2025-06-04 01:13:49
In these divisive times, you'd think there would still be some safe topics of conversation. But in 2025, even the old stalwart, the weather, has been removed from the confines of small talk. Today's forecast is particularly political, problematic, and pathetic (with slight chance of post-apocalypticness). In an exchange with staff, current FEMA leader David Richardson "suggested he recently learned there was an annual hurricane season, stunning members of the workforce of the agency tasked with responding to disasters. He has expressed surprise in meetings at the scope of the agency’s mission...'Yesterday, as everybody knows, [was the] first day of hurricane season,' Richardson said. 'I didn’t realize it was a season.'" He also doesn't seem to realize that the dramatic hurricane-related budget cuts will have a real world impact. "Richardson told staff Monday that the agency would be returning to the same guidance for hurricane response as last year. Some were confused how that would be possible, given the agency had already eliminated key programs and sharply cut its workforce." WSJ (Gift Article): FEMA Scraps New Hurricane Plan and Reverts to Last Year’s. Of course, Richardson's lack of qualifications for his role are hardly unique in this administration (and his unfamiliarity with the department he leads doesn't seem especially egregious when compared to his peers). But as Anne Applebaum reminds us, appointees like these "aren't there to do their jobs, but rather to prove that the president is so powerful he can appoint wildly incompetent people and no one will stop him." So where does that leave the forecast when it comes to America's next crisis? The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind. (Or at least it will be soon.)
+ "The National Weather Service costs the average American $4 per year in today’s inflated dollars — about the same as a gallon of milk — and offers an 8,000 percent annual return on investment, according to 2024 estimates. It’s a farce for the administration to pretend that gutting an agency that protects our coastlines from a rising tide of disasters is in the best interests of our economy or national security. If the private sector could have done it better and cheaper, it would have, and it hasn’t." NYT(Gift Article): A Hurricane Season Like No Other.
+ In case you're nostalgic for the times when you could just talk about the weather and have it actually be about the weather, there's this. A cloud of Sahara dust is smothering the Caribbean en route to the US. (When I first saw the term Sahara dust, I assumed it was something Elon Musk was taking.)
"He arrived in Los Angeles in 1986 at age 18 after fleeing war-torn Lebanon. He spent a year writing for an Armenian newspaper and delivering Domino’s at night to become eligible for the University of California, where he earned his undergraduate degree and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience. He started a lab at Scripps Research in San Diego with a grant from the National Institutes of Health, discovered the way humans sense touch, and in 2021 won the Nobel Prize. But with the Trump administration slashing spending on science, Dr. Patapoutian’s federal grant to develop new approaches to treating pain has been frozen. In late February, he posted on Bluesky that such cuts would damage biomedical research and prompt an exodus of talent from the United States. Within hours, he had an email from China, offering to move his lab to 'any city, any university I want,' he said, with a guarantee of funding for the next 20 years." NYT (Gift Article): U.S. Scientists Warn That Trump’s Cuts Will Set Off a Brain Drain. (Relentlessly attacking science, universities, and immigrants doesn't sound like an experiment that will end well.)
+ "The United States’ competitors are salivating at the prospect of gaining an edge in technological competition at our expense. France, Australia and Canada are throwing out the welcome mat to scientists who can no longer do their work in the United States. But the biggest beneficiary is likely to be China." WaPo: We are witnessing the suicide of a superpower.
Drone battles are a lot like first person war games, with pilots in remote locations waging war from behind a screen. But the fighters aren't the only ones with the first-person view of the action. Consider how quickly the world had access to images of Ukraine's shocking attack on Russia's airfields. That aspect is a feature, not a bug. The Verge: Ukraine’s drone strike isn’t just an attack — it’s first-person media warfare. "On top of the damage to Russian forces, the dissemination of the videos was a clear goal of the mission. This isn’t the first time Ukraine has shared raw footage of its attacks to shine a spotlight on the war, but it’s perhaps one of the most stunning and fast-spreading examples so far."
+ For example: Ukraine Hid Attack Drones in Russia. These Videos Show What Happened Next.
"Waymo’s autonomous taxis are only available in a few cities right now, including Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco, where self-driving cars are more of a tourist attraction than cable cars. But the trajectory suggests what’s happening there might just happen everywhere—and sooner than you think." And if you live in one of those cities, you know Waymos are everywhere. It’s Waymo’s World. We’re All Just Riding in It.
Throwing Good Money After Bad Ideas: "The global economy is slowing. In a sharply downgraded forecast released Tuesday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that President Donald Trump’s volatile yet sweeping tariff policies are inflicting greater damage than expected, with the effects more concentrated in the U.S. than anywhere else." Meanwhile, "when shoppers shift more spending to dollar stores, it usually reflects growing financial stress." And dollar stores are doing massive numbers.
+ The Fast and The Curious: Mary Meeker "hasn’t released a trends report since 2019. But she dusted off her skills to document, in laser detail, how AI adoption has outpaced any other tech in human history." The report featured the word "unprecedented" 51 times. "ChatGPT reaching 800 million users in 17 months: unprecedented. The number of companies and the rate at which so many others are hitting high annual recurring revenue rates: also unprecedented. The speed at which costs of usage are dropping: unprecedented."
