For Mother’s Day, as is our tradition, Evie and I visited our local nursery and bought more plants than we could possibly plant in a week. While there, Evie and I were casually discussing how the economy seemed to be headed over a cliff, and a woman nearby couldn’t resist and said, “It already has!” When probed, it turns out she works for a company that makes accelerator control systems for large equipment like Cat dozers and such. Her company was completely throttled by the tariffs and is facing closure. When I asked about the tariff refunds I’d heard about, she said, “For every $30,000 we paid, we’re expecting to get back $1,000 to $2,000.”
Common knowledge is close, my friends.
“Totally Unacceptable!”
The Iran ceasefire sure had a lot of fire since it was struck. More fire than cease if you ask me. Pretty much every day, a new vessel is reported to have been struck in the Strait, and/or US action has been taken against Iranian-associated ships.
This VLCC was disabled by Iran’s non-existent navy using their mini fast-attack boats:
So it’s confirmed now. The VLCC supertanker we saw on satellite imagery, with Iranian fast attack boats swarming around it, belongs to the UAE and was struck with Iranian drones.The supertanker was secretly transferring oil cargo from east UAE to another tanker. https://t.co/EBtsSIClGp pic.twitter.com/FVHDQECsz5
— Arya Yadeghaar (Backup) (@AryJeayBackup) May 11, 2026
And a cargo ship:
BREAKING: UKMTO SAYS A BULK CARRIER WAS STRUCK BY A PROJECTILE CAUSING A FIRE WHILE SAILING 23 NAUTICAL MILES FROM DOHA QATAR pic.twitter.com/B3IGPBtLCf
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) May 10, 2026
This weekend was a lot of back and forth about US demands from Iran, and Iran blithely missing US-imposed deadlines and then lobbing back its own sets of proposals. This is the summary:
The US and Iran, as far as I can tell, are nowhere close to striking any sort of a deal. The US has already lost this war. The only thing left to determine is what price it will have to pay.
Echoing this, Arnaud Bertrand (whom I really admire as a thinker and writer) on the astounding Atlantic article by Robert Kagan:
There’s no overstating how extraordinary this Atlantic article is, given the author and the outlet. As a reminder Bob Kagan is: – The co-founder of Project for the New American Century, probably the single most imperialist Think Tank in Washington (which is quite a feat)
– A man who spent his entire life advocating for American military interventions, especially in the Middle East, and
by thc0655 
