2026-03-11 03:29:20
When Yakult first hired a team of women to deliver its sweetened probiotic fermented milk beverage directly to the front doors of people living in Japan, the goal was to spread the word about the benefits of the gut-healthy consumable and increase sales. That part worked. “These women appealed particularly to other women, who were more likely to make decisions about household groceries, and were often already known to the people they delivered to – a familiarity that helped foster trust.” The drink became a hit in Japan, and it’s now sold in 40 countries. But over the decades, as Japan’s population has aged, the company and its customers realized that the service delivered a benefit beyond the microbiome. It provided a bit of a social infrastructure. It turns out that hanging out, even briefly, with one other human being can be as valuable as spending every day with the 6.5 billion live and active Lacticaseibacillus paracasei Shirota strains found in each small bottle of Yakult. “Japan is the world’s most rapidly aging major economy. Nearly 30% of its population is now over 65, and the number of elderly people living alone continues to rise. As families shrink and traditional multi-generational households decline, isolation has become one of the country’s most pressing social challenges. The suited woman is a Yakult Lady – one of tens of thousands across Japan who deliver the eponymous probiotic drinks directly to people’s homes. On paper, they’re delivery workers, but in practice they’re part of the country’s informal social safety net.” BBC The yogurt delivery women combating loneliness in Japan. (Alt link.) As far as I can tell, Yakult delivery addresses the two biggest challenges we face as we age: Isolation and regularity.
“I think the war is very complete, pretty much.” No, that wasn’t George S. Patton or Ulysses S. Grant. That was Donald Trump’s general message to the world (generally) and the markets (more specifically, and perhaps, for him, more importantly). The Pentagon is giving a different message. The Pentagon says this will be ‘our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.’ And from The Hill: Trump, Pentagon give conflicting signals on end to Iran war. Sun Tzu said that “all warfare is based on deception.” We’re taking it next level by not only deceiving the enemy, but often deceiving ourselves.
+ “If the conflict turns into a protracted war of attrition, Russia looks set to become a clear beneficiary, raking in profits from spiking oil and natural-gas prices.” WSJ (Gift Article): U.S. and Iran Predicted a Very Different War Than the One Now Being Waged. Russia has shared targeting Intel with Iran. Trump just gave them sanction-busting waivers to sell oil. So CNBC asked Steve Witkoff about that odd sequence of events. CNBC: “Do we think the Russians have shared intel about US military assets, and if so, why would we be giving waivers on oil sanctions?” Witkoff: “I can tell you that on the call with POTUS, the Russians said they have not been sharing. That’s what they said. We can take them at their word.” (It’s gonna take a few hundred gallons of Yakult to fix my gut after reading that quote...)
+ Here’s the latest from the NYT, including the increasing damage being done in Lebanon and this: “The U.S. Navy has ‘successfully escorted’ an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a post on X. He did not provide further details. The escort would appear to be the first of its kind since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has paralyzed shipping through the strait. UPDATE: Shortly after the post was published, it disappeared from Wright’s account without explanation.” What did Sun Tzu say about establishing dominance over your enemy through the art of deletion?
“Americans are really, really good at throwing things away. The country produces nearly 300 million tons of trash a year, and billions of dollars in reusable materials end up in landfills, even after passing through recycling bins. The problem has always been sorting it all — pulling the wheat from the chaff or in this case, the aluminum can from the dirty diaper.” Can AI solve the problem? Robots, cameras, and lots of data about garbage: Inside the recycling industry’s new bet. (With our luck, sorting through garbage will be the one job our AI overlords let us keep...)
“We learned to focus on the rare thing at the expense of what was around it—psychologists call this ‘tunneling’—and to prioritize avoiding loss over gaining rewards. It was typically smarter to fight for something everyone else wanted than to waste time looking for something else. That animal wisdom is a reason our species survived. It is also a reason that, in late 2025, you could find a grown adult—a person who lives in the kind of material plenitude our distant ancestors could never dream of—in a Starbucks parking lot before dawn, desperately seeking a coffee cup shaped like a teddy bear. You see, this coffee cup was available only as a drop.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Highly Exclusive Way That Everybody Shops Now. “When everything’s a drop, what’s the point of a drop?”
Limp Election: “President Donald Trump said Monday he won’t sign any other legislation into law until Congress passes a strict proof-of-citizenship voting bill that he says also must end Americans’ ability to vote by mail, a startling demand months before the midterm elections.” (He’s definitely clear and consistent when it comes to waging war on democracy.) From The New Yorker: The Latest Republican Efforts to Make It Harder to Vote in the Midterms.
+ You’re Getting Warmer: “Scientists determined that on average, those 65 and older experience a month a year when heat prevents them from routine activities. Parts of Asia, Africa, Australia and North America are becoming unlivable for senior citizens ... Overall, more than a third of the global population resides in regions where heat severely affects daily life.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Extreme Heat Is Making Life Increasingly Unlivable. (How do these people not know climate change is a hoax?)