+ Words Without Friends: "Words matter. The protester at Columbia University in 2024 holding a sign labeling Jewish demonstrators who were waving Israeli flags as al-qasam’s next targets was dismissed as being hyperbolic. So were the by any means necessary banners carried at demonstrations and the red inverted triangles, similar to those Hamas uses to mark Israeli targets, spray-painted on university buildings, a national monument, and even the apartment building of a museum director. When demonstrators wave the flags of terrorist organizations, wear headbands celebrating those same groups, and publicly commemorate the martyrdom of terrorist leaders such as Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, they’re not throwing the bomb, but their message can light the fuse." The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Boulder Attack Didn’t Come Out of Nowhere. (You can be pro Palestinian, pro two-state solution, pro peace, and anti Netanyahu, without being pro Hamas, pro terror, and pro killing Jews. These nuances are not subtle.)
+ Food Fight: "A U.S.- and Israeli-backed initiative to feed starving Gazans has struggled during its first week of operations, with the resignation of two top executives, allegations that the Israeli military has shot into crowds of civilians rushing to pick up aid packages, and the ongoing refusal of the United Nations and humanitarian partners to join the effort." US consulting firm quits Gaza humanitarian aid effort amid criticism. (The world has to figure out a way to stop this conflict.)
+ Lunch Break: "A Navarre, Florida, sandwich shop employee reportedly helped authorities save a domestic violence victimwho had allegedly been kidnapped by her abusive, pro-wrestler boyfriend after the worker recently found a note in a store bathroom that read 'HELP!'"
+ Mongolian Beef: "Mongolia's prime minister has resigned after social media photos of his son's lavish lifestyle sparked an anti-corruption investigation and weeks of mass protests." (It turns out there are still places where political corruption is frowned upon.)
+ The Tallow End of the Gene Pool: "Tallow is fat that has been slowly melted, strained and then hardened into a waxy paste. Often used in cooking, all sorts of animal fats — goat, swan, even lion — have also been used as a cosmetics ingredient since antiquity." Add that to TikTok and you've got a trend. Miracle balm or cow pie? What's behind the beef tallow skincare trend.
"The condom, which was probably made of a sheep’s appendix circa 1830, is thought to have come from an upmarket brothel in France, most likely in Paris. It features an erotic etching depicting a partially undressed nun pointing at the erect genitals of three clergymen, as well as the phrase Voila, mon choix ('There, that’s my choice')." Dutch museum to display 200-year-old condom. (The condom would've been on display sooner but some of the funders pulled out.)
+ "At an age most children struggle to make it through the alphabet, two-year-old British toddler Joseph Harris-Birtill can already read full books. He's now moving on to Morse code and the Greek alphabet, as well as showing an interest in the periodic table of elements." 2-Year-Old Prodigy Joins 'High IQ' Club Mensa as Youngest Member Ever. (Maybe he can run FEMA?)
2025-06-03 03:39:41
Among other embarrassing moments during the now infamous Oval Office meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump famously explained, "You don’t have the cards right now." It helps explain how Trump bankrupted casinos when you consider just how bad the author of a book called The Art of the Deal is at assessing the state of a metaphorical card game. Trump's analysis was a few cards short of a deck as it turns out Zelensky still had a card (and a lot of drones) up his sleeve. After more than a year of planning, an attack called Operation Spiderweb deployed more than 100 drones from within Russian territory, delivering a level of damage most experts (and at least one non-expert) thought unthinkable. 'Operation Spiderweb’: How Ukraine destroyed over a third of Russian bombers. "Drones were smuggled into Russia and placed inside containers, which were later loaded on to trucks. With the trucks positioned near Russian bases, the roof panels of the containers were lifted off by a remotely activated mechanism, allowing the drones to fly out and begin their attack." The Guardian: Operation Spiderweb: a visual guide to Ukraine’s destruction of Russian aircraft.
+ In addition to being a welcome success for Ukraine, this drone attack marks another chapter in the story of modern warfare and the leveling of the playing field. That doesn't just impact Russia. The leadership of every major military knows this transformation has been in the cards. But it's another thing to actually see an attack like this play out from within a powerful country's borders. WaPo (Gift Article): Ukraine just rewrote the rules of war. "If the Ukrainians could sneak drones so close to major air bases in a police state such as Russia, what is to prevent the Chinese from doing the same with U.S. air bases? Or the Pakistanis with Indian air bases? Or the North Koreans with South Korean air bases? Militaries that thought they had secured their air bases with electrified fences and guard posts will now have to reckon with the threat from the skies posed by cheap, ubiquitous drones that can be easily modified for military use. This will necessitate a massive investment in counter-drone systems. Money spent on conventional manned weapons systems increasingly looks to be as wasted as spending on the cavalry in the 1930s."
+ "Every branch of the service and a host of defense tech startups are testing out new weapons that promise to disable drones en masse. There are drones that slam into other drones like battering rams; drones that shoot out nets to ensnare quadcopter propellers; precision-guided Gatling guns that simply shoot drones out of the sky; electronic approaches, like GPS jammers and direct hacking tools; and lasers that melt holes clear through a target’s side. Then there are the microwaves: high-powered electronic devices that push out kilowatts of power to zap the circuits of a drone as if it were the tinfoil you forgot to take off your leftovers when you heated them up." MIT Tech Review: This giant microwave may change the future of war.
The pace of antisemitic attacks and flashing warning signals in America continues to a accelerate as "eight people at an outdoor mall in Boulder, Colo., calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza were injured on Sunday by a man police say attacked a crowd with makeshift incendiary devices and a flamethrower."
+ "The victims, four men and four women between the ages of 52 and 88, were attacked while they peacefully participated in a 'Run for their Lives' walk to show solidarity with the Israeli hostages still being held captive by Hamas." The 88 year-old survived the Holocaust.
