2026-04-23 03:49:39
In the Star Wars series The Mandalorian, a lone bounty hunter travels to the far reaches of the galaxy to protect an infant named Grogu (affectionately known by fans as Baby Yoda). The Mandelorians are bound by a set of ethics and conduct, represented by the mantra, “This is the way.” The Gerrymandalorians are a group of elected leaders and voters across several states who are fighting to keep Darth Trump and the Empire from unfairly gerrymandering their way to a Congressional midterm win. The rebels know that gerrymandering, the “practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections,” is a generally unhealthy trend. But using the popular vote to overcome attempts by the Empire to rig the midterms beats just sitting back and letting an election be stolen. So, for now, the rebel alliance will have to live with the mantra, “This is the way, at least until we send the Sith Lord back to Mar-a-Lago.”
For the rebels, the war to redraw battle lines was hardly fair. “For more than a decade, they’ve tried to be the party of good government on redistricting. But Democrats’ support for letting independent commissions draw legislative maps has cost them seats in key blue states, and their push to ban gerrymandering nationwide flopped in the courts and in Congress.” Meanwhile, the GOP just needs a willing governor and legislature to redraw maps (as we saw in Texas). But there were two elements the Empire didn’t expect: First, the Force (here, the voting public) would be with the rebels. And second, Vader’s poll numbers would be historically low. Russell Berman in The Atlantic (Gift Article) on how the Republican redistricting effort backfired: Trump’s Enormous Gerrymandering Blunder. “GOP lawmakers had both the will and the power to draw their party new seats, while Democrats were hamstrung by limits of their own making. The question was not whether Republicans could expand their edge in Congress, but by how much. This morning the landscape looks a lot different, after Virginia voters yesterday approved a lopsided new House map that could hand Democrats an additional four seats that Republicans currently hold. The Democratic redistricting victory is the party’s second in a statewide referendum. When combined with new lines that California voters endorsed in November, Democrats have now succeeded in drawing districts that will likely yield them nine more seats this fall, at least matching what Republicans have been able to achieve in states that they control.” Next stop in the gerrymandering wars: The Empire (tries to) strike back in Florida. Or as it will undoubtedly come to be known: The Battle of Florida Man-dalorian.
The various costs related to the Iran war just had a midair collision with another affordability issue. Spirit Airlines nears deal with Trump administration for $500 million rescue package. “The deal, which has not yet been finalized, would offer $500 million to the discount airline, according to a person familiar with the matter. It would give the airline additional liquidity as it works toward emerging from bankruptcy and grapples with elevated fuel costs due to the war with Iran ... After Spirit emerges from bankruptcy, the U.S. government could own up to 90% of the airline.” (For some reason, this reminds me of the Trump Shuttle: An airline that lasted less than three years before defaulting on its debt and going bust.)
“’The chatbot advised the shooter on what type of gun to use, on which ammo went with which gun, on whether or not a gun would be useful at short range,’ Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said at a news conference Tuesday. ‘If it was a person on the other end of that screen, we would be charging them with murder.’” ChatGPT allegedly advised Florida State shooter when and where to strike. (This is definitely an interesting case, but it seems like we may be missing a more dangerous class of weapons. I’d rather be held point-blank by an LLM than a semi-automatic gun.)
“They promote nicotine patches, gums and lozenges as well as pouches, which are often filled with nicotine salt powder and give people a convenient way to consume the compound. To these boosters, nicotine is another ‘natural’ product that the medical establishment has unfairly demonized, like beef tallow, peptides or raw milk.” NYT (Gift Article): Influencers Are Spinning Nicotine as a ‘Natural’ Health Hack. (They’re not lighting the nicotine, but they’re definitely smoking something.)
Cease Desisting? “Iran attacked three ships in the Strait of Hormuz this morning, saying its Revolutionary Guard seized two of them and further inflaming tensions over the key waterway. It comes after U.S. forces seized an Iranian ship and boarded a tanker linked to Tehran’s oil trade.” The ceasefire hangs in the balance. Here’s the latest from NBC, The Guardian, and BBC.
+ The Great Betrayal: “After halting a U.S. resettlement program for Afghans who helped the American war effort, President Trump is in talks to send as many as 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of Congo.” NYT (Gift Article): Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo. (Nothing like selling out allies from the last war while failing to find allies for the latest one...)
+ Truth Immunity: “The acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has canceled the publication of a study that found that the Covid vaccine sharply cut the odds of hospitalizations and emergency visits last winter.” (Shhh. We wouldn’t want anyone to know the Covid vaccine was a friggin miracle.) Related: Hegseth to the Troops: We Are Bringing Back the Flu!
+ Mythos in the Wild? Bloomberg (Gift Article): “A small group of unauthorized users has accessed Anthropic PBC’s new Mythos AI model, a technology that the company says is so powerful it can enable dangerous cyberattacks.”
+ Wagyu the Dog: “At a time when the American cattle herd is at its smallest since the 1950s and beef prices are at record highs, Wagyu is seemingly everywhere. But it’s not always clear to diners what they’re paying for.” ‘Wagyu’ Used to Guarantee Quality Beef. What Are You Paying for Today?
