𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗

Here's my 1st piece of overt political propaganda--the first of a series about the systems that undergird our daily lives, which are always one generation of inattention away from catastrophe. Message: they're important! Paywall is lifted, please pass on. bit.ly/4gBYpuC

Very shrewd here. Canvas is cloud-based software used by ~8K universities to link student work, teacher evaluations, reading materials, etc. These guys have taken it down precisely when it is most used--finals week. Conniptions are ensuing.

Canvas is down as ShinyHunters threatens to leak schools’ data theverge.com/tech/926458/ca…

Just great stuff all around. archive.org/details/oddsho…

God bless the Internet Archive (@internetarchive) for keeping these vital documents from our past freely available to all.

@MseanIname Yes, Canada's gas prices have been higher than US gas prices for many years.

@CharlesCMann Sorry but this is what it costs for gas across your northern border. That's per litre.

Saw one of these yesterday. Reminded me of the Biden stickers on gas stations in 2022. Clearly these are now a standard feature of US political iconography. (This isn't the sticker I saw, but one like it I found online. I didn't think to photograph the one I spotted.)

Brazil researchers use hi-freq ultrasound to rupture viruses (eg, Covid, H1N1 flu) w/o hurting human cells. Viruses are shaped in ways that absorb ultrasound energy faster than nearby cells, so they explode w/o raising temps or using chemicals. nature.com/articles/s4159… (from Feb)

Guyana's politics are screwed up, with lots of corruption and power alternating uneasily between ethnic parties. So no guarantee that the oil money is actually going to people who need it. But still... yikes, that's a fast shift.

TIL that Guyana's per-capita GDP has increased by almost a factor of 7 since 2015, and at ~$32/K/person is now where the US was in the 1980s. What happened in 2015? ExxonMobil discovered offshore oil--lots of it, and good quality stuff.

WHO gets loads of stuff wrong--but it is still *much* better to be inside the tent than outside, a fact that could become unpleasantly apparent during the World Cup. statnews.com/2026/05/05/han…

Source of chart: fallows.substack.com/p/what-we-dont… Fallows's take below.

Striking chart from @JamesFallows on the differing impact of Obama's and Trump's policies on Iranian uranium stockpiles. An unusually direct connection between presidential actions and results. IAEA data.

FDA officials yank 2 studies of Covid vaxx after they were accepted for publication and forbid scientists to release 1 study of shingles vaxx. Both Covid studies were large, w/ 11M+ total subjects; both showed vaxx was safe, as did shingles study. nytimes.com/2026/05/05/us/…

@Shawn_Regan BTW, good piece. I hadn't realized you co-wrote it. It's much better at providing necessary background and ID'ing the issues than the Times article. Wish I'd seen it first.

@Shawn_Regan I hadn't seen that--thanks for drawing it to my attention.

Trump seeks to remove bison from Montana--or, rather, its federal grazing land--in favor of cattle. There's no real reason to do this--cattle and bison can coexist just fine. nytimes.com/2026/05/04/us/…

@CharlesCMann Also setting a dangerous precedent for grazing rights that ranchers should be concerned about, because the tactics used here could just as easily be turned against them. nationalreview.com/2026/01/a-batt…

Here's the boyfriend, also in the Army, who is said to have shot down even more Russian targets. facebook.com/BrTODnipro/pos…

19-yr-old Ukrainian drone operator w/ 50 strikes "takes a pink good-luck charm, a toy Labubu, on every combat mission. She pairs it with a pink magazine for her assault rifle ... 'Mom says: "Nastya, you’re a grown woman—what’s with the Labubu?" But I like it,' she explains."

@kc11knowz It's really awful and my pal is a total mensch. I admire him enormously.

@CharlesCMann Huntington’s is terrible! I feel for her and the caregiver. Wishing them the best.

Our friend E takes care of a family member with advanced Huntington's. It's a huge burden, which he does with love but can barely pull off--and only because he gets some help from SSI. Now the Trump ppl want to cut his check by the value of the bedroom he gives her.