"'I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here,' said Vanessa Cowart, a friend of Ms. Hui from church. 'But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves. She paused. 'This is Carol.'" NYT (Gift Article): A Missouri Town Was Solidly Behind Trump. Then Carol Was Detained.
+ The targets have surprised people. So have the methods and the lawlessness. "Cornejo—who has no criminal history in the United States or in Venezuela and had no final order of removal—has not only been disappeared to a foreign gulag from where he might never be released, but has also been erased by the US immigration courts." MoJo: Trump Disappeared Them to El Salvador. Now, They’re Being Erased by Immigration Courts. (Meanwhile, ignored or flouted orders from courts including SCOTUS seem to be getting erased from our headlines.)
WTF With Marc Maron was one of the first truly massive podcasts. Basically, everyone has a podcast now. So you'll still have something to listen to after Maron signs off. Marc Maron to End Groundbreaking ‘WTF’ Podcast After 16 Years. "The podcast, which will turn 16 years old on Sept. 1, has become one of the most influential shows in podcasting history, with more than 1,600 episodes featuring interviews with everyone from Barack Obama to Keith Richards to Carol Burnett." 1,600 episodes. I don't think I've talked to 1,600 different people in my entire life. (On the other hand, I consider the first 1,600 editions of NextDraft to be part of my warm-up era.)
Losing Another Win-Win: "Mr. Flamm, a farmer from a conservative stronghold, became an unlikely activist fighting to save a Biden-era program that had helped him and his neediest neighbors." NYT (Gift Article): A Peach and Apple Farmer’s Uphill Quest to Feed Poor Families, and His Own. "When you’re talking about providing nutritional assistance to low-income families, what is more nonpartisan than that? There’s poor people on both sides, and everybody needs a meal."
+ Pole Poll: "If nationalism were a stock, its performance might look a bit like the actual stock market: euphoric in November after the reelection of Donald Trump, and then highly volatile in the months since his return to the White House. In elections around the world, most candidates espousing versions of the Trump platform lost steam by the time voters got to the polls. Sunday’s election in Poland was an exception." Bloomberg (Gift Article): Nationalism Ticks Higher With Polish Election.
+ Spaced Out: Trump says he will withdraw nomination of Musk associate Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. It's either because of his ties to Musk, his past support of Democrats, or the suggestion that he believes in gravity. (If past is predictor, Trump will probably nominate Tim Allen because he voiced Buzz Lightyear.)
+ You Rang? "A little more than four months into his second term, the president’s personal cellphone has become, in many ways, the most pivotal technological device in the federal government, directly linking Trump to the outside world. Lawmakers, friends, family members, corporate titans, celebrities, world leaders, and journalists regularly use it, knowing that, unminded by aides, Trump remains open to picking up the phone, even when he does not recognize the number." The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Secret History of Trump’s Private Cellphone. (Luckily, he may not be sharing much classified info as he mostly skips intel briefings. "Tulsi Gabbard has solicited ideas from current and former intelligence officials about steps she could take to tailor the briefing, known as the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB, to Trump’s policy interests and habits." One idea: a video briefing that resembles Fox News. I suppose cartoons are out of the question?)
+ PSG TNT: 200 injuries. 300 hundred arrests. Two deaths. Is this really what winning looks like? 2 fans dead, hundreds arrested after celebrations in France from PSG's Champions League win.
+ Feeding Frenzy: "As seen in photos that quickly went viral, runner — and new mom — Stephanie Case sat down at three points along the demanding race course to breastfeed her six-month-old daughter. Case not only finished the race; she placed first among the female competitors." Ultramarathon runner breastfeeds her baby 3 times on her way to a surprise win. (I've used having a newborn as an excuse not to exercise and exercise as a way to avoid my kids.)
"A judge at Newcastle crown court on Monday told Mazyar Azarbonyad, 20, it was 'nothing short of a miracle that no one was more seriously injured or that there were not multiple fatalities' in the incident that led to seven officers needing hospital treatment and caused traffic disruption across the north-east of England." Five police cars were wrecked. Did I mention the driver was on a first date?
+ Sydney Sweeney is selling soap that contains her actual bathwater. (I'm not going to work myself into a lather about this...at least not in public.)
2025-05-31 04:22:47
You had me at Heil. Actually, after ruining my social media addiction to Twitter and spoiling the Tesla brand, I couldn't stand Elon before he heiled. Now that's he's supposedly departing his official government duties, we'll start to see two kinds of stories in the media. The first kind of story will be the result of pent up leaks, like today's NYT (Gift Article): On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. "Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall." This hardly seems like new news. And it definitely doesn't qualify as surprising news. Can you imagine running several of the largest companies in the country and the country itself without shoveling handfuls of drugs down your gullet? I can barely write NextDraft without consuming enough coffee to redefine meth as a sedative. (And I don't even want to get into what I have to take to get over writing NextDraft. At this point, my psychiatrist writes out so many prescriptions he's implemented a surcharge for ink.) The second kind of Musk story we'll see is the more important kind; a reflection on the enormous damage he did. Michelle Goldberg sums that part up pretty well in the NYT (Gift Article): Elon Musk’s Legacy Is Disease, Starvation and Death. "Musk apparently did not anticipate that it would be bad PR for the world’s richest man to take food and medicine from the world’s poorest children ... If there were justice in the world, Musk would never be able to repair his reputation, at least not without devoting the bulk of his fortune to easing the misery he’s engendered. Musk’s sojourn in government has revealed severe flaws in his character — a blithe, dehumanizing cruelty, and a deadly incuriosity. This should shape how he’s seen for the rest of his public life." (Spoiler Alert: It probably won't.) I said we'd see two kind of stories following Musk's departure from government. The truth is we'll soon be seeing a third kind. The stories that explain how he never really left at all.