+ Natural Selection: On Earth Day, check out these “images of the incredible resilience of nature: the many ways that plants, animals, and natural processes reclaim abandoned human places and find ways to thrive.” Reclaimed by Nature. (I’d like to see this for the new White House ballroom...)
Smarty Supreme: “The feat has been hailed as a milestone for robotics, a field that has long seen table tennis – and the lightning-fast reactions, perception and skill it demands – as one of the toughest tests of how far the technology has advanced.” AI-powered robot beats elite table tennis players. (Meanwhile, Kylie Jenner was seen cuddling with the robot at Coachella...)
2026-04-22 03:55:07
Briefs. Oral arguments. Questions and answers analyzed by experts and an interested public. This is how we’ve long experienced major, often nation-altering Supreme Court cases. But something changed just after 6 p.m. on a February evening in 2016. The Court was considering one of those big, impactful cases, in which they would decide whether to block or allow President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. You probably didn’t read any of the submitted briefs or hear any of the oral arguments. Because there were none. But that doesn’t mean the case wasn’t decided. America was caught with its briefs down, as the Roberts Court halted the environmental plan. “They acted before any other court had addressed the plan’s lawfulness. The decision consisted of only legal boilerplate, without a word of reasoning. At the time, the ruling seemed like a curious one-off. But that single paragraph turned out to be a sharp and lasting break. That night marks the birth, many legal experts believe, of the court’s modern ‘shadow docket,’ the secretive track that the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including granting President Trump more than 20 key victories on issues from immigration to agency power.” The adage suggests that what you don’t know can’t hurt you. That, like so many of the cases that are now decided in secret and rendered with no explanation, seems like a notion worthy of a public hearing. The NYT (Gift Article): The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court. “Rulings with no explanation or reasoning, like the sparse paragraph from that February night, have become routine. The emergency docket is now a central legacy of the court led by Chief Justice Roberts.” How dramatically will that legacy change our legal system and our country? Only the Shadow knows.
+ Steve Vladek wrote a highly regarded book on this topic: The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic.
Techno-optimists and pessimists likely agree on a couple things: AI is only getting more powerful and nothing is going to stop that trend. So what does one do when one is faced with the prospect of the singularity, “the moment when superintelligent machines, having surpassed the feeble cognitive abilities of humans, begin to act in ways contrary to the interests of humanity.” Well, you can’t count on computers getting dumber. So you’re gonna need to create smarter humans. MoJo: Creating Baby Geniuses to Thwart the AI Threat? (Yes, Really.)
+ “Heavier AI users are generally more optimistic about its effects on their careers than occasional users and non-users. That’s still true. But Gallup found that even heavy AI users within Gen Z are growing more pessimistic.” Gen Z Is Souring on AI. (No worries. We’ll just program the new babies to be more enthusiastic...)
“In the lead-up to the war, which Trump launched without consulting Congress, making a case to the American people, or assembling allies, many of his aides believed that Trump was not taking seriously the risks and trade-offs involved ... Once the war began, Trump received updates that were screened and bowdlerized for him. He has long been inattentive to briefings—early in his first term, aides realized that he liked maps and graphics and would glaze over if given much information in text—but he has reportedly been starting his day off with a sizzle reel of stunning explosions rather than with hard info.” The Atlantic(Gift Article): The Aides Keeping the President in the Dark.
+ None of the ignorance keeps Trump from participating in delicate negotiations by way of social media. CNN: A deal to end the Iran war seemed close. Then Trump started posting on social media.
+ “Vice President JD Vance’s trip to Pakistan for a second round of negotiations with Iran has been put on hold after Tehran failed to respond to American positions, a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the situation said Tuesday. Iran, for its part, said it had not yet decided whether to resume talks with the United States.” But don’t worry. Trump says, “We’re going to end up with a great deal.” (Maybe we should all be shown the daily sizzle reel. It seems to cheer him up.) Here’s the latest from NYT, The Guardian, and NBC.
Steve Jobs was known as the visionary. Tim Cook was more of a get things done CEO. And he definitely fulfilled that role. “When Tim Cook took over Apple in 2011, leaders from Silicon Valley to Wall Street predicted that the company’s best days were behind it. They feared that without Steve Jobs, Apple’s innovative chief executive, the company would falter. They were wrong. Over 15 years, Mr. Cook has engineered Apple’s rise from a Silicon Valley darling worth $350 billion into a cash-generating giant worth $4 trillion.” NYT (Gift Article): Tim Cook Was Very, Very Good at Making Money.
+ “Cook inherited a company with extraordinary potential growth in front of it, but in deep existential grief. He led the company — and its community — through that grief and achieved that potential. The transition Apple and Tim Cook announced today is entirely different. No one’s hand was forced. There is nothing unpleasant.” John Gruber: Another Day Has Come.
The Fog of Warsh: “Kevin M. Warsh, President Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, asserted repeatedly at a combative confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he would not cut interest rates simply because President Trump wanted him to, pledging to be ‘strictly independent’ if confirmed for one of the world’s most powerful economic positions.” We’ve been down this hearing road before. He’ll say he’s independent and will be normal. Everyone in the Senate knows that’s not true. He’ll get confirmed, anyway. Corruption will ensue. Bad things will happen. No one will be surprised. Meanwhile, “Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Trump’s embattled labor secretary, stepped down on Monday as multiple scandals and investigations closed in on her.”