+ On Radioactive Duty: “Fifteen years later, 4,000 workers struggle to control the ongoing disaster. The three melted reactors remain so radioactive that they destroy the robots sent to explore the damage.” Fukushima at 15: The Fallout Continues. And a photo essay from AP: An innkeeper in Fukushima measures radiation to revive her hometown.
+ You’ve Got Ice in Your Names: “Iceland, the Nordic nation, has prevailed over Iceland, the British supermarket chain specializing in frozen foods, ending a decade-long legal dispute over the supermarket’s exclusive rights to the ‘Iceland’ name.” NYT: Iceland Defeats Iceland: A U.K. Supermarket Ends a Trademark Dispute.
+ Plug and Play: Winners of the British Wildlife Photography Awards 2026.
Have GLP-1s finally met their match? Lindt, which makes chocolate Easter bunnies, says weight-loss drug users are eating more chocolate, not less.
+ “He’s just one guy. One freaking guy. You have got to stop coming here, day after day, screaming into me about him.” McSweeney’s: The Void Would Very Much Like You to Stop Screaming Into It. (That’s the beauty of NextDraft. I scream so you don’t have to...)
2026-03-10 03:42:59
When Tim Sheehy ran against incumbent Jon Tester for a Montana Senate seat in 2024, it looked like an uphill battle. But for Sheehy, it turned into a battle royal, as he gained the backing of a billionaire. And then another billionaire. And so on, and so on. “At least 64 billionaires and 37 of their immediate family members donated directly to his campaign ... When also accounting for money that flowed through political committees that support Mr. Sheehy, an analysis shows that billionaires contributed about $47 million in the race that Mr. Sheehy went on to win.” These days, there’s a word for the way Sheehy used the backing of billionaires to ultimately win his race. That word is normal. Since the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision, which found that donations were a form of speech, billionaires have been investing the equivalent of rounding errors to dominate political races like never before. NYT (Gift Article): Billionaires Are Swaying Elections in All Corners of America. “The extraordinary spending in Montana is part of a new era of political power for the rapidly growing number of billionaires minted over the past eight years. The Times analysis found that 300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion — 19 percent of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, either directly or through political action committees. Five presidential elections ago, before the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that lifted many remaining campaign finance restrictions, the share of billionaire spending was almost zero — 0.3 percent, to be precise.” Of course, the dominance of billionaire money in campaigns will result in winning candidates who support policies that will make more billionaires. “The number of U.S. billionaires jumped 50 percentby some estimates between 2017 and 2025.” If this trend keeps up, who knows, we may soon have enough billionaires to turn ourselves back into a democracy. In the meantime, Americans are left hoping the billionaires on their side beat the billionaires on the other side, as our election system goes bankrupt.
“Protesters, observers and passersby taken into custody by federal agents were declared terrorists and attackers in hundreds of social-media posts by U.S. officials and departments since the start of the immigration sweeps in cities ... Of the 279 people accused by officials on X of attacking federal officers in the past year, 181 were U.S. citizens, the Journal found. Close to half of those Americans were never charged with assault. None have been convicted at trial.” WSJ (Gift Article): Americans Are Now a Target in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown. (Just in case Minneapolis didn’t already convince you of that...)
+ ICE Detention of Teen Musicians Roils Texas Mariachi Community. (Feel safer?)
+ “At one point he said he overheard a security guard talking about bets made among the staff over which detainee would be next to die by suicide.” AP: Attempted suicides, fights, pain: 911 calls reveal misery at ICE’s largest detention facility.
It would be amazing for Israel, the region, the world, and especially the Iranian people if Iran’s regime were ultimately replaced by a more decent and democratic system. The question of whether this war of choice will achieve that outcome rests largely on the decisions being made by the administration that chose it. That’s worrisome. For now, Khamenei has been replaced by Khamenei. Time: Mojtaba Khamenei Has Wielded Power Behind the Scenes For Years. (Between the bombing from above and the contempt on the ground, Mojtaba Khamenei just took on the most dangerous job in the world.)
+ “Trump, with his usual inconsistency, has called for Iranians to rise up against the ruthless theocracy—last week, he demanded its ‘unconditional surrender’—but also said that he’s prepared to deal with a new religious leader.” Robin Wright in The New Yorker: Where Is the Iran War Headed? And will the answer to that question have more to do with what helps the Iranian people or what helps oil prices, which are surging.
+ Oil isn’t the only fluid we need to worry about. Vital Desalination Plants in Iran and Bahrain Are Attacked.
+ Even someone who lies all day every day can still occasionally sicken us with a lie. And so it was over the weekend when President Trump indicated that Iran bombed the school for girls that was hit in Tehran. Video appears to show U.S. cruise missile striking Iranian school compound.
+ Trump invented to story about the school bombing hours after he attended a dignified transfer ceremony wearing a baseball cap. Fox News apologizes for showing old video of a hatless Donald Trump at a dignified transfer ceremony.
+ WSJ (Gift Article): Lindsey Graham’s Quest to Sell Trump on Striking Iran.
+ “Stocks fell on fears of the effects of the Iran war on energy prices. The toll of the escalated fighting rose sharply in Lebanon, where more than 600,000 people have been displaced.” Here’s the latest from the NYT.
