Links 5/9/2026

[We are having a storm. Even though I have a backup connectivity, both are low on juice. This post is pretty much done but forgive any oversights of stories you deem important] For over a thousand years, historians thought the Viking "sunstone" was nothing more than a myth, until the ocean gave up its secret. The Norse sagas repeatedly referenced a mysterious object called a "sólarsteinn" or sunstone, a navigational tool so powerful that Viking sailors… pic.twitter.com/etAfI3DAWX— SubRosa )✿( Magick @subrosamagick.bsky.social (@SubRosaMagick) May 7, 2026 What your body stops doing when you’re stressed Big Think Hantavirus Here’s How Freaked Out You Should Be About the Hantavirus Cruise Ship New York Times. The Gray Lady is officially not freaked out but still worried enough to put the article outside the paywall. Spanish woman in hospital with suspected hantavirus infection; new case suspected on remote island NBC. If she tests positive, = airborne transmission. Hantavirus misinformation runs rampant as the US is unequipped to respond to infectious disease health scare Guardian (Kevin W). Calling bullshit on this statement: “While not a virus with pandemic potential…”. First, the big reason for the worry among the great unwashed masses is the way nominal pubic health officials is the way they threw their weight behind business interests as opposed to safety of the population. That is the reason they frantically grabbed for the “vax only” approach in the (known to be false) hope idea that it would stop spread (as opposed to overloading of hospitals) and did not back other methods to limit contagion, notably masking and better ventilation, as supposedly too inconvenient as well as providing a reminder to consumers that Covid was not over. Can’t scare restaurant diners, travelers, or in-person shoppers, now can we? Second, there is growing evidence that this Andes hantavirus is not like other hantaviruses and may be (per above) transmitted by air. Airborne transmission would mean these airy risk denials are affirmatively dangerous. See: The detailed investigation of a prior hantavirus human-human transmission event has evidence of airborne transmission of Andes strain: Patient 1 –> Patient 4 "did not have any physical contact and simply said “hello” to each other as they crossed paths"Patient 1 –> Patients… pic.twitter.com/Y0HgL67gNa — Joseph Allen (@j_g_allen) May 7, 2026 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. Bar-Yam was one of the first to designate Covid a pandemic in January 2020 and presented a mathematical analysis to support his alert. So take his reading seriously: 3/ About 30 passengers have already dispersed internationally. Roughly 140 additional passengers are expected to fly out from the Canary Islands this Sunday. Because incubation may extend for weeks, it may not become clear immediately whether containment has succeeded or failed. — Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) May 8, 2026 The Dutch woman, whose husband died on the ship, disembarked in Saint Helena with “GI symptoms” on April 24. Her condition “deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg” on April 25. She died on April 26. Travel via Africa’s busiest airport means *MANY* were potentially exposed. pic.twitter.com/3WRJJgMnvU — Nick Mark MD (@nickmmark) May 6, 2026 I'm just going to say it again once, as simply as I can, for everyone who is slow to understand this: Covid infection damages the vascular endothelium, the delicate lining inside your blood vessels. Hantavirus *targets* the vascular endothelium. — tern (@1goodtern) May 8, 2026 #COVID-19/Pandemics The result was striking. Patients with prior COVID-19 had a much higher rate of coronary slow flow. COVID+ group 18.9% COVID− group 5.3% That is more than a threefold difference.— Zdenek Vrozina (@ZdenekVrozina) May 8, 2026 Climate/Environment Why the odds keep rising for the strongest El Niño in a century Washington Post Climate models struggling to capture human impact on storm tracks Guardian Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere just hit a ‘depressing’ new record Scientific American Drought deepens across Central Plains, slashing winter wheat outlook Brownfield China? 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. pic.twitter.com/QUQEVvd5k7 — Dances_with_Bears (@bears_with) May 8, 2026 China’s April Bank Lending Seen Plunging Amid Soft Credit Demand Reuters 90% of Tibetans speak Tibetan. That’s after 76 years of reports of China about to “wipe out” Tibetan culture. 18% of Wales speaks Welsh, 10% of Ireland speaks Irish. This is after roughly the same amount of time of trying to preserve those languages. https://t.co/JEZHuRsClD — Domhnall (Cogito) (@CogitoEdu) May 6, 2026 Japan Why Japan is now opening its door to lethal weapons exports DW Japan fires missiles during drills, drawing China rebuke Arab News Koreas North Korea acknowledges ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine for first time NK Pro North Korea will deploy new artillery guns targeting Seoul and commission its 1st destroyer Independent Africa Top Iran War Analyst Says The Recolonization Of Africa has begun Chico Unscripted. Robert Pape, so worth a listen. Al-Qaeda-linked attacks in central Mali kill more than 30 people France24 The new scramble for Congo Africas Country Conflict-linked delays, funding gaps deepen Somalia’s hunger crisis Reuters Sudan was already at war and hungry. Now its farmers are hit by another conflict Independent Why is Mozambique’s financial crisis going from bad to worse? ZAWYA City of Johannesburg ‘teeters on the edge of financial collapse’ IOL European Disunion EU cyber plan barring Chinese suppliers will cost US$430 billion: report South China Morning Post Record EU imports keep Russia’s main LNG terminal in the money EurActiv Rheinmetall to start producing cruise missiles as early as this year Financial Times Greenland’s PM slams ‘indecent’ bid to buy locals’ signatures for US adhesion petition South China Morning Post (Kevin W) A small town in Germany braces for end to decades of life