Monday, June 1, 2026

The communist New York Times favors State of Massachusetts dictation of minimum lot sizes, the very same idea bipartisan legislators are keen to impose on Michigan residents

 ... For decades, the state government has ceded control over housing policy to its 351 cities and towns. When it comes to housing policy, the state of Massachusetts is often a bystander, allowing town governments to impose classic “not in my backyard” policies. ... The initiative would prevent many towns from setting needlessly large minimums for lot sizes and effectively blocking the construction of middle-class homes. The campaign, Legalize Starter Homes, is now trying to gather the nearly 12,500 signatures it needs before June 17 to place the measure on the ballot. We endorse the initiative. ... The initiative would create a statewide minimum of 5,000 square feet, which is about the size of a basketball court, and bar towns from setting their own standards. ...

That's less than 1/8 acre lol.

The editorial is here

Yuri Zhivago once had his "too big" house taken away from him by the communists, too, to make room for thirteen families:


 

 

Befuddled old man who once insisted on unconditional surrender doesn't know what to do anymore

Sad! 

 Trump tells CNBC: ‘I don’t care’ if Iran negotiations are over 

... But when asked if he has reached out to NATO to participate in reopening the strait, Trump said, “They would if I wanted them to, but I’m not sure I want them to.” ...

 



 

I hate the greedy bastards of summer

 


In March Pete Hegseth couldn't decide if Iran's military was merely decimated or totally devastated, and now Trump tells us Iran's military wasn't really hurt at all

 Humpty Dumpty says words mean whatever he says they mean.

Meanwhile I'm quite certain nine in ten members of Iran's military prefer decimation to devastation. 

 





 

Tim Carney doesn't mention why the bad polling results for Republicans and Trump on the economy started already in May 2025

The word "tariff" does not appear in this column lol.

  

... But the bad polling trends for Republicans and Trump generally started late last year, before the attack on Iran. The right-track-wrong track numbers started souring last May.

It’s reasonable then to suspect that Trump’s other problems — including stubborn inflation (aside from gas prices) and his family’s sketchy business dealings — are harming the GOP. This pre-Iran trend also suggests that the numbers won’t simply reverse if the Strait of Hormuz reopens and gas prices fall.

The Republican Party’s problem is deeper than gas prices, and so things won’t get better before November. The only question is whether things get worse.

Oh yeah, Iran wants to make a deal so badly it now threatens to shut down the Red Sea on top of the Persian Gulf

U.S. intercepts Iran missiles targeting American forces in Kuwait: CENTCOM 

Treasury yields rise after Iran reportedly stops communication with U.S.  

 U.S. oil jumps more than 7% on report Iran will halt talks with U.S. and completely block Hormuz

U.S. oil prices jumped nearly 8% Monday, after Iranian state media said Tehran will halt talks with the U.S. and completely close the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. ...

Tehran will completely block the Strait of Hormuz and open other fronts including the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Tasnim reported. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a trade chokepoint that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. ... 

Former Fed Chair Jerome Powell accepts Profile in Courage Award

 Fed’s Powell warns Trump’s political ‘stress test’ will wreck public trust in central bank

... “If any administration finds a ​way to remove Fed officials ​over policy differences, then ⁠future administrations will do so as well,” Powell said while accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. “The public would lose faith that the central bank will make decisions based only on what’s best for all Americans.” ... 

Sunday, May 31, 2026

Middle East tanker transits May 24-30, 2026 per UKMTO JMIC Update 52: Strait of Hormuz 1.7/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 16.1/day

SoH E: 0.7/day

BAM SE: 7.3/day 


Newsweek's broadest case against Trump economy doomers is real GDP per capita lol

 

Gold and silver are still up 5+% year to date

 SPX +10.52% ytd

WTI +53.11% ytd

 

Meanwhile in April: 

Hamburger +18.9% yoy

Coffee +29.0% yoy

Unleaded regular gasoline +28.0% yoy

Electricity +7.2% yoy

Natural gas +3.1% yoy

[Trump 9/21/2024: "We will cut your energy prices in half. Mark it down . . . within 12 months . . ."] 

Milk +1.5% yoy

Whole Chicken -1.6% yoy 

Eggs -56.1% yoy

Tomatoes +50.0% yoy

 

And: 

30-year mortgage average monthly, above 6% since August 2022

Full time jobs above 50% of population just 6 of the last 25 quarters, all under Joe Biden


 

In pop culture news, on Friday's show some perversion was more equal than other perversion: Hot For Teacher 1984 was definitely just fine, 1978's Hot Child In The City . . . not so much


 


The MAGA Marxist wants more stimulus checks

 


The two-week ceasefire will be two months old next week


 

 Trump ends Iran meeting without announcing ‘final determination’ on deal

U.S. and Iran still without deal to end war after Trump says he’s not in a ‘hurry’ 

Because he's Mad King Ludwig, that's why


 

 Fentanyl BAAAAAAAAAAD, Ecstasy GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

 Why Trump reversed course to fast-track psychedelic drugs for mental healthcare

Just about everything ships by diesel in the United States, and the price of it is up 59% since Mad King Ludwig was elected in November 2024

$3.52 > $5.60

 


Saturday, May 30, 2026

Meanwhile CNBC has an excellent story with great interactive graphs of vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait before and after the Houthi and Iran conflicts

 And it's quite clear that the Iran war has had no real effect on the number of vessel transits through the Bab-el-Mandeb while destroying transits through the Strait of Hormuz.

Increased Saudi reliance on Yanbu on the Red Sea might change BAM transits in the future, but to what extent transits through SoH might recover is very difficult to say.

BAM transits never recovered from the Houthi threat, and SoH transits may not from the Iran threat, with serious implications not just for oil but for important bulk materials like fertilizer and helium.

SoH transits:

Feb 24 2026: 107.29
Apr 18 2026:   12.57
May 24 2026:    6.00
 
BAM transits:
 
May 24 2023: 82.86
Feb 26 2026:  40.14
May 24 2026: 38.14 

 

Oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz might not return to levels seen before the Iran war

... Daily traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, collapsed by more than half from 75 ships on Nov. 19, 2023 to 31 vessels by January 30, 2024. More than two years later, traffic through the strait still has not returned to the levels once considered normal. ...







Quite the howler from CNBC this morning: Closure of Strait of Hormuz keeps 100 million barrels a day from reaching global markets lol

Global oil production in 2025 was about 106 million barrels per day.

The Persian Gulf share of that was about 31 million barrels per day. 

 

 Analysis: The Iran war has made inequality worse. An end won’t fix it



The GOP just had a terrible May, generic Congressional poll shows Republicans collapsing to 40.7% giving Democrats an 8.1-point advantage

 


Friday, May 29, 2026

When 86 is the good news



The sum of the average prices of five ingredients for your April 2018 BLT (bacon, lettuce, tomato, lightly toasted white bread in butter) is 86-cents less in April 2026 than it otherwise would have been if it had increased as much as overall inflation has increased, up 27% instead of 33%.

Don't spend it all in one place.

Jeff Bezos disposed of some your personal income last night lol

I mean, you blow yours on fireworks, why shouldn't he?