“The Justice Department has reached a tentative settlement of its antitrust litigation against Live Nation, the concert giant that includes Ticketmaster, after a week of testimony in a high-profile trial that examined competition in the music industry.” Justice Department and Live Nation Reach Settlement Terms in Antitrust Case. (Why do I have the feeling that Live Nation is about to buy the naming rights for the new White House ballroom?)
+ Trump bought Netflix and Warner Bros bonds at height of bidding war with Paramount.
Right Here, Right Now: “The showdown between the Pentagon and Anthropic is a window into how unprepared we are for the questions we are already facing. In July, Anthropic signed a deal with the Pentagon to integrate Claude, its A.I. system, into the military’s operations. The contract included two red lines: Claude could not be used for mass surveillance or for lethal autonomous weapons. Over the ensuing months, the Pentagon decided these prohibitions were intolerable.” Ezra Klein in the NYT (Gift Article): The Future We Feared Is Already Here. Meanwhile, Anthropic sues Trump administration amid AI dispute with Pentagon.
+ Havana Syndrome: “Since at least 2016, U.S. diplomats, spies and military officers have suffered crippling brain injuries. They’ve told of being hit by an overwhelming force, damaging their vision, hearing, sense of balance and cognition. but the government has doubted their stories. They’ve been called delusional. Well now, 60 Minutes has learned that a weapon that can inflict these injuries was obtained overseas and secretly tested on animals on a U.S. military base.” U.S. military tested device that may be tied to Havana Syndrome on rats, sheep, confidential sources say.
+ The Pace of Corruption: “Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s sons, are backing a new drone company that is vying to meet fresh demand from the Pentagon and fill a hole left by the administration’s ban on new Chinese drones in the U.S.”
+ Plug Bug: The uncomfortable truth about hybrid vehicles. Apparently, no one plugs them in. (I’m among the outliers. I almost never have to fill mine up with gas.)
+ Plug and Play: “It is estimated that every year more than one million bald people fly to Istanbul.” Hair apparent: inside the transplant capital of the world.
+ Marathon and a Half: “Martin, 36, is a substitute teacher and a high school track and cross country coach at Jackson High School.” American Nathan Martin wins closest Los Angeles Marathon finish. You’ve got to see this finish. Meanwhile, Jacob Kiplimo just set a new record in the half marathon. “The man needed just 57 minutes and 20 seconds to run 13.1 miles, which is an average pace of 4:22 per mile.”
When Ryan Gosling hosts SNL, you know that he and others will break and laugh. That happened in a wedding kiss skit and a cyclops skit. And for the first time, there was a skit actually designed to make the participants break. Passing Notes.
2026-03-07 03:53:33
The House always wins. The same is not true for the Frat House. Founders of prediction markets—or gambling sites that have recently added sports gambling to the mix—know how to place a smart bet. That’s why they’re headed to college. While these sites are susceptible to insider trading and market manipulation, neither of those strategies was required for Kalshi and Polymarket to identify a valuable target market. There was already a gambling scourge spreading across college campuses, particularly among males who have adopted sports betting as a normal part of university life. Some non-profits say that as many as 10% of college students could be classified as pathological gamblers. And those numbers were added up before prediction markets took off. So, given the profits over ethics vibe of our current classless cultural moment, it would be safe to bet that prediction markets are coming to a fraternity near you. WSJ (Gift Article): The Prediction Market Bets Driving a Campus Frenzy. “Both companies have begun splashing cash on campuses. Polymarket has offered to pay fraternities, in exchange for signing up users, money that can be spent on throwing ‘epic parties’—one frat raised $30,510 over a two-week period. Both platforms have been paying student influencers to promote them as ways to raise fun money, enlisting student athletes as brand representatives and supporting student clubs ... Polymarket also reached out to fraternities and social clubs across the University of California, Berkeley, last fall, according to students there, offering company-branded beer pong cups and up to $1,000 for parties.” The targeting of youth, many of whom are too young to participate in regular gambling, isn’t stopping orgs like AP, Google, CNN, and the NHL (and the platform I’m sending this newsletter out on) from partnering with the prediction markets, because of a distorted belief that they provide some kind of wisdom of the crowds version of truth. But throwing the fuel of legalized gambling on the fire already engulfing college campuses is a bad bet. Especially if it pays off.
+ Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic (Gift Article): A Technology for a Low-Trust Society. “This is the central lie of prediction markets: They claim to get us closer to the truth but, in the end, they make us less certain about the world. But this erosion of trust is a feature, not a bug, for these platforms. A world where people are suspicious of every motive is a world where the cold logic of gambling feels more rational. A zero-trust society is one where the prediction markets’ dubious ‘wisdom of crowds’ marketing seems extra appealing. In this way, prediction markets are a system that justifies its own existence—a well-oiled machine chipping away at societal trust while offering a convenient solution to its own problem.”
+ Think I’m making Kalshi and Polymarket seem too hateable? Well, consider this: They hate each other, too.