+ Donny on the Spot: NYT (Gift Article): ‘Donnyland’? Ukraine Proposes Renaming Part of the Donbas in Trump’s Honor. “That a name evocative of Disneyland has been applied to a depopulated, decimated swath of Ukrainian coal-and-steel country could appear jarring as Europe’s deadliest fighting since World War II continues to rage. But it also reflects a global reality in which governments appeal to Mr. Trump’s vanity in order to get American might on their side.” (It’s sad that an ally would think this way. They are also right to think this way.)
+ Targeting the Good Guys: “When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system. There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.” Southern Poverty Law Center says it faces a Justice Department criminal probe over paid informants,
+ Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? “When Donald Trump attends the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner for the first time as president on Saturday, the pressure will be on the journalists’ organization to make some sort of a statement about the president’s relentless attacks on the media, which he has labeled the ‘enemy of the people.’” Hundreds Of Veteran Journalists And Groups Urge WHCA To ‘Speak Forcefully’ About Trump’s Attacks. (Better idea. Don’t attend the damn dinner.)
+ Beak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: “In 2021, a disabled parrot named Bruce made headlines worldwide for creating his own prosthetic beak. He didn’t stop there: Scientists reported on Monday that Bruce has now become the alpha male of his group. And he did it by learning to joust.” How Bruce the Parrot Landed Atop the Pecking Order, Without a Beak. (There’s a lesson here somewhere, and I think it has to do with the importance of jousting.)
+ Bible Trumper: “President Donald Trump and many of his leading Christian supporters and top Republicans are taking part this week in a marathon reading of the Bible in an America 250-themed event billed as encouraging a ‘return to the spiritual foundation that has shaped our country.’” (If there’s a god, I’m pretty sure we’d hear him laughing right now.)
“In recent years, the NFL draft has attracted hundreds of thousands of fans to the cities that host it. This week, Pittsburgh will be no exception. And that influx of people has led the local school district to make a controversial decision: canceling in-person school.”
2026-04-21 03:49:45
American financier and statesman Bernard Baruch famously said, “The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.” Well, in that case, the market is having a hell of a month. On Friday, after almost no negotiations, Trump posted that Iran would give up its uranium and open the Strait of Hormuz. They even agreed to never close the Strait in the future. The market soared on the news. The weekend arrived. The Strait was closed again. Even delivered by a trusted and consistently honest source, these deal claims would have come off as outlandish. But from this source? After misleading at every turn during the war (and every other topic he’s ever touched upon), you’d have to be a little crazy to have believed Trump. So, then, it might be fair to wonder whether the market is out of its friggin’ mind. The market behaving in mysterious ways, especially over the short term, is nothing new. John Maynard Keynes explained: “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” In this case, as Kyla Scanlon writes in the NYT (Gift Article), “The stock market has been trying to ignore the war in Iran.” Why the Stock Market Makes No Sense Right Now. This nonsense is especially relevant at the moment, because a rational stock market appears to be one of the few guardrails protecting against Trump’s most destructive impulses. “President Trump deeply cares about the stock market, and if the stock market had been selling off, there is a good chance that this war would have been over a while ago. More broadly, the markets are showing the single lesson that the past 40 years have taught them. It will always be saved.”
Look, I’m in the market. I really want the market to go up. But I’m worried about a market that discounts the risk of very risky world events. And I’m even more worried about a market that discounts the risk posed by the leader of the world’s largest economy, and seems, somehow, to ignore the history of instability, lies, and crazy behavior he exhibits. Even if the Strait re-opens tomorrow, those risks remain. The market needs to stop reacting to Trump’s crazy lies and start reacting to the fact that we have a crazy liar in the White House. (That line should enter the canon of great economics quotes. On the off chance it doesn’t, I’ll leave you with one more from Keynes: “In the long run we are all dead.” Today’s investors probably even see that as a buying opportunity.)
+ When it comes to the Trump tariffs and the Iran war, there are still some rational traders. Insider traders. Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on? And, the insider trading suspicions looming over Trump’s presidency. (Maybe the safest investment you can make in 2026 is to be long on corruption...)
“On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated, according to information supplied to Justice Department and White House officials. A request for ‘breaching equipment’—normally used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings—was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request.” Given his reputation and lack of qualifications, it would have been almost impossible for Kash Patel to surprise us on the downside. So give him a little credit. The Atlantic (Gift Article): The FBI Director Is MIA. “Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”
+ Patel is responding to the news that he does things Trump doesn’t like (getting drunk and not controlling the story) by doing a couple things Trump does like. Targeting enemies and suing the media.
“A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record.” This, it turns out, is not the biggest (or scariest) robot news of the week. NYT (Gift Article): The Killer Robots Are Coming. The Battlefield Will Never Look the Same. “The robots charged into battle through a valley in eastern Ukraine, driving over grass toward a Russian position. Essentially little green wagons, they looked like something you might buy at a garden store to move bags of soil around. But each carried 66 pounds of explosives. As the remotely controlled vehicles approached the enemy soldiers, an aerial drone flew in and dropped a bomb to help clear a path. One of the robots then rushed in and blew itself up, while the others held back, monitoring the position. A sheet of cardboard appeared above a trench. ‘We want to surrender,’ it read.” (I hold up the same message to my laptop like three times a week.)
