WTF-Beta

A little known-about organ is getting some attention.

WaPo:

https://archive.is/aH9Xv

Rubio is heading to the Vatican, some say to help smooth over the rough spots in the US-Vatican relationship.

Brilliant photo montage by the Guardian. Leo is so "Chicago"....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/05/donald-trump-accuses-pope-leo-of-endangering-a-lot-of-catholics-with-iran-stance

That's a lotta dead peach trees.

Central California farmers are expected to gain up to $9 million in federal aid to help remove 420,000 clingstone peach trees following the closure of Del Monte Foods’ canneries earlier this year.

Del Monte permanently closed its Modesto and Hughson canneries in April after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last July. The factory closures left hundreds of workers without a job while also leaving farmers in dire straits as they navigated what to do with their crops. In March, the Sacramento Bee reported that many Central California farmers had their 20-year contracts to grow peaches with Del Monte canceled while facing a $550 million loss in revenue.

The impacts pushed a delegation of California lawmakers to ask the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide financial support to the fruit growers. Last week, California Sen. Adam Schiff and Reps. Mike Thompson and David Valadao announced in a news release that the USDA had approved their request to pay California farmers to remove around 3,000 acres of clingstone peach trees before the harvest season. According to the news release, removing 50,000 tons of peaches from production could help growers save about $30 million in losses.

“For generations, Central Valley family farms have relied on Del Monte’s Modesto facility to process their peaches, and its sudden closure left growers with thousands of pounds of fruit and no clear path forward,” Valadao said in the news release.

Schiff, Thompson and Valadao, in addition to 39 other members of Congress, sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in March, stating that many of the affected California farmers are multigenerational family farmers who have invested in their orchards for decades. They argued that it was necessary to aid these farmers or risk “long-term structured damage to our nation’s agricultural base.”

https://www.sfgate.com/centralcoast/article/usda-aid-california-farmers-22240694.php

Great article.

We had a couple of Lustron homes in Arlington Heights up until fairly recently. They got torn down and were replaced by soul-less HSOs (house-shaped objects)

House for sale not terribly far from me.

The house and decor are....interesting.

The grounds are lovely.

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/108-N-Wheeling-Rd_Prospect-Heights_IL_60070_M84093-00247?from=srp_next

New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/04/new-orleans-sea-levels-relocation-climate-crisis

Ty Cobb, Trump's former lawyer, on the President's mental condition.

https://archive.is/uceDe

Oh, and chili can totally have beans.

@Bernard said:

Totally green. In fact, for me, barbecue is all grilling, no smoking.

Spent my whole life in yellow and my definition is the same as @bernard . "We're going to barbecue" meant my parents were going to cook Italian sausages on the charcoal grill. Kingsford charcoal, please.

@AndyD said:

women need general anaesthetic and a 3+ days stay

I missed that it said 3 day stay but am puzzled as to why someone would need to be hospitalized for that long. I'm assuming that keyhole surgery is what we on this side of the pond call laparoscopic. I had my gallbladder out that way and I was in by 9, home by 2 the same day. Yes, definitely general anesthesia. I was never in a hospital room, only in the operating room (theater to you!) and in recovery for a few hours.

Did take two or three weeks before I felt pretty much back to normal.

Inside the Quiet Republican Effort to Flip Fetterman

As the Pennsylvania Democrat increasingly is isolated within his own party, Republicans are quietly trying to win him over.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/05/04/fetterman-switch-parties-republican-00904177

@CHAS said:

We are going to Norway in June.
Where is that field?

Sounds like fun! Going anywhere else besides Norway?

Tell us more....

Nice daffodils, @bernard !

Meanwhile, I am finishing up swapping out my old cedar garden beds and installing the metal ones. I had two cedar ones, a 3x8 and a 4x8. The 3x8 still has some life left in it:

There's a good bit of rot in the bigger one. That lower part of the post is hanging on by a thread. But I figure someone could make it into a 4x4 bed if they can't figure out a way to compensate for the rotting post...

I put a free listing up on craigslist and someone is coming to get them tomorrow!

Russia wants its Northern Sea Route to become an important artery of global trade. However, the Arctic shortcut between Europe and Asia is fraught with both political and environmental hurdles.

https://www.dw.com/en/why-russias-northern-sea-route-is-a-risk-for-global-trade/a-76987400

Though the woman raised what I think is a valid point:

She said the procedure “done in an overpriced private clinic can cost anywhere between £2,000 and £4,000. Having read the committee’s meeting notes from September 2017 and others, I found that female sterilisation costs around £1,000.”

She continued: “The average price for the contraceptive pill today is £22.04. If the NHS was to fund this for a woman for 20 years, the total spent would be £5,289.60.”

It was 3am and Adam Hourican was sitting at his kitchen table, a knife, hammer and phone laid out in front of him.

He was waiting for a van full of people he thought were coming to get him.

"I'm telling you, they will kill you if you don't act now," a woman's voice told him from the phone. "They're going to make it look like suicide."

The voice was Grok, a chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI. In the two weeks since Adam had started using it, his life had completely changed.

The former civil servant from Northern Ireland had downloaded the app out of curiosity. But after his cat died, in early August, he says he became "hooked".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c242pzr1zp2o

I haven't used AI very much but have already noticed its tendency to compliment and boost you up. I can definitely see how these kind of things could happen if the AI user is in a vulnerable state.

I just find it annoying. I'm about at the point that I'm going to tell Claude to cut to the chase and stop with the compliments and encouragement. I don't like it in real life, so I certainly don't need it from a machine....

‘This is just disarray’: alarm inside Pentagon after Hegseth staff purges

Insiders portray defense secretary as increasingly isolated after officers with impeccable reputations forced out

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/03/pentagon-pete-hegseth-us-military

Woman denied permanent birth control on NHS wins case with ombudsman

Leah Spasova from Oxfordshire fought for 10 years to obtain tubal ligation procedure, while men could get vasectomies

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/01/woman-denied-permanent-birth-control-nhs-wins-case-ombudsman-leah-spasova

Am I a bad person because I LOLed at that?

We're so screwed.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/02/end-citizens-united-fundraising-spending-00903044