America needs group therapy. In a 25-country survey by Pew, Americans were especially likely to view fellow citizens as morally bad. “In nearly all countries surveyed, more people say that others in their country have somewhat or very good morals than say their compatriots display somewhat or very bad levels of morality. The United States is the only place we surveyed where more adults (ages 18 and older) describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad (53%) than as good (47%).” We don’t just disagree. We dislike our fellow Americans and view each other as bad people. This divisiveness, sadly, is a dream scenario for those with anti-democratic leanings (which is one reason why they spend so much time spewing hate and dividing us).
“We are aware that stuff is happening that we should care about, but the fog of bullshit surrounding this stuff is so thick that we can barely make out its shape or heft. Less than six weeks have passed since Alex Pretti was shot dead by C.B.P. agents in Minneapolis, and yet that, too, already feels like yesterday’s problem.” In The New Yorker, Jay Caspian Kang tries to explain how it sort of makes sense that we could have A No-Explanation War.
+ “Hegseth tries so hard—too hard—to project a tough-guy persona, as if a lot of unresolved issues, a lot of brokenness, are playing themselves out in his life. He seems to be trying to prove a great deal, to himself and to others. There’s a certain poignancy in that. But there’s a danger in that, too, when the person in question happens to be the secretary of defense.” The Atlantic(Gift Article): Pete Hegseth’s Troubled Soul.
+ There’s no doubt that America’s air power has been a dominant force. But there’s something sick about talking about it the way Hegseth does. Especially because we know that war kills innocent victims, not just evil regime members. Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian Naval Base.
+ Trump Demands Iran Surrender as War Upends Global Markets. That may be hard for the surviving members of the regime to do, since it’s essentially signing a death certificate. But they are under extreme pressure, and they don’t have many friends left. Reuters: Iran spent years fostering proxies in Iraq. Now, many aren’t eager to join the war. The weakness Iran showed during the 12-day war was a strong negative signal to their proxies.
+ Meanwhile, maybe someone can turn this into a really exciting TV show or internet meme and get it in front of Trump. WaPo(Gift Article): Russia is providing Iran intelligence to target U.S. forces, officials say. Enemy’s gonna enemy.
What to Rock: It turns out that the best way to get an especially great performance out of a musician is to put them on a stage in an arena filled with music legends. That’s one reason why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies always make for great shows. And the most recent one honoring Soundgarden, OutKast, Warren Zevon, Bad Company, and others was no exception. I teared up during Letterman’s tribute to Zevon and got the chills during Brandi Carlile’s note-hitting during Black Hole Sun. The 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony is on Hulu and Disney Plus.
+ What to Watch: Scrubs has made its return to TV. And it serves up the same goofy, feel-good comedy as it did the first time around (only we may need that a little more now).
+ What to Binge: The Peaky Blinders movie is hitting theaters this weekend. That doesn’t give me much time to binge all six seasons on Netflix. Gonna be a busy weekend...
Off the Job: “The US economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, Labor Department data released Friday showed, sharply missing economists’ expectations and stalling the nascent hiring growth that started the year.” (On Truth Social, I’m guessing this is Biden’s fault. Job growth was so good under his administration that it had to go down under Trump!)
+ Noem on the Range: It’s worth noting that Kristi Noem was not fired for overseeing the murder of American citizens or sending untried men to overseas terror prisons, she was fired for a poor TV performance when being questioned by Congress, building her own image, and grifting without permission. Why Trump Changed His Mind on Kristi Noem. “It wasn’t the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year that finally cost Noem her job ... it was her self-promotion.
+ Get Out of Jail Cardholders: Pardons are for sale these days. You just have to make sure you pay the right person. Or pay enough people that someone in the group can get the job done. NYT (Gift Article): Pardon Industry Offers Rich Offenders a Path to Trump.
+ Six Figures: Not everyone had to pay for their pardon. The Jan 6 rioters got theirs for free. Society’s deal has been less good. A Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump was sentenced to life in prison for child sex abuse.
+ Rubio’s Résumé: Trump tells CNN Cuba is soon going to fall: “I’m going to put Marco over there.”
+ In Pod We Trust: When the iPhone first came out, I predicted (luckily, only inside my own mind) that people wouldn’t want to mix their music with all the distractions featured on a smartphone. It’s still unclear if the iPhone is really going to catch on, but a handful of young people are tired of the distractions and are reaching for old-school iPods. Bring On Defunct: The iPod Enthralls Young Music Listeners. (Just as I predicted!)
“Hill is part of a small group of creative types who have found healthy demand for analog subscription services in a world of digital screens. They create or curate packets of art prints, stickers, letters and commentary covering topics from architecture to food to their daily routines. They often use social media to find and market to fans but the real connection happens offline.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Crossing Guard Making $14,000 a Month Mailing Out Her Musings From the Job.
+ His opera career stalled. Now he’s a car salesman, and his ads are viral.
+ If you’re going to lose your money, lose it in Japan. Someone will probably give it back. Record 4.5 billion yen in lost cash turned in to Tokyo police in 2025.
+ A wholesome, affirming forum for bald people.
+ If you missed it, everyone seems to love, A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator. “What I do is I take things that are perfectly fine, and I make them worse. More specifically, I make it shitty.”