Noah Hawley in The Atlantic (Gift Article): What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private Retreat. “Any asset can be acquired but nothing can ever be lost, because for soon-to-be trillionaires, no level of loss could significantly change their global standing or personal power. For them, the word failure has ceased to mean anything. This sense of invulnerability has deep psychological ramifications. If everything is free and nothing matters, then the world and other people exist only to be acted upon, if they are acknowledged at all. This is different from classic narcissism, in which a grandiose but fragile self-image can mask deep insecurity. What I’m talking about is a self-definition in which the individual grows to the size of the universe, and the universe vanishes.” (Remember, this is less the era when Trump empowered these guys than it is an era when these guys decided who they wanted to empower.)
Mind If We Play Through? “The decision was informed by the president’s behavior during the search and rescue operation for the aircrew of the downed F-15 fighter jet late last month, when the president reportedly screamed at his aides for hours. As a result, his aides ‘kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful, instead updating him at meaningful moments.’” A commander-in-chief kept out of war meetings because of erratic behavior? That seems bad. Meanwhile, in Iran, it’s not completely clear who’s in charge. WSJ (Gift Article): Iran’s Hard-Liners Flex Their Muscle With a U-Turn Over Hormuz. “Divisions between moderates and the Revolutionary Guard will complicate U.S. efforts for a diplomatic win.” For now, the two sides are talking about restarting talks. Here’s the latest from The Guardian, NBC, and BBC.
+ Everybody’s Working for the Weakened: “But only the entities that officially paid the tariffs are eligible to recover that money. That means that the fuller universe of people affected by Mr. Trump’s policies — including millions of Americans who paid higher prices for the products they bought — are not able to apply for direct relief.” NYT: Trump Administration Takes Steps to Refund $166 Billion in Tariffs. (Would corporations have even demanded these refunds a few months ago, before Trump’s polls weakened?)
+ Miracle on Ice: Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial. This is good news about mRNA, which provided a medical miracle with the Covid vaccine. So you have to wonder why Trump and RFK, Jr pulled $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccines. Of course, it’s more curious, and more dangerous, that these guys seem to hate vaccines in general. ProPublica: The Horrors That Could Lie Ahead if Vaccines Vanish. “If current rates drop by half, all four diseases could return.”
+ Shreveport Mass Shooting: “A man in Louisiana killed eight children Sunday in a shooting that authorities described as a domestic violence incident and was later killed by police after he fled in a carjacked vehicle.”
+ Mushroom Cloud: “Shares of psychedelic drug developers rose in premarket trading on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing health regulators to speed up reviews of psychedelic drugs and boosted federal research funding.” Joe Rogan was a big proponent of this and was there for the EO signing. Which is interesting, considering he’s been attacking Trump’s war. Trump is savaging allies who criticize the Iran war. But he’s treating Joe Rogan very differently. (There’s one war Trump will never lose: The ratings war.)
+ Bag of Tricks: “Every time you stood in a store in the 2010s and compared a JanSport to a North Face to an Eastpak, you were comparing three labels owned by the same parent corporation. Same earnings call. Same margin targets. Same quarterly pressure. The sense that you were choosing between competitors was a fiction that VF Corp had no incentive to correct.” Your Backpack Got Worse On Purpose.
+ Liquid Assets: “When asked about the past day’s beverage consumption, they found that 66% of all participants had coffee, more than the 64% who said they had bottled water. Tea, soda, and juice sat at 47%, 46%, and 26%, respectively.” Coffee More Popular Than Water, Says National Coffee Association. (Of course, without the water, I find that coffee to be a little dry.)
“Mark Lyall, who is an actual psychologist by trade, tried to psych his out competition out by donning a luchador mask and a T-shirt with the saying ‘don’t throw rock.’ ‘What I found was that statistically, most people throw rock, then people will throw paper,’ Lyall said. He was knocked out in the second round. But the most common strategy among the hundreds of players? No strategy at all.” Into the world of competitive rock, paper, scissors.
+ It’s 4-20. Time for your annual reminder that this proud tradition started at my high school. (Interestingly, 4:20 was also the time my childhood therapy sessions started on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.)
2026-04-18 05:10:30
The Strait of Hormuz seems to be open. The US blockade remains in place until a final deal is reached. Iran has agreed to never close the Strait again. And the US and Iran will work together to collect the country’s enriched uranium, which will then be brought to the US. Does that all sound too good to be true? Can we say with a strait face that we’re getting the strait skinny from a source not exactly known for being a strait shooter? It may take a little while to be sure (and months to hammer out a complete deal). And we’re getting some very different quotes about the negotiations from Iranian officials. As BBC reports: “The president’s optimism may end up well-founded. But if that turns out not to be the case, it wouldn’t be the first time his words have moved ahead of the reality on the ground.” (If his words meet reality, does that mean we’ve reached the singularity?) But for now, the market definitely wants to believe. Oil prices are down, stocks are up, and the ceasefire is holding. Here’s the latest from BBC, NBC, and The Guardian.
