On Tuesday May 19, The French Guiana Spaceport Will Host A Launch Of A Joint EU / Chinese Mission Called… “SMILE”…

May 15, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

This will be around 11:50 pm Eastern US time.

But it will be on the 18^th, our time (our night before) — while it is almost dawn, in Central Europe. Do tune in, assuming there is no weather event that might push the launch out of limits — near the Eastern Equator off South America:

…Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will give humankind its first complete look at how Earth reacts to streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun….

ESA will be broadcasting live as the European-Chinese Smile mission launches at 04:52 BST/05:52 CEST on 19 May 2026. Smile will launch on a European Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Dates/times subject to change at short notice [due to weather and overhead traffic, among other matters]….

Tune into ESA Web TV directly or via the ESA YouTube livestream to follow the launch live.

The launch programme will run from 05:30–07:09 CEST [11:50 pm, to 1:10 am Eastern US time on May 19]….

Now you know. Multinational cooperation is the rule… in space science. Politics? Not. So. Much. Onward, just the same.

नमस्ते

65 Are Already Dead, From “The Fire, This Time” — Ebola Has Reappeared, In The Remote Eastern Ituri Province, Of DRC…

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Well, this is highly discouraging. But not remotely. . . surprising. Thanks, Musk and Tangerine 2.0. And the numbers are already well out of hand, with over 246 suspected cases, and 65 dead, as of this morning — there will undoubtedly be many, many more, this time.

You’ll recall that two times ago, with USAID working in concert with WHO, the deaths ended at four — and there were only ever 12 who fell ill. In this outbreak — we are already well behind the control curve. Damn. Here’s that, from the UK Guardian:

…An outbreak of Ebola has killed 65 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to African health officials.

There have been 246 suspected cases of the deadly haemorrhagic fever reported so far in Ituri province, which shares borders with Uganda and South Sudan.

Officials at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said they were concerned about the risk of further spread. The area is home to mining towns where people are constantly coming and going, making infectious disease control challenging.

The DRC has had 16 outbreaks of Ebola since the virus was identified there in 1976.

Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton in the UK, said: “The Democratic Republic of the Congo often sees fatalities from Ebola. There is likely a perfect storm of factors that cause these regular outbreaks. Close human contact with animal reservoirs, most likely bats but possibly also primates, is one factor. Other concerns include the movement of people between rural and urban environments, the tropical climate, and the high rainforest coverage….”

During the 2014-16 outbreak in west Africa there were an estimated 28,000 cases and 11,000 deaths….

People, this is the real, on the ground, human cost of Trump/Musk’s gutting of USAID, last year. Damn.

नमस्ते

CIDRAP: Many — Even Those With Public Health Credentials — Are “Missing The Point”, Re The Andes-Virus H. Outbreak… “Super Spreaders”

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

This is an excellent interview piece. Do go read it all.

The estimable CIDRAP is trying to help the leadership of our feckless federal response effort… learn a few things — about viral epidemic vectors. Here’s that, without any additional ado:

…Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), which publishes CIDRAP News, said the media and even some public health officials are missing key elements of the hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship.

During a Q&A with CIDRAP News, he explained how and why superspreaders are key to understanding the Andes strain of hantavirus, why close proximity is only part of the consideration, and why he doesn’t think this outbreak is the next “big one.”

Per the World Health Organization, the outbreak that began on the MV Hondius cruise ship traveling from Argentina to Europe has resulted in 11 cases. Three patients have died since April 11.

Today, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that no Americans have been sickened so far in this outbreak. The agency said it is monitoring 41 people for the virus, at least 18 of whom are being quarantined in biocontainment units….

Michael Osterholm: There have been over 100 cases of hantavirus in Argentina this past year and no reports of person-to-person transmission. It’s a rare phenomenon, but it happens. Transmission likely involves superspreaders, individuals — for reasons not clear — who transmit at high rates via the respiratory route to other humans.

We have a model for that with SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] and MERS [Middle East respiratory syndrome], a handful of cases who really drove the activity in a given outbreak….

“From an HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air condition] standpoint, a cold-water cruise ship is all about keeping the ship warm. It’s not a cruise ship in the Caribbean, where people are drinking martinis on the deck; this ship poses different issues.

Many of these ships have lots of air that gets moved around inside the actual ship. This is why we can have cases who were not exposed in close proximity, or close physical contact. It’s all about who is swapping air, and we are not talking about that. Investigators need to think about who swapped air with whom….” [said Osterholm.]

Do go read it all. It is excellent — top to bottom. Onward, now — with my babygrrl flying back to Heathrow tomorrow night, and then… on to Morocco for a month, in a week’s time. Woot!

नमस्ते

I Know Hinderaker Loves The “Post Factual” US Political Era… But Geez!

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026 ~ condor ~ 1 Comment

John Hinderaker has long praised the most base of political ads.