2026-03-06 04:21:22
I’ve been taking a GLP-1 to combat high blood sugar for quite a while. A few months ago, I was in a room where, one by one, some fellow injectors explained how the use of the drug had instantly and completely turned off their food noise — the constant, intrusive, persistent thoughts about food. As each person offered their near religious testimony, I fingered the collar of the custom t-shirt I made for the occasion, and one thought entered my mind: Pesto Pasta and Garlic Bread. And that thought stayed in my head throughout the discussion, and beyond. I’m thinking about Pesto Pasta right now. There’s no doubt that the GLP-1 has had an impact on the amount I eat and the levels of glucose in my blood, but apparently, it’s no match for my perpetual and thunderous food noise. I like to view this as evidence of superior mental strength. Whatever it is, I am definitely in the minority. And GLP-1s aren’t just turning off food noise. For many, they’re a miracle mute button that can turn off cigarette noise, alcohol noise, opioid noise, gambling noise, and more. Much more. GLP‑1 drugs may fight addiction across every major substance, according to a study of 600,000 people. This news has me thinking that maybe I should up my dose. It also has me thinking about sesame noodles, dim sum, a fresh, soft and still warm everything bagel, mint-chip ice cream, and PB&J spread across the entirety of a loaf of sourdough.
War, huh, good God y’all, What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Edwin Starr’s anti-war song worked in part because of its simplicity. Limited combat operations, huh, good God Y’alljust doesn’t hit the same way. Neither does, Hostilities, huh, good God Y’all. That doesn’t even have a good rhyme. But anti-war song composers will have to come up with something. Because whatever is happening in Iran, it’s not a war. “When President Trump gave reporters a brief update this week on the accelerating bombing campaign against Iran, he said, ‘We’re doing very well on the war front.’ That complicated matters for Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have spent the days since the U.S.-Israeli attacks began engaging in semantic gymnastics to describe the widening conflict as a ‘major combat operation,’ a ‘mission,’ ‘hostilities’ or really just anything other than ‘war.’” NYT (Gift Article): Republicans Toil to Avoid Saying ‘War’ as Iran Conflict Widens. (What is this abject stupidity and wholly unserious response to this very serious moment good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again, y’all.)
+ “In announcing the goal of regime change through air power alone, President Trump is up against the weight of history. Not just Iran, but the weight of history. For over a century, states—including the United States, European states, Russia, and Israel—have tried to topple regimes with air power alone. It has never—and I’m choosing my words carefully—it has never worked.” Trump Cannot Achieve Iran Goals With Bombing Alone, Expert on Airpower Warns. Can the Kurds offer a ground war solution? Iranian Kurdish Forces Say They May Enter Iran. Who Are the Kurds?
+ Trump says he has to be involved in picking Iran’s next leaderas war ripples across the region. (In fairness, this is Trump’s version of American democracy.)
+ Here’s the latest from NBC, Times of Israel, and the NYT.
In an administration that prides itself on hiring the worst possible people and gleefully celebrates their awful performances, it’s really something to be fired. Congrats to Kristi Noem for the achievement. Trump ousts DHS secretary Kristi Noem and replaces her with Republican senator. “Noem’s tenure was marked by killings of US citizens by federal agents, a rumored affair, and $220m spent on ads.” Noem will still be part of the administration in her new role as Envoy for The Shield of the Americas. (I can never remember if that role is DC or Marvel...)
+ Here’s the new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin saying of our Iran efforts that “this is war” before explaining that it is in fact, not war. (Think about it. If Mullin doesn’t oversee the murder and disparaging of American citizens, that alone will make him a major improvement.)
“The Philadelphia Inquirer hadn’t written much about suburbs like Lower Merion, Pa., and Cherry Hill, N.J. for years. Now it is revisiting those communities—with an assist from AI. Last year, the Inquirer launched newsletters in four locations, amassing more than 50,000 free subscriptions.” WSJ (Gift Article): Can AI Save Local News? (A new technology that can synthesize information from a variety of sources to produce a clear and cogent newsletter? There was a time when this would have threatened me. But given the 2026 news cycle, I’m willing to be replaced...)
Payback Time: “A federal judge ruled that the US government must begin paying out more than $130 billion in tariff refunds to US businesses in another setback for the Trump administration after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s wide-reaching ‘reciprocal’ tariffs.” (Wait, I thought other countries paid for the tariffs...)
+ The Claude Squad: Consumers have migrated to Anthropic in support of their stand when it comes to the Pentagon. Now, some defense experts have backed the company in a letter to Congress. Anthropic’s investors? Meh. Meanwhile, a leaked memo from Anthropic’s CEO suggests that the acrimony is due in part to the fact that “we haven’t given dictator-style praise to Trump.” All this aside, Anthropic’s AI tool Claude has been central to U.S. campaign in Iran.
+ Vlad Handing: “Russia is one of the biggest winners in the early days of the largest U.S. military confrontation in decades, as Iranian missiles deplete stocks of Patriot interceptors that Ukraine needs for its defense.” Oh...