+ The war has cost the US lives, money, and international trust and status. So what will we get in exchange for that? Ultimately, for those dealing with reality on a regular basis, the outcome will be measured against what we already had. A few weeks ago, we had an open strait not being controlled by Iran. And a few years ago, we had a working nuclear agreement that was being constantly verified by international inspectors. Trump famously tore up the agreement that included this: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons.” (Maybe we should have fought this war with a roll of Scotch Tape.)
“Congress has voted to extend a controversial surveillance program until April 30. The extension, which first passed overnight in the House, came after GOP leaders failed to secure a five-year renewal, as well as an 18-month renewal President Trump had demanded. Both votes tanked.” Congress extends controversial surveillance powers for 10 days.
+ “We disagree on many issues. One of us is a longtime Democrat, the other a conservative Republican. But both of us are deeply concerned about warrantless government surveillance of the American people.” Mike Lee and Dick Durbin: We Disagree on a Lot. But We Know This Law Must Change.
+ If the law does change, it will be one of the few times in recent memory that we’ll be getting surveilled a little less. From police cameras to private security, we’re being tracked everywhere, all the time. Wired: The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine. “Famously vengeful Knicks owner Jim Dolan has long spied on people at his iconic arenas. WIRED goes deep inside the operation that allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.”
+ And you’re almost certainly having your license plate being tracked by Flock. Privacy concerns have caused dozens of towns to stop using the technology, which is pretty amazing considering people will almost always choose personal security over privacy concerns. When Flock Cameras Appear: Everything You Need to Know About This Surveillance Tech.
A coalition of businesses called Seat the Table is “demanding that Congress and the White House create work permits for ‘long-term, law-abiding immigrants playing critical roles from farms to restaurants.’” Which radical, leftist, open-border-loving state are these people from? Texas. It turns out that immigrants are good for business. “’I think the vast majority of Americans recognize that there is a large group of undocumented immigrants who have been literally keeping food on our tables,’ said Kelsey Erickson Streufert, the chief public affairs officer for the Texas trade group. ‘And if we remove those people, it is going to hurt everyone in terms of higher prices.’” Of course the vast majority of Americans realize this. But the vast majority of Americans aren’t running our current immigration strategy. NYT (Gift Article): Texas Restaurants Are Forcing a Reckoning Over Immigrant Labor.
What to Book: “Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives.” Both are well worth reading about. Kin by Tayari Jones is a great read.
+ What to Doc: The latest doc from the excellent Marshall Curry on Netflix explores the history of The New Yorker magazine as it hits the century mark. It’s a must-watch for anyone who digs the New Yorker, or magazines in general. It’s also a celebration of journalism.
+ What to Watch: “As Silicon Valley and its overlords veer into AI-fueled peak depravity, a would-be tech titan and his ethically challenged therapist try to find a fortune (and happiness) for themselves.” Audacity on AMC puts the tech industry on the therapist’s couch. In other words, there will be a lot to unravel. This new satire is off to a solid start.
Expanding the Gun Range: “In the last couple of years, a growing number of women and people of color have begun training with Mr. Mills. His clients are conservatives, moderates, liberals, and those who defy simple labels altogether. His star student is Eva, a former infantry soldier who appears at the range in pink stockings and painted nails.” More liberals are buying guns. Why? “L.A. Progressive Shooters, a gun-education group in Los Angeles that welcomes people regardless of their politics, has had to expand its increasingly sold-out training sessions. Another nationwide group based in Newton, Massachusetts, the Liberal Gun Club, saw its membership rise by 66%.” (When it comes to guns, everyone is in the target market. After the past week, the Pope will probably buy a Glock.)
+ Doge for Diplomats: “He has shocked its mainstream leaders, many of them with decades of experience in diplomacy, by accusing them of stifling freedom and by frequently meeting with and promoting their hard-line challengers. He is just five years out of college, and he has repeatedly advocated an approach that overturns three generations of American diplomatic orthodoxy.” NYT (Gift Article): The 27-Year-Old Diplomat Waging Trump’s Cultural War With Europe.
+ Life is But a Stream: “In the past, all you needed to watch your favorite NFL team every Sunday was access to local television channels. That can still work these days, but only if you live in that team’s particular city … as long as that team isn’t playing in a prime-time, nationally televised game … or if that team wasn’t selected to play one of the games on the various streaming services.” Sports is one of the few things that still brings us together. (If you’re a subscriber...) U.S. senator to introduce bill aimed at ending sports blackouts.
+ This Must Be Replace: “It’s like the Uber of advanced AI training: a gig-work platform for white-collar and skilled professionals that offers a path for them to earn something extra from their expertise—at the risk of eventually sacrificing their careers to AI.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Mercor is promising to replicate most professional work. It was also co-founded by twentysomethings who previously never held a real job. (Back in my day, if you couldn’t qualify for an actual job, you launched a newsletter.)
+ No Ethics Allowed: “The Justice Department has removed the career Miami federal prosecutor leading the investigation into John Brennan, after she resisted pressure to quickly bring charges.”
+ Shots Across the Bow: “The woman, who fell and injured herself, said in a lawsuit that bartenders had been negligent for serving her while she was visibly intoxicated.” Woman Who Took 15 Tequila Shots on Carnival Cruise Gets $300,000 in Damages. (With that kind of consumption, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she quoted Pulp Fiction as bible scripture...)