with U.S. troops Japan Times Old Blighty 2026 elections mapped: how Labour lost ground in different directions Guardian Labour’s Failure London Review of Books Starmer faces growing pressure after Labour suffers heavy election losses BBC. Gee, ya think? Keir Starmer vows to fight on after Labour’s historic battering The Times Plaid Cymru wins Welsh Senedd elections, ending 100 years of Labour control Guardian (Kevin W) In the Outer Hebrides, Britain’s energy crisis is already here Telegraph Israel v. The Resistance Rats, Disease and Waste: Health Crisis Deepens across Gaza and West Bank Palestine Chronicle Recent accounts from released Palestinian detainees held in Israeli custody reinforce serious allegations concerning the treatment of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. According to testimonies, he has been subjected to severe and repeated abuse since his detention🧵#FreeDrHussamAbuSafiya pic.twitter.com/GLjikMjTQp — Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) May 8, 2026 Levin says he’ll let Supreme Court ‘disappear’ if his justice picks are not selected Times of Israel (Kevin W) Gulf banks tighten digital oversight to curb Iranian shadow money flows Arab News The companies making billions from the Iran war BBC (Robin K) New Not-So-Cold War RUSSIA AND UKRAINE FIGHT ON DESPITE WW2 CELEBRATION CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL DubaiEye Greece investigating Ukrainian sea drone – Reuters RT (Kevin W) Zelensky’s Israeli Family Events in Ukraine Big Brother Is Watching You Watch Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device That Privacy Guy (Micael T) Imperial Collapse Watch US Imperialism Enters a New Stage: The Left Needs to Take a Close Look at It Venezuelanalysis Trump 2.0 RFK Jr. unveils campaign for ‘deprescribing’ antidepressants The Hill. From earlier in the week, still germane. A new form of piracy! Trump admin seizes US$120,000,000 owned by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board as stake in an offshore wind project, demands that it be invested in fossil fuel development instead https://t.co/JLrc27h5RG pic.twitter.com/bJWGe7Lc9R — Edward Row 𓃡 (@edwardrow) May 7, 2026 Democrats Suck Maine Dems to Vote on Condemning DCCC Interference in House Primary Intercept Our No Longer Free Press The Next Frontier of Trump’s Assault on Free Speech New York Times (Dr. Kevin) 🇷🇺🌐 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.… pic.twitter.com/a2dxE5ZOnH — Spetsnaℤ 007 🇷🇺 (@Alex_Oloyede2) May 8, 2026 L’affaire Epstein Weird: Epstein Suicide Note Printed On Hillary Clinton’s Personal Stationery Babylon Bee Economy Time is running out to avoid a power crunch in America: ‘The current situation is not tenable’ MarketWatch ‘Plastic shock’ hits Asia as Iran oil crisis strangles supplies Financial Times Whirlpool warns of ‘recession-level’ slump as Iran war and tariff ruling hit sales Guardian Mr Market is Gorged China, US drive global debt to record $353 trillion as Iran war adds pressure South China Morning Post Global bond demand slumps, pushing governments toward bank loans IDN Financials AI More proof as to why never never to use AI for anything more than what used to be called machine learning: We are in deep, deep trouble. A reader wrote in to me this week saying that they wouldn't read my Trump corruption story because ChatGPT "fact-checked the piece" and informed them most of it was false. Among other things, ChatGPT told them that there is no Iran war, Jared… pic.twitter.com/7tTjhZDK6b — Isaac Saul (@Ike_Saul) May 8, 2026 Agents and ROI Gary Marcus IMF warns new AI models risk ‘systemic’ shock to finance Financial Times The Bezzle Global finance watchdog warns over private credit industry fuelling AI boom Guardian Guillotine Watch Musk’s sweetheart deal Oligarch Watch Central NY landlord accused of sexually exploiting tenants for decades charged again Syracuse.com. bob: Best landlord ever. Class Warfare Labor Leader Walter Reuther Was Among 1960s Liberal Leaders Who Appear to Have Been Assassinated By “the Deep State” Covert Action (Chuck L) Antidote du jour (Tracie H): A bonus: They put a German Shepherd in charge of babysitting a litter of Doberman puppies… and the poor guy had no idea why they were acting so wild. 😂 pic.twitter.com/CeiSsDww7W— The Figen (@TheFigen_) May 3, 2026 A second bonus: The farmer went to collect the hen’s eggs… but instead found three adopted children waiting for him. 😂 pic.twitter.com/8Eux3CA1Ni — The Figen (@TheFigen_) May 3, 2026 And a third (Chuck L): Two Australian paddleboarders saved an exhausted wallaby that had been swept out to sea 😍 pic.twitter.com/aMJmu8KPtS — Interesting things (@awkwardgoogle) May 8, 2026 See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here. 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! ‘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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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? Seeker of profits? 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. 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. 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. 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. “…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. 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. 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. thanks! 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’. 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. 4GB is a lot of data, would it be too much to hope this causes a massive uninstall and replacement of Chrome? 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. 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/ 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. 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’. ‘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. 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. 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. 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. “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.