+ "Musk’s failure to follow through on his boasts, though, should not detract from a clear-eyed assessment of the extraordinary amount of damage he succeeded in wreaking. The wise men are laughing Musk out of town, and I get it. His 'performative vandalism,' as Jonah Goldberg put it on CNN, was in some respects just a pernicious, highly dangerous new variant of a Washington perennial: the pol who makes promises he cannot keep. But it is hard to think of any other unelected official who has done so much harm to the U.S. government in such a short period of time. The fact that the deficit may get even bigger at the end of the day only worsens the injury." The New Yorker: Elon Musk Didn’t Blow Up Washington, but He Left Plenty of Damage Behind.
+ Even one guy with a lot of money and a ketamine tsunami coursing through his veins can't do this kind of damage alone. The destruction of agencies, and especially of foreign aid, has been a team effort, and one, that whether we like it or not, now represents America. ProPublica: Death, Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking: Fallout From U.S. Aid Withdrawal Hits the World’s Most Fragile Locations. "'It is devastating, but it’s not surprising,' Eric Schwartz, a former State Department assistant secretary and member of the National Security Council during Democratic administrations, told ProPublica. 'It’s all what people in the national security community have predicted. I struggle for adjectives to adequately describe the horror that this administration has visited on the world ... It keeps me up at night.'" (The only thing that keeps Elon up at night is the Adderall.)
"During the Biden years, Trump liked to say that 'the world is laughing at us.' Now it really is." Dana Milbank in WaPo (Gift Article): The bully gets punched in the nose. Part of this article focuses on the comical (unless you invest, hold, use, or like money) tariff negotiations. But as I mentioned yesterday, the tariff chaos is less about TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) and more about CHALUPA (Congress Has Acquiesced Like Unbelievably Pathetic A**holes).
+ Trump Accuses China of ‘Violating’ Its Trade Agreement With the U.S., Laments Being ‘Mr. Nice Guy.' (Is this claim about China rooted in reality or a reaction to the TACO claim? Don't bother trying to answer that. The story will change before you have the chance...)
OK, let's lighten things up a bit with one of the great ledes in recent memory. "A pair of hikers in New York called emergency services to report that a third member of their group had died, but when a park ranger responded to rescue them it turned out they were just high on hallucinogenic mushrooms." (The good news is that no one actually died. The bad news is that these two hikers are now running DOGE.)
What to Movie: Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett play a couple of spies who also happen to be a married couple in Black Bag on Peacock.
+ What to Watch: "As she wrangles three teens, an aging father and vulnerable kids from her social services job, Pørni somehow finds time for everyone — except herself." I'm only one episode into the Norwegian show Pernille on Netflix, but I can already tell I'm gonna watch all five seasons (in part because watching TV nonstop is my way of coping with everything else in this newsletter, and in part because you can tell how good it is right from the start).
+ What to Read: "The widow’s most important, and perhaps unusual, request was that the building sit exactly on the nations’ common border. Inside, black tape representing the boundary ran along the hardwood floors, a symbol not of division but of the enduring friendship between the two lands. Then one day, the leader of the country to the south threatened to annex his neighbor to the north." Nowhere was the friendship between the US and Canada more clear than in a library that shared a common border between the two countries. And now, nowhere is our stupidity more clearly on display. NYT (Gift Article): The U.S.-Canada Border Runs Through This Library. That’s Now a Problem.
Zip Code of Conduct: "It undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending." Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting from The Supreme Court decision to "allow the Trump administration to temporarily pause a humanitarian program that has allowed nearly half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the U.S. and remain here legally for two years." (Feel safer?) Meanwhile, welcome to the new America: Children zip-tied at San Antonio immigration court in new crackdown.
+ Crack a Smile: "Despite decades of data proving its efficacy at protecting teeth from decay—particularly children's teeth—two states have now banned the use of fluoride in public water, and communities around the country have followed suit or are considering doing the same." RFK Jr.’s fluoride ban would ruin 25 million kids’ teeth, cost $9.8 billion.
+ Poking for Likes: White House targets Harvard again with social media screening of all foreign visitors to school. (Our bureau of tourism has its work cut out for it.)
+ Health Check Your Work: In part due to faulty use of AI programs and in part because of a predilection for lying, the White House Health Report Included Fake Citations. (Maybe the real news here is that this headline also suggests that a White House report included some real citations, too.)
+ Despite and Malice: "President Trump has nominated 30-year-old conservative lawyer Paul Ingrassia, to lead the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a government ethics office, despite Ingrassia's ties to multiple antisemitic extremists." (Are we sure despite is the right word here?)
+ Ball Huggers: "Could the final frontier following the short-shorts explosion be straight dudes wearing briefs on the beach without blinking an eye?" GQ: Are Straight Guys Ready for Speedo Summer? (Don't ask me, I wear jeans on the beach.)
+ The Glide of Frankenstein: The amazing video of the Chinese paraglider getting sucked into a cloud was a little too amazing. It was AI generated. (I choose to believe that all of 2025 so far is AI generated.)