+ Hey Norm! “At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded by billionaire Steve Feinberg, who until last year ran the company and is now the deputy secretary of defense — the second-highest-ranking official in the Pentagon. Feinberg oversees the office in charge of the Golden Dome for America project.” There’s a word for this. The Norm. Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate.
+ Membership Has Its Untowards: “The group chat — verified by two people in the group — reveals the extent of racism and extremism within the highest ranks of campus Republican Party leadership in Miami at a time Florida’s Republicans are reckoning with an increasingly emboldened far right.” ‘Nazi heaven’: Inside Miami campus Republicans’ racist group chat. (These guys should reserve this kind of commentary for X, where it belongs.)
+ If These Malls Could Talk: A London Shopping Mall Was Dying. Then Taylor Swift Put It in a Music Video.
“What I do is I take things that are perfectly fine, and I make them worse. More specifically, I make it shitty.”
2026-03-05 04:37:07
The market has managed to take in stride things like massive regional wars, Constitutional crises, attacks on law and order, illegal tariffs, and the cracking of the foundation that underpins the modern global order. Even with all these factors at play, nothing moves the market like AI news. For a while, that meant that any press release indicating a company was digging deeper into AI led to a share price boost. More recently, many of the bigger movements have been reactions to the threat posed by AI. The Saas-pocalypse hit many big tech players when investors worried that their functions would be replaced by OpenAI and Anthropic. So tech companies know they have to play the AI market right, and that they have to play the AI news and hype cycle right. And, as is the case with many of the answers you get from LLMs, it can be almost impossible to dissect reality from hallucinations (some of which are intended).
At this point, there’s little doubt that the AI revolution will have an outsized impact on white collar jobs, from how they’re done to how many of them will survive. We’re already seeing worrying signs in the job market. But we’re also seeing signs that corporate CEOs looking to lighten costs via layoffs might use the emergence of AI as an excuse for doing so. This can play as good news in the investment world, which loves lowering costs through layoffs and loves any signal that a company is becoming an AI company. Thus, telling the market you’re preemptively laying off thousands of employees and replacing them with AI can create a perfect storm for a company’s share price. For employees, it’s more of a shitstorm.
Aaron Zamost, a former employee of Block, examines that company’s recent layoffs made in the name of AI, and what they might mean for both the future of public companies and the stories they spin. “Look closer at specific cuts — like shrinking the policy team and eliminating diversity and inclusion roles, former colleagues told me — and Block’s latest reorganization reads like standard prioritization and cost management, not an A.I.-driven reinvention ... Fear that the A.I. tsunami will destroy the traditional software field has led investors to pummel the valuations of long-established companies like Salesforce and Adobe. Like those businesses, Block is not an A.I. company. It is a financial services tech business, and it understandably wants to avoid ‘software dodo’ extinction before it comes for its industry. In that respect, A.I. is both a story line and a survival strategy.” NYT (Gift Article): I Worked for Block. Its A.I. Job Cuts Aren’t What They Seem. Of course, in the market, news is like stock shares. The only thing that matters is what investors buy. And they bought Block’s story. “Wall Street rewarded Block handsomely, sending the company’s stock up 24 percent after the announcement. That incentivizes the rest of corporate America to follow Block’s lead and announce traditional layoffs while playing the A.I. card. I’m sure it will.”
The situation in Iran and the region is fluid. Two fluids in particular might drive the course and duration of the war. You can probably guess the first one. WSJ (Gift Article): Strait of Hormuz: The Oil Bottleneck Threatening the Global Economy. But there’s another fluid that could also be at risk. Javier Blas in Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Iran War’s Most Precious Commodity Isn’t Oil. “The CIA calls it the ‘strategic commodity’ of the Middle East. But it’s not referring to oil or natural gas. What the American spy agency has in mind is far more prosaic: drinking water. Don’t underestimate it, though, because if military hostilities continue to escalate, water could become the geopolitical commodity that decides the war between the US and Iran.”
+ “The president specializes in exploiting the weaknesses of his opponents; having watched Israel decimate Iran’s proxy armies and air defenses over the past few years, he sought to capitalize on the regime’s moment of maximum vulnerability. Other countries—most notably Israel and Saudi Arabia—potentially stand to benefit from Trump’s war. But the decision to start it was his alone, and no amount of spin from his surrogates should obscure this fact.” Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Real Reason Trump Went to War. (I don’t pretend to be able to understand the inner workings of Trump’s mind. But there’s no doubt that the 12-day war showed the region and the world how weak and vulnerable Iran is. Whether this invasion was the best way to respond to that weakness remains to be seen.)
+ The U.S. has been remarkably effective at blocking attacks from Iran. But doing so, at this point, requires the use of expensive munitions to block cheaper ones. That could be a factor as this war plays out. And it is very likely on the minds of America’s stronger and more dangerous adversaries. The Dangerous Munitions Mismatch Between America and Iran.
+ “The U.S. has torpedoed an Iranian ship in international waters in the Indian Ocean, among 20 vessels the U.S. military says it has struck.” And bigger strikes may still be coming. According to Hegseth, America and Israel would soon be able to deliver “death and destruction all day long.” (Which is exactly how you don’t want your secretary of defense to talk.) Meanwhile, “NATO air defenses had shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran that had been heading toward Turkish airspace.” Here’s the latest from NBC, ABC, and NYT.