“Scientists are often advised to explain their work in terms that a child can understand—a task that is particularly challenging when it comes to such complex topics as quantum mechanics. It’s easier when the interviewer is an actual child, like 9-year-old Kai, aka the Quantum Kid.”
+ NYT (Gift Article): The Hit Erotica Writers Outwitting Nigeria’s Religious Censors. “His Majesty’s great staff is what impresses you all.” (And no, that’s not a line from one of Trump’s cabinet meetings.)
+ Woman, 96, enlists 150-pound dog to plant spring flowers: She points, he digs. (My beagles must be pretty well trained. They dig without me pointing. Even if I stay, “stop digging,” they dig.)
+ “There are few things to know about this historic game: there are no rules, no boundaries, no time limits and no referee.” Uppies and Downies, the medieval football game that has no rules and no time limit.
+ “Chinese carmaker Seres has been granted a patent for what it calls an ‘in-vehicle toilet‘ that slides under a passenger’s seat for visits to the loo while on the road.” (I may finally say yes to going on that road trip...)
2026-04-17 02:03:29
We are entering an era that promises a new kind of arms race. It’s not about bombs, missiles, or drones (at least not yet). It’s about software. People who work at the cutting edge of technology have known this arms race was coming soon, but even they’ve been surprised at how quickly it arrived. The first front in this new war opened in between events at a wedding in Bali, where an AI researcher named Nicholas Carlini “opened his laptop, and set out to do some damage. Anthropic PBC had just made a new artificial intelligence model, called Mythos, available for internal review, and Carlini — a well-known AI researcher — intended to see what kind of trouble it could cause.” The answer: A lot. Like, really a lot. “Within hours Carlini found numerous techniques to infiltrate systems used around the world. Once Carlini was back in Anthropic’s downtown San Francisco office, he discovered Mythos was able to autonomously create powerful break-in tools, including against Linux, the open-source code that underpins most of modern computing. Mythos orchestrated the digital equivalent of a bank robbery: getting past security protocols and through the front door of networks, and breaking into digital vaults that gave it access to online treasures. AI had picked locks, but now it could pull off an entire heist.” The awareness of the power of this new AI model moved Anthropic to limit its release to top software companies and government agencies, giving them a head start to find vulnerabilities before someone else does. But Anthropic won’t be the last AI company to have a model this powerful. And, as we’ve learned, battles between boosting corporate valuations and doing what’s best for society don’t always play out this way. And, as we’ve also learned, bad guys know how to develop technology, too. We’re only going to be able to keep these threats at an arm’s length for so long. Bloomberg (Gift Article): How Anthropic Learned Mythos Was Too Dangerous for the Wild.
While the AI arms race is rapidly changing, the traditional arms race is undergoing a similar transformation. Ukraine and Iran are serving as test cases for a new kind of war, where bigger isn’t always better. “In the past, military power was often determined by size – the number of knights, soldiers, guns or tanks, depending on the era, that an army had. Since the Cold War, advanced militaries have emphasized precise munitions, such as cruise missiles, gaining advantage with fewer but more accurately targeted weapons. Inexpensive but technologically sophisticated drones bring mass and precision together.” The Conversation: One‑way attack drones: Low‑cost, high‑tech weapons ‘democratize’ precision warfare.
+ So far, the use of drones and other low cost munitions has been countered using advanced missiles and other other high cost defense systems. Those weapons are expensive, and they take longer to produce. Hence, we get a headline like this from the WSJ (Gift Article): Pentagon Approaches Automakers, Manufacturers to Boost Weapons Production. “The Trump administration wants automakers and other American manufacturers to play a larger role in weapons production, reminiscent of a practice used during World War II ... The Pentagon is interested in enlisting the companies to use their personnel and factory capacity to increase production of munitions and other equipment as the wars in Ukraine and Iran deplete stocks.”
“’This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan,’ Tom Fletcher, emergency relief coordinator at the United Nations, said in a statement before a conference in Berlin on Wednesday to raise aid funds and call attention to the brutal conflict. ‘Sudan is an atrocities laboratory: sieges, denial of food, weaponized sexual violence.’” NYT (Gift Article): Sudan Enters Fourth Year of War Amid World’s Most Severe Humanitarian Crisis. This conflict is overshadowed by other wars. But it’s not unaffected by them. “The American-Israeli war on Iran has led to rising global fuel and fertilizer prices, Mr. Fletcher noted, compounding the severe food crisis in Sudan.”
“Vance’s slap at Leo—including the pompous implication that he needs to go back and do some theology homework—illustrates the political and religious risks that Vance is willing to take not only with the Vatican, but with a country whose population is one-fifth Catholic, in order to demonstrate his utter fealty to Trump.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Pope James David Vance the First.
+ Amid a quarrel with the Pope, Trump strips Miami charity of funding to house migrant kids. (This move features blasphemy, spite, pettiness, cruelty, corruption, vindictiveness, and the harm of immigrant children. How could Trump resist?)
+ The Pope isn’t backing down. “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth ... They turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education and restoration are nowhere to be found ... The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.”
+ “Pete Hegseth — always ready to get medieval on someone’s ass — quoted a fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction while leading a prayer service at the Pentagon.” (Also, we have a lot of prayer services at the Pentagon these days...)