And almost without exception, nothing in these GOP/MAGA ads offers any indicia of truthfulness.

Time and again, we’ve seen John praise racism as a political strategy.

Time and again, we’ve seen him praise open lying — often with a racial tinge.

So it is not terribly surprising to see him now praising AI slop ads with fabricated footage and false quotes, purporting to offer a Black Democrat speaking on her record — in local LA elections.

The caricatures are offensive, and the assertions preposterous.

One could be forgiven for rightly assuming that John now hopes for return to Jim Crow era caricatures of people of color.

He certainly is praising those sorts of AI ads on the regular, now.

[Do recall that he felt the extremely racist old “Aunt Jemima” caricature did not need any updating — even as late as 2020. He felt Quaker was treating… a cartoon unfairly, by retiring its brand. Damn.]

The thing literally speaks for itself.

Out.

The Oracle Gambit, To Eclipse EPIC… In US Health Care Data Control… Is Not Coming As Easily As Mr. Ellison Hoped, Back In 2022.

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

As a rule, I think control of US health care data will not lead to any Armageddon — unless AI ends up making actual point of care decisions, without doctor input at the local provider level. That said, I do worry a fair bit about “data leakage”… to insurers, who then jack up premiums [in a back door form of “pre-existing condition” exclusions, person by person] — even though doing so is theoretically unlawful after the ACA of 2010 passed (or Obamacare, if one prefers).

And — as will likely be seen in future posts, I am deeply, abidingly skeptical of the ethics of the Ellison controlled company. I worry that he would sell out, in a heartbeat — to Trump or others — for enough money… even where he’s signed binding firewall contracts.

And thus, I do view with some suspicion the addition of two CEO level health care provider company executives to his Oracle board. Will this make the providers more… pliable, vis a vis Oracle’s world building ideas in big data / AI in health care delivery? We will keep a weather eye on all of it — but here is the latest, from HealthCareDive:

…Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic’s appointment comes months after Oracle named another healthcare leader, former Quest Diagnostics CEO Stephen Rusckowski, to the board….

Mihaljevic has worked at Cleveland Clinic for more than 20 years, joining the health system’s department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in 2004. He previously served as CEO of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, and held a director position on health technology firm GE Healthcare’s board, according to the press release.

“Tom’s perspective will be invaluable as Oracle continues to help healthcare organizations use technology to improve outcomes for patients and providers,” Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk said in a statement.

Mihaljevic’s election, which brings the size of Oracle’s board to 13, comes as Oracle has expanded its focus on healthcare.

The technology giant acquired electronic health record vendor Cerner for more than $28 billion in 2022. And last year, Oracle released a new artificial intelligence-backed EHR. The records system allows providers to use voice commands to navigate the EHR, which Oracle argues should lessen the amount of time clinicians spend digging through patients’ health data….

Do stay tuned. Ellison and Musk have long struck me as similarly flawed human beings — on ethical / moral development dimensions. We shall see. Onward.

नमस्ते

Given How Wildly Contagious This Cruise Liner Version Of Hanta- Appears To Be… Maybe It Should Carry A More Specific Name…

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

While we should strive not to “demonize” any one country or area, with any naming convention for a potential viral epidemic — facts are facts.

This current strain of hantavirus is propagated human to human, more than occasionally without prolonged close contact, it seems — based on the case histories of the Hondius cruise vessel passengers. And it is pretty darn lethal, if not treated promptly. And… there is no proven mRNA or other vaccine — for this particular strain at the moment.

All of which, taken together… leads me to propose that it be called the Andes-virus H. It is as different as different can be, from the North and Central American Hantavirus (and from the Chinese version). [This naming idea is roughly akin to the Mpox more dangerous version being called Clade 1b, as opposed to Clade 2.] The mis-information, out of one Houston doctor — carried by a Houston TV station on Monday… has me thinking this way. I won’t link him, but he made a lot of statements about New Mexico/Texas style hanta- — essentially poo-pooing the danger of human to human transmission. He is badly mis-informed. And the TV news just ran with it.

While there are only a handful of US cases of the Andes-virus H., at the moment… his comments are singularly unhelpful. Here is a better assessment, from a different US doctor:

…Public health officials emphasize hantavirus rarely spreads between people. It is typically contracted when people accidentally inhale the virus found in rodent waste during routine activities like sweeping, cleaning infested spaces or sleeping around contaminated areas. [That is still true.]

However, the type involved in the Hondius outbreak, according to the World Health Organization, is the Andes virus, the only known hantavirus to spread between people.

It’s endemic to South America. A 2018 hantavirus outbreak in Argentina killed 11 people after the disease spread at crowded events, leading to 34 infections….

This strain is far more transmissible than the New Mexico, Texas, or so-called “Four Corners area” hantavirus. Trust that.

And know that a name… carries power. Trust that, as well — we need to distinguish between the New Mexico version and the Andean / Argentine one. Onward.