“A lingering question is why the group was clustered together if the guides knew the group was traveling below avalanche terrain. Standard backcountry protocol is to expose only one person at a time if traveling through an avalanche path.” There were several small decisions that led to a massive disaster in the Sierras. The Atlantic (Gift Article): California’s Deadliest Avalanche Turned on One Choice.
“One senses that the climate crisis is not only threatening to destroy property, but is also challenging the confidence of both the insurers and the insured, perhaps providing a hint at fault lines in the economic system.” In fact, economic dangers go hand in hand with climate dangers. Here in California, we’re already seeing insurance companies flee or move customers to much higher-priced and less secure plans. I’ve said it many times. If you want to know how real the threat of climate change is, just follow the re-insurance companies. Aeon: The insurance catastrophe.
+ The sea is higher than we thought and millions more are at risk, study finds.
Talarico-Dependent: There were several primaries across the country on Tuesday, as the 2026 midterms officially kicked off. None were more watched than the ones in Texas, on both sides of the aisle. Does a matchup between James Talarico and either Ken Paxton or John Cornyn suggest the state may really be in play for Dems? Politico: ‘A perfect storm is lining up for Texas Democrats’
+ Trans Parent: “An emergency Supreme Court ruling to temporarily bar California from enforcing a state law that prevents public schools from outing transgender students has advocates raising concerns about its potential to further roll back protections for transgender youth.” (This SCOTUS may surprise us occasionally on economic issues like tariffs, but never when it comes to the religiosity war in America.) Advocates Fear Supreme Court Is ‘Going After the Transgender Community Deliberately.’
+ That’s What Kalshi Said: “On Kalshi, people have placed bets on everything from football games to foreign affairs. The prediction market’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, says this doesn’t count as gambling—and is actually good for society.” Let me counter slightly. It is gambling. And, along with the sports betting sweeping the country (particularly among young men), it is terrible for society. And I’d bet on that. Steven Levy in Wired: How Is Kalshi Not Gambling?
+ Destigmatize: “This government initiative, called One of Us, works with people who have mental health challenges — the program calls them ambassadors — to share their stories in schools, hospitals and police stations, with a focus on their recovery.” NYT (Gift Article): A Danish Program Takes On the Stigma of Mental Illness.
+ Dunkin on Someone: RFK Jr “took aim at processed foods and singled out Dunkin’ and Starbucks for particular scrutiny ... ‘We’re going to ask Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, ‘Show us the safety data that show that it’s OK for a teenage girl to drink an iced coffee with 115 grams of sugar in it ... I don’t think they’re gonna be able to do it.” (I don’t either. But I also don’t think fighting Dunkin’, Starbucks, and teenage girls, all at once, is a winning strategy. Also, I’d rather my daughter get a Frappuccino than measles.)
+ Is Neo the One: Apple unveils its entry into the lower-priced laptop market, and begins to sort of merge mobile with MacBooks. The Verge: Our first hands-on look at Apple’s MacBook Neo. (Why do the lower-priced versions of tech products often get the cooler color choices?)
+ Photo Finish: Finalists from the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards Professional Competition.
Crystal Meth: “If you give a chimp a crystal, she might not give it back. Researchers learned this the hard way. They gave quartz, calcite and other types of crystals to chimpanzees in a rehabilitation center. The apes responded with great interest, and the researchers ended up needing to trade large amounts of bananas and yogurt to get back the largest crystal. Others were never retrieved.” Chimpanzees Are Really Into Crystals.
2026-03-04 03:15:30
In The New Yorker, Susan Glasser goes over some of the reasons we’ve been given that America launched the Iran war. “In the two and a half days since Donald Trump unleashed a new war in the Middle East, the President and his Administration have come up with an astonishing array of different, even contradictory, rationales for the American military attack on Iran. By my count, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few, these include outright regime change, assistance to the oppressed peoples of the Islamic Republic, stripping Iran of ‘the ability to project power outside its borders,’ stopping future Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks while exacting revenge for past ones, preëmptive action against an imminent Iranian threat to attack U.S. forces, preëmptive action to block Iran from building ballistic missiles that could hit the U.S. mainland, and preëmptive action to stop the Iranian nuclear program that Trump had, as recently as last week, claimed was ‘obliterated.’ Many of these explanations are based on false premises; some already seem to have been abandoned.” Can Donald Trump Win a War with Iran If He Can’t Explain Why He Started It? I touched on this issue in yesterday’s edition, where I argued that Epic Fury looks a little more like Blind Fury. Among the most preposterous reasons given for launching an attack when they did was served up by Marco Rubio, who explained that the US had to strike Iran before Israel did—because an Israeli pre-emptive strike would have put troops in the region in danger, so the U.S. was cornered into striking first. This could be one of the more gutless falsehoods ever spewed by buck-passing men famous for spewing them nonstop. Has Bibi been pushing for the US to strike and reduce the threat posed by a regime as determined to destroy Israel as it was to violently squelch dissent among its own citizens? Yes. Were there a lot of other voices across the region (including Saudi Arabia) lobbying Trump to make a move? Yes. But a government that spent months building up forces in the Middle East, changing its defense department name to the Department of War, and tough-talking its lethality, can hardly pass the buck and say, our ally made us do it (even though Let’s the blame the Jews can be a convenient reflex among this crowd). No, this is Trump’s war. Don’t take my word for it. Take his. He was none too pleased with Rubio’s assessment. “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand. We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they [Iran] were going to attack first.”