Ceasefire Spreads: From Reuters: Trump says Israel and Lebanon agree on ceasefire, optimism grows on ending Iran war. At this point, almost all parties have significant motivations to end this thing (even if they end up in worse positions than before the war). Trump is worried about the stock market and his falling approval numbers. Iran’s economy is on the brink. And Europe has ‘maybe 6 weeks of jet fuel left.’ Here’s the latest from The Guardian, NBC, and the NYT.
+ Swalwell Known: “My whole body felt physically sick and I remember my head rushed, and I just was like, oh, my gosh ... I just felt like I had to do everything I could to just hold one man accountable.” NPR: How Eric Swalwell’s fall was brought on by a network of women who organized online. (Now, for the next question: How did his support from insiders last as long as it did?) Also, “Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a rising star in the Democratic Party before his career was derailed by sexual assault allegations several years ago, killed his wife before killing himself, police said Thursday.”
+ Shaker of Salt: WSJ (Gift Article): San Diego Now Has So Much Water That It’s Selling It. “With the Colorado River in crisis, Arizona and Nevada are turning to an unconventional lifeline: the ocean water off California’s golden beaches. Both desert states are pursuing a deal with the San Diego County Water Authority to tap millions of gallons of fresh water produced by a Carlsbad ocean-desalination plant—the largest in North America—to help offset their reliance on the collapsing Colorado River.” (If we desalinate fast enough, maybe we can drink our way out of the sea rise problem!)
+ Yale Gives it the Old Harvard Try: “A 10-member committee offered a brutal assessment of academia’s role in creating the forces challenging American colleges and universities.” NYT (Gift Article): Yale Report Finds Colleges Deserve Blame for Higher Education’s Problems.
+ Arch Madness: “Mr. Trump’s push to build the giant arch — more than quadrupling its size from original plans — has alienated early proponents of the project, classical architects and veterans groups who say it will diminish nearby Arlington Cemetery.” Trump’s ‘Triumphal Arch’ Draws Backlash, Even From an Expert Who Proposed It. (I know everyone is investing in AI these days, but I’m putting all my money into wrecking balls and jackhammers...)
+ Moby Trick: Sperm whales’ communication closely parallels human language. “Not only do sperm whale have a form of “alphabet” and form vowels within their vocalizations but the structure of these vowels behaves in the same way as human speech.” (Wait until they figure out how funny their name is...)
“As a plumbing contractor in Alaska, Henson first served it to workers. His herbs, spices, buttermilk and mayo concoction then became such a hit with guests at Hidden Valley, the dude ranch he and his wife opened in California, that he sold it as a DIY dry mix. Eventually, Clorox bottled a shelf-stable version, and competitors like Ken’s, Kraft Foods and Wish-Bone joined in.” Ranch dressing: An American staple that actually began life on ... a ranch.
+ “Sixty years after it invented sports drinks, Gatorade is making a surprising pivot: It’s no longer focusing primarily on athletes.” Now, it’s all about offering hydration that’s supposedly better than water.
2026-04-16 03:17:34
Welcome to the clinical trial. Tens of millions of us are volunteers in the world’s biggest medical study. Only, the study isn’t being run by doctors. It’s being run by us. GLP-1s were first introduced to lower blood sugar in people suffering from Type 2 diabetes. We quickly learned that those same drugs tended to make people lose weight, often a lot of it. As if that weren’t enough of a medical holy grail, we’ve since been getting reports that these drugs with names like Ozempic and Mounjaro help with symptoms of long Covid, IBS, addiction, depression, concussions, and much more. These anecdotal results have been supercharged by the wellness and longevity craze, and the use of these drugs is now wildly outpacing researchers’ ability to study them (or their potential downsides). In the spirit of the modern era, we’re all doing our own research. You have become your own doctor. How much more primary can care get than that? Julia Belluz in the NYT (Gift Article): The Great Ozempic Experiment. “Technology moves fast, while science accumulates slowly. Humans have a history of rushing ahead with new technology, well before understanding how it affects us. (Just think of smartphones and ultraprocessed foods.) Still, GLP-1s may be a medical first: a blockbuster drug class, enthusiastically taken up by millions, not for one or a few uses but, it appears, a multitude.” (Is being a guinea pig in an unprecedented human experiment making you feel anxious? Don’t worry. GLP-1s can reduce anxiety, too.)
You thought that Trumpian attacks on the Pope would be a bridge too far for the sycophants who have sold their souls? Have you learned nothing over the years? NYT (Gift Article): Vance Says the Pope Should Be More Careful When Talking About Theology. “In the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.” Mike Johnson has joined the papal critique. “’I was taken a little bit aback, just honestly, frankly, by something that he said, I think he said several days back, something about ‘those who engage in war, Jesus doesn’t hear their prayers’ or something’ ... Johnson went on to preach against the highest Catholic’s teachings, claiming that it’s a ‘very well settled matter of Christian theology’ that war is sometimes justified, and invoking the ‘just war’ doctrine within military ethics.” Look, I’m more of a Moses man myself, so if these guys want to argue with the Pope about how Jesus feels about war, I’m going to stay out of it. But it does seem notable that the Trump cultists are now telling the Pope he’s wrong about religion. (If Jesus is really in favor of this war, maybe he can offer a strategy to win it.)