नमस्ते

One Of The Best Suggestions I’ve Seen — Related To “Pushing Back”, On The “Five, Plus One Concurring” Justices’ Decision — In Louisiana v. Callais…

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Carolyn Shapiro — an esteemed and learned colleague, writing at SCOTUSBlog.com — has not only nailed what is broken in the six Justices’ decision. She has now offered a roadmap for essentially undoing it. [One earlier backgrounder of mine, on it all.]

Her novel suggestion is to use the “guarantee clause” of the Constitution, that “[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government” — which is effectively denied by disenfranchising people of color and LGBTQ+ voters… as Ruby Red lower courts applying Callais, and MAGA Governors, in extending it — are attempting, day by day.

Here’s a link to it all — and a bit, of her… genius argument:

…In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, eviscerated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. There is so much incisive commentary about this devastating opinion that I hesitate to attempt to add to it. You likely already know that the opinion effectively overrules the provision of the VRA designed to ensure that minority voters are able to have meaningful representation in multimember elected bodies, it turns the Reconstruction Amendments on their heads by making them vehicles for race discrimination, and it drastically restricts Congress’ authority under the 15th Amendment. You may know that it effectively reverses a 2023 case and turns two of Alito’s dissents into law. You probably know that the [six of them deny] doing any of these things. And you undoubtedly know that this opinion, which is an electoral gift to the Republican Party, has already triggered yet another round of congressional redistricting to eliminate districts that were drawn to comply with Section 2, thereby eliminating a slew of safe Democratic seats, and that the impact at the state and local level will be extreme. . . .

So I’ll take a slightly different tack, which is to consider one tactic that might ameliorate at least some of the harm Callais is already causing. I believe that Democrats absolutely must make restoring and protecting democracy, and in particular multiracial democracy, their top priority. To do so, I think they should (among many other things) turn to the guarantee clause, which provides that “[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” The clause provides an opportunity. (That said, as I’ll revisit at the end of the column, no single law or constitutional provision will fix what ails our country and our democracy. Think of this column as describing just one tool in the toolbox and encouraging others to be even more creative)….

This is a very good start. Onward, resolutely. Ever, onward.

नमस्ते

There May Be An Uncrewed Launch To The ISS Friday Night, From The Cape… We Shall See.

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Weather has delayed this launch tonight, now for a third time.

And yes, it is a SpaceX Dragon hauling the load of resupply stuff. Here’s the latest, from NASA:

. . .NASA and SpaceX now are targeting no earlier than 6:05 p.m. EDT Friday, May 15, for the launch of the company’s 34th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. Watch NASA’s live launch coverage beginning at 5:45 p.m. on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel.

Teams stood down from Wednesday’s launch opportunity due to inclement weather producing anvil cloud launch violations around Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The next launch opportunity allows for cargo packed inside Dragon to be refreshed and supports phasing for arrival to the space station.

The Dragon spacecraft will dock to the orbiting laboratory at approximately 7:00 a.m. Sunday, May 17. NASA’s live rendezvous and docking coverage will begin at 5:30 a.m. on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel….

We shall see. And (best news of all!) the extended trip to France — and the Greek Isles — for the month of September 2026… is coming together nicely, via our excellent travel agents. Grin….

नमस्ते

Conn. Now Sees Its First Clade 1b Mpox Case — As The Three Year Outbreak Rumbles… Onward.

May 13, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

This is not surprising, but it would suggest that eventually, almost every state will see at least a handful of the more serious Clade 1b mpox cases.

Here is the latest, on the now nearly three year outbreak in the US:

…The Connecticut Department of Public Health announced Wednesday that it has identified the state’s first case of clade I mpox.

The person with the case of mpox recently traveled to Western Europe, where the virus is currently spreading, according to DPH.

The virus has primarily affected gay and bisexual men. DPH is urging people at risk to get vaccinated ahead of the summer travel season.

“Mpox hasn’t gone away, and we want people to be protected, especially as many in our community prepare for travel, festivals, and gatherings this summer,” said DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani. “The vaccine is safe, effective, and widely available. Completing the two-dose series is the best way to protect yourself and your partners….”

Do follow the CDC and WHO advisories. Get vaccinated if you are in a higher risk group, and/or traveling to the EU this Summer. Onward.

नमस्ते

In Which Scott Johnson — As A Non-Catholic — Thinks He Alone May Dictate To Whom The Pope Grants “Ambassador To The Vatican” Status…?! WTH?

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

At the top, Scott seems utterly unaware that most people (with common sense) will readily agree that one “catches more flies — with honey — than with vinegar.”

That is, Pope Leo XIV is plainly reaching out, with Christian Humility and Charity — to Iran — to try to avoid additional senseless killing, on either side of this war of choice.

And Scott — ever a proponent of the Code of Hammurabi… can see nothing — as he is already blinded by his hatred — in at least one of his eyes — if not both.