+ The broader issue remains. It’s still unclear to everyone from the American public to top Congressional officials exactly why we attacked now and what our ultimate goals are. Just today, Trump told reporters: “I guess the worst case would be — we do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person… That could happen.” Are we watching a war unfold or waging one? I suppose if you have no clearly defined goals, you can always claim any outcome as a victory. Maybe we can rephrase The New Yorker headline: Can Donald Trump Lose a War with Iran If He Refuses to Explain Why He Started It? Let’s hope that the actual outcome is something other than a worst case.
+ Apparently, a lot of different people have a lot of different motivations. According to indie journalist Jonathan Larsen: U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for ‘Armageddon,’ Return of Jesus. “A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,’ according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.” (Editor’s note: If true, holy shit...)
“Israel stepped up airstrikes on Iranian missile launchers and factories Tuesday, and Iran retaliated against Israel and across the Gulf region, disrupting energy supplies and travel. As explosions rang out in Tehran and in Lebanon — where Israel said it struck Hezbollah militants — the American embassy in Saudi Arabia came under drone attack.” AP: Israel steps up airstrikes in Tehran, as Iran widens its response across the region.
+ NYT (Gift Article): Iran’s Strategy: Expand the War, Increase the Cost, Outlast Trump. (One of the biggest questions moving forward is how countries in the region that have become the targets of Iran’s missiles and drones will react. Iran is betting they’ll push Trump to stop the war. But they could also join the fight.)
+ Middle East war could be decided by who runs out of missiles or interceptors first, analysts say.
+ Iran war heralds era of AI-powered bombing quicker than speed of thought. And about those Pentagon software vendor pronouncements. US Military Using Claude to Select Targets in Iran Strikes.
+ “When FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen FBI agents and staff last week for their role in the classified documents investigation of Donald Trump, he targeted an elite counter espionage unit that investigates threats from foreign adversaries and specializes in Iran.” (No one at the hockey game could have warned him about this?) And a reminder of The Intern in Charge: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention
+ Here’s the latest from BBC, The Guardian, Times of Israel, and NBC.
Maybe, instead of self-driving cars we needed to invent self-driving automakers. “They have been whipsawed by tariffs. Chinese carmakers are breathing down their necks around the world. Self-driving taxi companies like Waymo are changing the very nature of transportation. Software has replaced horsepower as a key selling point. Sales are flat almost everywhere, and profits are declining. How U.S. carmakers cope with this pivotal moment will determine whether they survive as global players or slide into irrelevance, becoming niche manufacturers of pickups and sport utility vehicles that only Americans buy. The early indications are not promising.” NYT (Gift Article): US Automakers Risk Being Reduced to Niche Producers of Gas Vehicles.
“To be free, one must be feared. To be feared, one must be powerful.” So said French President Emmanuel Macron as France Floats Nuclear Deployment Across Europe.
Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor: “A Georgia father was found guilty on Tuesday of ignoring warning signs and allowing his son unfettered access to an assault-style rifle that prosecutors say the teenager used in a deadly school shooting.” Man Who Gave His Teen a Rifle Is Guilty of Murder After School Shooting.
+ Strike That, Reverse It: “The Trump administration indicated on Tuesday that it planned to renew its defense of executive orders that it had leveled against law firms, a sharp reversal a day after asking a court whether it could abandon the fight.” (Someone didn’t like the press coverage of the first decision.)
+ Cancer Trend: “Colorectal cancer rates in people under 65 are surging, with nearly half (45%) of new diagnoses occurring in this age group, up from 27% in 1995. At the same time, colorectal cancer rates are falling in people 65 and older.” Rectal cancer rates are rising in U.S., driving an increase in illness in younger adults.
+ Mortgaging, The Future: “If you’ve secured a loan and you are closing on a new home in the near future, congratulations. You’ve taken part in an essential middle-class rite of passage—and you’re one of the lucky few.” Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic(Gift Article): The Disappearing American Mortgage.
+ Plus None: Donald Trump Says He’ll Attend This Year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Ending His Boycott. (No self-respecting journalist should attend a Correspondents’ Association Dinner with Trump there. Nothing about any of this is a laughing matter.)
+ A Cozy Getaway: Mark Zuckerberg’s $170 Million MansionBuy Breaks Miami Price Records. Very related from yesterday’s edition: The Hole World in Their Hands.
“Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are a privacy nightmare, with footage of naked people, sensitive information, and violent acts captured and seen by Meta’s AI and an army of employees.” What privacy? As expected, Meta Ray-Bans are a privacy disaster.