"In a world first, NHS England will offer patients with lung and breast cancer access to 'liquid biopsy' tests to help speed up their access to treatment." NHS offers ‘revolutionary’ blood test for cancer in world first. (Science is good.)
+ Faizan Zaki wins Scripps National Spelling Bee a year after coming in 2nd. The winning word: Éclaircissement. (A French word describing the bloating caused by too many desserts.)
+ Alaska man survives after being trapped face-down in creek by 700lb boulder.
+ Copenhagen was just named the happiest city in the world. The top US city was NY coming in 17th.
+ Experience: I’ve made the longest chain of chewing-gum wrappers in the world.
+ New urinal designs could prevent up to 265,000 gallons of urine from spilling onto the floor each day.
+ There are upsides to refusing to bend the knee. One of them is that you can get a minute-long ovation for a speech after just saying the word, Welcome.
2025-05-30 03:59:49
By the time a court blocked President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law, a meme had already taken hold among Wall Streeters and made its way to a presidential press conference. "The TACO trade, short for Trump Always Chickens Out, is a tongue-in-cheek term coined by the Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong. It has been adopted by some analysts and commentators to describe the potentially lucrative pattern in which markets tumble after Mr. Trump makes tariff threats, only to rebound sharply when he relents and allows countries more time to negotiate deals." While the TACO acronym might ring muy verdad, this issue never should have made it to the courts. Liberation Day only turned into Litigation Day because the legislative branch failed to stand up to a rogue president by claiming its unique role when it comes to imposing tariffs. The law on this matter really couldn't be more clear, so why have legislators failed to stand up for themselves or the country? Let's call it what it is: Congress Has Acquiesced Like Unbelievably Pathetic A**holes. Or it you prefer the acronym: CHALUPA.
+ TNR: A Trade Court Stopped Trump’s Tariffs. Why Didn’t Congress? "None of this should have required this court to step in and save the day. The ersatz national emergency that Trump cooked up as justification for his revenue-hungry tariffs ought to have been put to rest by means of a congressional joint resolution. Before Trump, no president had ever claimed [International Emergency Economic Powers Act] authority to impose a tariff. But today’s Republican-controlled Congress is James Madison’s worst nightmare, too frozen by terror of a vindictive chief executive to check his power."
+ QZ: The trade war enters a new phase: What to watch over the next 10 days. Forget the next 10 days. Let's focus on the next 10 minutes. An appeals court has already paused the trade court's ruling and we should hear from SCOTUS on the matter soon.
"The people languishing in this modern-day gulag – mapped by matching first-hand accounts with satellite imagery, cellphone data and other open-source material – aren’t the Soviet dissidents of the last century that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about in The Gulag Archipelago. They are Ukrainian children, abducted from their homes and families over the course of Russia’s war to destroy Ukraine." The Globe and Mail: The Children’s Gulag.
For now, a judge has blocked the Trump administration's effort to bar Harvard from enrolling international students. The ruling offers a nice reprieve on Harvard's Commencement Day, but the battle is likely just beginning. And no matter how it turns out, the administration has done severe damage to America's brand when it comes to attracting the best and brightest from around the world.
+ It's not just universities, America's brand as a destination has been damaged, and we're only a few months into the new administration. "European airlines are freezing their transatlantic growth and pulling back from major U.S. cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Chicago as they redirect flights to Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Caribbean, where bookings are rising and demand is outpacing the American market."
+ Meanwhile, Benjamin Wittes responds to the notion that any of the attacks on Harvard and higher ed have to do with protecting Jews from antisemitism. "There is only one system that has ever truly protected Jews over time, and that is liberalism. And American liberalism is the only version that has ever done it at scale—which is to say more than 10 times the scale of any other non-Jewish country. The reason? Jews don’t rely on some liege lord’s 'protection.' We rely on a system of rights and limits on government power that protect everyone." Thanks but No Thanks. "There will come a Pharaoh who knows not the Kushners ... The lesson is not to stay in Pharaoh’s good graces and enjoy it while he screws your enemies. The lesson is that Pharaohs suck and Jews shouldn’t live in societies ruled by them."
"In 1982, a peculiar commercial aired on televisions across Japan. An actress in a pink floral dress and an updo drops paint on her hand and futilely attempts to wipe it off with toilet paper. She looks into the camera and asks: 'Everyone, if your hands get dirty, you wash them, right?' 'It’s the same for your bottom,' she continues. 'Bottoms deserve to be washed, too.' The commercial was advertising the Washlet, a new type of toilet seat with a then-unheard-of function: a small wand that extended from the back of the rim and sprayed water up. After its release, Toto, the Washlet’s maker, was deluged with calls and letters from viewers shocked by the concept. They were also angry that it was broadcast during evening prime time, when many were sitting down for dinner." Well, they got over the shock and anger and their bottoms are all the better for it. "Washlet-style bidets, sold by Toto and a few smaller rivals, are a common feature in Japan’s offices and public restrooms and account for more than 80 percent of all household toilets." Is the magic water wand finally catching on America. You bet your ass it is. NYT (Gift Article): The Rise of the Japanese Toilet. "Toto is selling more bidets in the United States. Toto’s president says not even tariffs will halt its advance." (The article mentions a few celebrities and influencers, but it's a safe bet that none of them has done as much to spread the Toto gospel as Howard Stern. He's been consistently describing his use of the product in extremely specific terms for years.)