+ Here’s one factor that makes it a little harder to argue that the war on Iran is doing god’s work. WSJ (Gift Article): Iran’s Regime Has Changed—for the Worse. “On March 13, a massive billboard appeared in Tehran’s Enqelab Square. It showed Iran’s newly selected supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, standing in a trench and instructing commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fire missiles at their enemies. The text suggested the mission is divinely inspired, comparing Khamenei to Imam Ali, a revered Muslim figure known for his legendary victory over Jewish tribes. For opponents of Iran’s regime, the image is the visual representation of their worst nightmare: a militarized Iran ruled by a younger, hard-line leader where the Revolutionary Guard plays an even more dominant role.” (Leaders who believe they are divinely commissioned to violently suppress their own people and wantonly attack other countries? If nothing else, Trump, Vance, and Johnson should be able to find some common ground with these folks.) Here’s the latest on the Strait, the blockade, and continuing talks from NBC and BBC.
“Studies show that overreliance on these digital tools causes cognitive decline, but if current events are any indication, nobody’s making much of a contribution anyway. Go ahead and use A.I. however you like. Except art. If you use it for your art, you’re a freakin’ hack. Why is it that the most vocal cheerleaders of generative A.I. are always the hackiest motherfreakers around? You expect studio executives to say things like ‘it’s going to revolutionize content’ and ‘from a bottom-line standpoint it’s inevitable’ and ‘I’ve finally found an instrument as cold and empty as myself,’ but you’d hope that an artist would have more self-respect. Some people say, ‘I just use it to brainstorm ideas.’ If you don’t know what to paint or compose or write, you’re in the wrong job. Art is the business of making up stuff — go make up some stuff.” Colson Whitehead in the NYT (Gift Article): Don’t Use A.I. to Do This. “Data centers — gigawatt-sucking, pollution-spewing slop houses of mediocrity — are ravaging the environment, consuming all the water and electricity and supercharging utility bills ... [But] do you realize how much water and power it’d take to replicate the average writer’s narcissism, self-loathing and despair? It’d drain the Indian Ocean. You could light up Times Square for a year. We can’t afford it.”
“High-quality bagels, with their finicky baking process, have always been notoriously unprofitable and unscalable. But recent developments in bakery and coffee technology, along with changes in social media, consumer tracking, capital funding and delivery platforms, have changed that.” Big Money Is Betting on Bagels. (Bagels are bigger than ever because people feel they can use the dough missing from where the hole is to argue they’re cutting down on carbs.)
+ It’s only a matter of time before the bagel industry comes up with an AI angle. After all, everyone else is doing it. A headline for the ages: Allbirds Soars After Sneaker Firm Rebrands as AI Stock. (Sometimes, the idea of computers replacing humans doesn’t seem all that bad...)
Under the Gun: It’s a good time to be in the weapons business. It’s not just that we’re depleting our arsenal in Iran. It’s also that our allies have realized they can no longer count on America. That makes it a bigly buyer’s market in the defense industry. WSJ(Gift Article): Europe Is Accelerating a NATO Fallback Plan in Case Trump Pulls Out. It’s also not a bad time to be in the oil business. Big oil reaping huge war windfall from consumers. And that includes Russia, where Oil Revenues Nearly Doubled in March.
+ Trading and Abetting: According to Bloomberg, US Probes Suspicious Oil Trades Made Before Trump Pivots. (Five bucks says this investigation gets dropped as soon as they find out some of the people making the trades...)
+ Big Ticket Case: “A jury in a high-stakes antitrust trial on Wednesday found that Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market.” (Knowing Live Nation, they’ll probably sell tickets to the appeal...)
+ Justice Just Isn’t: “The Justice Department moved Tuesday to wipe out the seditious conspiracy convictions of the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were found guilty of organizing key aspects of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.” (Meanwhile, another pardoned Jan. 6 rioter to admit guilt in child sexual abuse case.)
+ Without Reserve: As Trump threatened to fire Powell, federal prosecutors showed up unannounced at the Federal Reserve building.
+ The Tragical Mystery Tour: “While carrying out public business for his father-in-law, he has continued to pursue his private interests and declined to disclose any information about them.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Jared Kushner’s Mysterious Role in the Trump Administration. (Ethics aside, what about qualifications?)
+ Manspleening: “After Dr. Shaknovsky removed the organ, ‘The staff looked at the readily identifiable liver on the table and were shocked when Dr. Shaknovsky told them that it was a spleen.’” This story is even crazier and more disturbing than its headline. Surgeon Who Removed Wrong Organ From Patient Is Charged in His Death.
“The people who gather in this small room on the eighth floor of the New York Stock Exchange look like a group of middle-aged caffeine addicts. They sit around what resembles a school science lab sniffing coffee beans and slurping coffee so aggressively that there’s loud music playing to drown them out. But these aren’t junkies with bad manners. They’re part of an elite team of graders who help keep the commodities market running. Their ratings help set U.S. futures-market prices for arabica, and in turn, the global coffee industry. And they’ve arguably never been more valuable.” WSJ (Gift Article): Wall Street’s Elite Team of Coffee Tasters Who Keep the Global Market Running. (I wonder if they offer similar gigs for the cannabis market...)
+ Scientists just discovered 5.6 million bees under a New York State cemetery.