive conversations, or better yet, send them to the FBI, NSA, etc.

       I mean, it’s not like Google would ever do that, right?
25. kareninca May 9, 2026 at 6:53 pm

    I never expected to be buying motor oil, but I’ve now ordered enough for two changes for our Honda civic. If you go to Walmart’s website, for instance, you will see that a lot of it is in low stock already. I have never changed oil but I guess it’s possible to learn.

    There are not a lot of articles about this; this is from March 13th: https://ilma.org/ilma-seeks-immediate-relief-amid-group-iii-base-oil-supply-disruptions/. But I am seeing plenty of anecdotes and it seems to be very real. There is an especial problem with “group III base oils”, which is what my Honda uses.

    I was going to buy two 5 quart jugs because it is a lot cheaper that way but too many reviewers said that the big jugs often leak in shipping so I got two sets of five quarts in the hopes that their lids will be sturdier.
    1. skippy May 9, 2026 at 8:10 pm

       Don’t forget lubricants like power steering/brake fluids and transmission oil, kareninca. Its quite simple once you know how too, need a oil filter wench [can be specific], and ratchet/wrench to get the oil pan plug out. Heaps of YT videos on make and models to watch. Cardboard under the motor is a good idea.

       I am just lucky to have a 20 yr old diesel/fitter mechanic son who works on heavy equip and got a minor service kit for half of what it would cost at a automotive store. Better yet its the top of the line stuff.
       1. kareninca May 9, 2026 at 10:23 pm

          Yes, those other products may be an issue, too.

          My condo complex probably forbids all of this, so it would likely really be a matter of bringing it all to a garage and hoping they actually use the oil I’ve bought.

          Has your son remarked on motor oil shortages or price spikes???
          1. skippy May 10, 2026 at 4:16 am

             Ugh that makes things complicated. Hope you find a good garage that will use what you supply and not swap it out for cheap stuff.

             Not as of yet, his work is considered critical from an economic aspect and Oz is a bit different when it comes to prices [greedflation] in bad times. Chain stores could be different but I rarely use then via my ability to source at trade prices and contacts. Even though Oz is a net exporter of raw materials [not value added] heaps of other nations need it, as such, they would want Oz to have what is needed to keep it flowing.

             Only other thing is to understand your make and model of vehicle, pros/cons and type of use. If light service can be extended.
             1. kareninca May 10, 2026 at 11:43 am

                I’m i California so it is going to get messy, I think, and availability will be the bad part; prices will be the least of it. We get a lot of our oil from Asia and we’ve closed down many of our refineries. It may be that motor oil isn’t the biggest problem here (but it will be one it seems). I hope Oz do get the petroleum products needed to keep things going; the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

                We only drive 6,000 miles a year in our Honda civic, but it is local. I’m about to get a real servicing (knock on wood), so that could hold us for quite a while.
26. amfortas May 9, 2026 at 9:01 pm

    i offer a palliative for those of us living withing the belly of the expiring empire.
    https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2026/04/chasing-eden-on-the-present-age-and-the-possibility-of-humanity/

    and the louie armstrong and ella fitgerald album, too…since i hafta restart, because i have too many tabs open, and dont know what im doing with linux, yet.
    1. Escapee May 10, 2026 at 2:12 am

       The word exquisite doesn’t pop out of my mouth when I’m reading alone very often, but it did several times while reading this. So thank you.

       And may Stars always Fall on Alabama.
27. Jennifer. May 10, 2026 at 1:15 am

    Iran was a distraction from ‘the files’.

    The two key US actors in the Iran distraction just released a distraction from Iran : the ‘UFO files’

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-09/ufo-files-released-donald-trump-pete-hegseth-alien-life-apollo/106661286

    What else has been deliberately engineered as a media distraction from Iran?
    A virus on a cruise ship, even?

    Oh and for your interest :)

    ABC news (Australia)

    ‘We emailed IRGC asking for the rules for transiting the Strait of Hormuz’

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-10/iran-strait-of-hormuz-authority-for-ships-to-cross/106652970
28. Knot Me May 10, 2026 at 8:31 am

    Didn’t Xi visit Mar a Largo a few years back. Had a dinner and all of that and I don’t remember it being a huge deal. Maybe it was a big deal but it didn’t seem to rise to an official state dinner etc. At the end of the day it would at first blush just seem to be a low key visit. Maybe there were a huge amount of experts in the backround doing due diligence and all the rest of it. Perhaps these guys just chat on the phone while some of the office experts listen in on the conversation making sure Trump isn’t selling beauty pageant contestants off to the Chinese.
29. Mark Gisleson May 10, 2026 at 9:52 am

    re: Maine Dems to Vote on Condemning DCCC Interference in House Primary

    Getting closer and closer. I predict that any state Democratic party “divorcing” itself from the DCCC/DSCC/DNC will do better this fall than will the states controlled by the national party. The DNC has been captured by elites who have very little real world experience and have no clue how offensive their elitist choice of issues is to their base which just wants minimum wage to be a living wage, single payer healthcare and an end to foreign wars. This despite low wages, $$$$$$ healthcare, and forever wars being Duopoly sacraments, untouchable and srsly if you talk about this they’ll ban you from social media!

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