Moving Companies: "China’s mass detention and surveillance of ethnic Uyghurs turned its far western region of Xinjiang into a global symbol of forced labor and human rights abuses, prompting Congress to ban imports from the area in 2021." What did China do then? They moved the Uyghurs. NYT (Gift Article): Far From Home: Uyghur Workers in Factories Supplying Global Brands. (Reminder: It's not that we don't need tougher standards and deals when it comes to trading with China. It's that our current efforts are counter-productive.)
+ Clean and Jerk: "More than $14 billion in clean energy investments in the U.S. have been canceled or delayed this year, according to an analysis released Thursday, as President Donald Trump’s pending megabill has raised fears over the future of domestic battery, electric vehicle and solar and wind energy development." (Even if you don't care about climate issues, that's a lot of spending and jobs down the tubes.)
+ What Elon Strange Trip It's Been: Elon Musk’s official role within the United States government is coming to an end. A breakup was inevitable. But much of the analysis I see of the split reads more like an Elon press release, taking everything he says at face value, ignoring the heinous damage he’s done, and discounting the role his efforts to increase his stock price plays in all this spin. (And don't be too happy about the Schadenfreude. Elon leaves his government gig with many massive government deals and, despite the damage he's done to his brands, he's still more than twice as rich as the world's second richest person.)
+ RF KO: "The decision also forfeited the U.S. government’s right to purchase doses ahead of a pandemic, and canceled an agreement set up by the Biden administration in January to prepare the nation for a potential bird flu pandemic." U.S. Cancels Contract With Moderna to Develop Bird Flu Vaccine. (Relax, everyone. It's not like a deadly disease could mutate and spread from birds to humans and then require a remarkable vaccine to save millions of lives...)
+ Tough News to Swallow: It's a small study, but new research out of UCSF suggests that cannabis presents cardiovascular risks, even when its consumed via edibles.
+ Detached Reality: "A Swiss Alpine village was largely wiped out on Wednesday after a massive glacier carrying rock and debris detached and roared down the mountainside, destroying everything in its path." (The accompanying video is crazy.)
+ Field of Dreams: " Justin seems normal, too. He's 36, tall and slender, and wears a backward baseball cap most days that gives him the look of a slacker teen. But for a certain subset of people, Justin is far from a normal person." How to Become a Fantasy-Sports Millionaire.
"The creator of ‘The White Lotus’ is doing a second season of ‘Survivor.’ He’s also competed on ‘The Amazing Race’ — twice — and even appeared on an episode of ‘The Dog Whisperer.’" Mike White, the Guy Behind the Most Prestigious Prestige TV Series, Can’t Stop Doing Reality Shows.
+ Chinese paraglider survives accidental 8,000m-high flight. He got caught in something accurately described as a cloud suck. (Now I need a new phrase to describe my bong hits.)
2025-05-29 01:23:06
So you want to repossess a yacht. The first step is pretty hard. Find the yacht. The second part is a lot harder. Prove which oligarch owns the yacht. To do that you'll need to dig through a global economy very much distinct from the one most of us operate in (or are even aware of). It's where drug cartels launder money. It's where authoritarian regimes move their ill-begotten gains. It's where arms dealers and terrorists work around pesky international laws and sanctions. "Though it’s often called a system, the offshore world is really more of an archipelago — a constellation of territories and nations operating with the same general aim of helping wealthy people move and hide their money. This world encompasses places as diverse as Hong Kong, Dubai, the Isle of Man, South Dakota and Curaçao and includes not only notorious tax havens like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands but also institutions and jurisdictions in the hearts of the countries that usually rank highest in global transparency indexes." NYT Mag (Gift Article) with a very interesting glimpse into that other economy. How to Hide a 350-Foot Megayacht. And spoiler-alert. The other economy has a new participant and proponent. He's in America's Oval Office. "Amid the fracas, it would have been easy to miss two lines, buried on the fourth page of a Justice Department memo, circulated two weeks into Trump’s second term: An interagency task force, colorfully named KleptoCapture, would be disbanded. Though KleptoCapture was hardly a household name, its demise was portentous — it indicated the administration’s unwillingness to fight the financial systems that not only allow Kremlin allies to disguise their wealth but also enable international drug cartels to operate with impunity, corrupt officials to launder money from bribes into luxury real estate and the ultrawealthy to avoid paying taxes."
In recent years, journalists and others who have warned of impending dangers in America were written off as being overly hysterical. In retrospect, they could rightly be criticized for having understated the threat. So these days, when I see a headline that includes the word Beware, I beware. M. Gessen in the NYT (Gift Article): Beware: We Are Entering a New Phase of the Trump Era. And it's not his phase. It's ours. "Once you’ve absorbed the shock of deportations to El Salvador, plans to deport people to South Sudan aren’t that remarkable. Once you’ve wrapped your mind around the Trump administration’s revoking the legal status of individual international students, a blanket ban on international enrollment at Harvard isn’t entirely unexpected. Once you’ve realized that the administration is intent on driving thousands of trans people out of the U.S. military, a ban on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care, which could have devastating effects for hundreds of thousands, just becomes more of the same. As in a country at war, reports of human tragedy and extreme cruelty have become routine — not news."
"More than three-quarters of Americans (77%) want companies to create AI slowly and get it right the first time, even if that delays breakthroughs." Well, as Mick and Keith suggested, you can't always get what you want. The AI arms race is on, it will make other tech advances of the internet age seem sluggish and quaint, and it could dramatically change the way our workforce looks. Quartz: The age of AI layoffs is already here. The reckoning is just beginning.
"'We’re going to be doing foreign aid. We’re going to be doing humanitarian relief, disaster relief,' Rubio told his former Senate Foreign Relations Committee colleagues ... There’s just one problem: They’re not doing it. Despite months of assurances by Rubio that the administration planned to maintain “lifesaving” aid, there has been a catastrophic halt to programs that — by any reasonable definition — prevent people from dying or being brutally harmed." WaPo (Gift Article): The White House keeps promising ‘lifesaving’ aid that’s not coming.
+ A B.U. professor has developed a tool for Tracking Anticipated Deaths from USAID Funding Cuts. It's not pretty. As Bono explained to Jimmy Kimmel during an interview in which he defended Bruce Springsteen, we're demolishing "instruments of mercy and compassion." Even musicians like Bono and Springsteen know those are the most important instruments we have.
Med Dread: "We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals because they’re all corrupt." That's RFK Jr on plans to stop publishing in the world's most trusted medical journals. The new plan? In-house publications. RFK Jr. says he may bar scientists from publishing in top medical journals.
+ Forecast of Hundreds: "The projections come from more than 200 forecasts using computer simulations run by 10 global centers of scientists." And what's the consensus? Heat. Get ready for several years of killer heat, top weather forecasters warn. (Don't worry. It's a dry heat.)
+ Partners in Crime: "President Trump will fully pardon the reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted three years ago of evading taxes and defrauding banks of more than $30 million to support their luxurious lifestyle." (In fairness, they were on reality TV, they didn't pay their taxes, they duped people into giving them money, they lied to banks, and they celebrated faux religiosity. How could Trump not pardon them?) NYT (Gift Article): Trump to Pardon Reality-Show Couple Convicted of $36 Million Fraud.
+ Cost Overrun: Netanyahu says Israel killed elusive Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in a recent Gaza strike. Hamas is a murderous organization and its leaders deserve their fate. But at this point, even Israel's staunchest allies are suggesting the price of the ongoing war is too high. Tom Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): The Flashing Signals That I Just Saw in Israel. "I did see signals flashing that more Israelis, from the left to the center and to even parts of the right, are concluding that continuing this war is a disaster for Israel: morally, diplomatically or strategically."
+ FIFA Fo Fum: "Their case quickly erupted into the biggest corruption scandal in modern sports history. It eventually led to 31 guilty pleas and multiple trial convictions. It recovered hundreds of millions of dollars. It triggered a reckoning at FIFA, the global soccer governing body at the center of the storm, and led to a raft of promised reforms." But ten years later, has anything at FIFA changed? How FIFAgate, soccer’s biggest scandal, became ‘a missed opportunity’ for reform. "FIFA, meanwhile, now boasts of 'excellent relations with President Trump [and] the Trump administration.'"
+ Teaching the Big Lie: "Starting with the next academic year, Oklahoma students in U.S. history classes will be asked to 'identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information,' including on 'sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.'" ‘Stop the Steal’ in U.S. History Class.
+ Meth Odd Actor: "Early on Memorial Day, a Florida man was bitten by an alligator as he swam across a lake. Bleeding from a bite to his right arm but undeterred, he climbed out, grabbed a pair of garden shears and walked into a gated neighborhood, alarming residents, according to local authorities. Within minutes, the man, Timothy Schulz, 42, of Mulberry, Fla., was dead — shot by sheriff’s deputies after, they say, he charged at them with the shears, failed to be subdued by a stun gun and tried to grab either a shotgun or rifle from their cruiser." NYT (Gift Article): Bitten by Alligator, Man Is Killed After Charging at Deputies, Sheriff Says. "Sheriff Judd also said that Mr. Schulz had a lengthy criminal history, which he described as 'meth arrest, meth arrest, meth arrest, meth arrest, meth arrest.'" (Seems like a decent starting point to begin to piece together a theory of the case.)
"'All the people at the top said they were going to steal my title but this is mine,' a shirtless Kopke declared as he clutched his prize — the 7-pound circle of cheese. 'I risked my life for this. It’s my cheese. Back to back.'" Runners trip, stumble and roll their way to victory in annual downhill cheese chase. And the photos are as great as you'd imagine.
2025-05-28 02:09:18
All that glitters is not gold. Some of it is gold plated or merely gold paint. Included among the many ways America has been changed in the first few months of Trump 2.0 is the transformation of the White House into a gilt complex. "Lately the American president has been spending quite a bit of time redecorating the Oval Office. The results can only be called a gilded rococo hellscape. If our leader’s appearance is a depiction of the country … Is this us?" (After electing a guilty man into the highest office, sadly, the answer is yes. Call it gilt by association). Trump, whose style has been called dictator chic is obsessed with all things gold, from gold in the Oval Office, to the Golden Dome he hopes will protect America from incoming missiles, to ordering in his favorite food from the Golden Arches. The NYT (Gift Article) on the updated White House stylings that give new meaning to fool's gold: All Hail Our Rococo President! "The most unusual additions to the office are two gilded mirrors that hang on either side of the fireplace. This is so quintessentially Mr. Trump that I’m surprised he didn’t think of it earlier. When standing in front of one, your reflection joins the pantheon of great leaders above you. It’s just like they say: In America anyone can grow up to become president." (That adage used to be viewed as a positive.)
+ In the grand scheme of things, slapping a little gold plating on the White House walls isn't a particularly big story. But it is connected to a very big one: our new transactional presidency, where everything has a price and no one is quite sure where the money is ending up. "Even seasoned practitioners of Washington pay-to-play have been startled by the new rules for buying influence. In December, a seat at a group dinner at Mar-a-Lago could be had for a million-dollar contribution to maga Inc., a super pac that serves as a war chest for the midterms. More recently, one-on-one conversations with the President have become available for five million. The return on investment is uncertain, a government-affairs executive told me: 'What if he’s in a bad mood? You have no clue where the money is eventually going.' Another lobbying veteran described the frank exchange as 'outer-borough Mafia shit.'" Evan Osnos in The New Yorker: Donald Trump’s Politics of Plunder.
+ "When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review. Thirty-one years later, after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor?" NYT (Gift Article): As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests.
+ While there are plenty of big financial scandals, the small ones are nearly endless. Everything is for sale. NYT (Gift Article): Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner. One assumes the dishes were gold plated.
"She had flown to Scotland to attempt to lift a massive set of boulders known as the Dinnie Stones, each outfitted with an iron ring. In the 120 years since a Scottish strongman famously hoisted the stones, thousands had tried and failed the test of strength. Of the 11 who had succeeded, all were men. She was 5-foot-7 and 195 pounds; the stones together weighed 733 pounds." Jan Todd lifted the boulders on her way to becoming known as the world's strongest woman. She also was on of the first and strongest proponents of strength training as part of a healthy lifestyle, right up there with aerobic exercise. That idea has never been more in vogue. NYT (Gift Article): Jan Todd May Be the Reason You’re Lifting Weights. (OK, now we just need to figure out who to blame for aerobic exercise and healthy eating...)
Humans have long searched for a drug that could offer a panacea for all of our ills. Have we already stumbled upon it? "Should Ozempic be added to the water supply? That is the kind of half-joking question that doctors kick around when a new class of drugs begins to help a big chunk of the population. Cardiologists used to quip about spiking water systems with cholesterol-reducing statins because of their ability to prevent heart attacks. Now, Ozempic and others in the 'GLP-1' category of drugs are approaching that critical mass. They are showing promise for an ever-expanding list of diseases, beyond today’s most common uses of weight loss and treating diabetes. Heart, kidney and liver diseases. Sleep apnea. Arthritis. Alzheimer’s disease. Alcohol addiction. Even aging. Some of these are potential benefits that need further study." WSJ (Gift Article): Should Everyone Be Taking Ozempic? Doctors Say More People Could Benefit.
"The warlords who sacked rome did not intend to doom Western Europe to centuries of ignorance. It was not a foreseeable consequence of their actions. The same cannot be said of the sweeping attack on human knowledge and progress that the Trump administration is now undertaking—a deliberate destruction of education, science, and history, conducted with a fanaticism that recalls the Dark Ages that followed Rome’s fall." (That is a lede for the ages.) The Atlantic (Gift Article): The New Dark Age. "The Trump administration has launched an attack on knowledge itself."
+ Trump administration moves to cancel all remaining federal contracts with Harvard.
Chuck Roast: In a rare speech from the throne in Canada, King Charles warned of dangers facing the country. "We must face reality: since the Second World War, our world has never been more dangerous and unstable. Canada is facing challenges that, in our lifetimes, are unprecedented ... many Canadians are feeling anxious and worried about the drastically changing world around them." (Yes, the King of the United Kingdom is warning Canada of the threat posed by the United States. Irony aside, it's one of our closest allies warning another of our closest allies about us. Not exactly a crowning moment.)
+ Americorpse: "About 32,000 low-paid AmeriCorps service workers lost their jobs over a few days in April." WaPo (Gift Article): A big Trump administration cutback went nearly unnoticed. "The April 25 move was one of the biggest government cutbacks since the Trump administration took office, but went largely unnoticed because most of the jobs were concentrated in nonprofit human services agencies that help underserved communities."
+ Exits Paved with Gold: "Blanco’s imprisonment came after more than a year navigating America’s arcane immigration system. His story underscores how companies make money at nearly every step of the deportation process—earning more than $13 billion in the last decade." WSJ: The Billion-Dollar Business Behind Trump’s Immigration Crackdown.
+ Losing Allies: "Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he now believes his country’s relentless assault on the Palestinian people amounts to 'war crimes' and must be stopped." That internal pressure on Bibi is matched by frustration from Israel's top allies. Israel’s Netanyahu under pressure from allies over Gaza.
+ Liverpool Rampage: "The incident late Monday afternoon turned a jubilant parade into a tragedy that sent 50 people to hospitals for treatment of their injuries. Eleven remained hospitalized Tuesday in stable condition." Driver arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after Liverpool soccer parade tragedy.
+ RFK Fires First Shot: Kennedy says COVID vaccines no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. (And masks only need to be worn if you work for ICE.)
+ Blue Skies: "The radio antenna in Spain where the piece is being broadcast is about 115 feet across, and is operated by the ESA. It supports uncrewed European missions to study the surface of Mars, create a map of the stars and take up-close pictures of the sun. On Saturday, it will take a break from that work." NPR: The European Space Agency will beam the famous 'Blue Danube' waltz into space. (Seems like something by Kid Rock might better represent the humankind of this moment.)
"Fans of viral Labubu dolls have reacted angrily online after its maker pulled the toys from all UK stores following reports of customers fighting over them. Pop Mart, which makes the monster bag charms, told the BBC it had paused selling them in all 16 of its shops until June to prevent any potential safety issues." This sounded like another story about entirely unrelatable, crazy collectors ... until I clicked through and realized how much I want a Labubu doll...