2026-10-10 03:29:07
Curly may have been ahead of his time. I’m not referring to the noise effects he made as the youngest member of the Three Stooges (even though nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!, woo-woo-woo!, and Ruff! Ruff! were the memes of his era). I mean what could be his most famous proclamation: I’m tryin’ to think but nothing happens. It turns out that strategy could be our best defense as new technologies come for our minds and threaten to criminalize people’s innermost thoughts. Could this stuff of SciFi lore really be coming to a brain near you? As Curly might have said, “Soitenly!” NYT (Gift Article): U.N. Warns Against Technology Used to Read Citizens’ Minds. “The scenarios sound like science fiction: Police officers accessing data contained in suspects’ brains to forcefully extract information, or to predict if offenders might plan to commit future crimes. But the secretary general of the United Nations warned on Thursday for the first time that neurotechnologies are advancing so rapidly that governments’ ability to access and manipulate people’s brains could one day pose a threat to fundamental human rights.” As with many technologies, we’re racing forward before we consider the ramifications. Curly predicted this, too. “I shoot an arrow in the air, where it lands I do not care ... I get my arrows wholesale.”
Since day one, Trump’s second term has been focused on revenge against his perceived enemies. But, so far, it has been easier to bend the Justice Department than to break it. Having no evidence still presents obstacles. “The president’s allies have sought to prove a ‘grand conspiracy’ through a sprawling Justice Department inquiry. It has buckled under staffing shake-ups, internal disputes and trouble finding evidence.” How Trump’s Revenge Campaign Descended Into Turmoil.
+ If the Justice Department can’t invent crimes, why not just invent a new entity that might? Trump forms committee to investigate mortgage fraud allegations against Fed governor Lisa Cook.
“Only two countries currently systematically carry out capital sentences in public: Iran and Afghanistan. In 2025, the Taliban authorities carried out six such killings and the regime in Tehran 11, according to Amnesty International.” Pete Hegseth wants the US to be the third. Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed. This probably won’t happen. But it’s worth noting that Hegseth is more and more obviously deranged. He’s also in charge of our military.
What to Watch: East of Eden on Netflix is an excellent and extremely bingeable limited series with an all-around excellent cast, including Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, and a great performance by Hoon Lee.
+ What to Book: “When a young woman, a golf prodigy, kills a caddy with a stray ball at the country club, the investigation of this freak accident reveals a dark and shocking tale of secret affairs and predatory men.” Oddly, there is also a lot of humor in this fast-paced, excellent novel from Chris Bohjalian. The Amateur.
Today in Corruption (A Partial Accounting): The corruption is nothing if not consistent. WaPo (Gift Article): Trump bought over $1 million in SpaceX debt days before unveiling space policy. And, In Trump’s Russian Oil Deal, Middle East Funds Are the Biggest Owners. “A majority of ownership in a proposed multibillion-dollar deal would go to a group of Middle Eastern investors, including some with business ties to U.S. negotiators.”
+ Fuels Rush In: Trump says Putin will release diesel fuel onto global market amid unprecedented price surge. (Nice to see close allies working together.)
+ Only the Best: “Brenden Cuni, an ICE supervisor, has been accused of excessive force and tackling a pregnant woman to the ground. Several of his arrests were later found to be unlawful in federal court.” ICE Agent at NYC Shooting Has History of Alleged Violence and Illegal Arrests. (There was a five year-old kid in the backseat. Feel safer?)
+ Partner in Crime? “Although the State Department had been preparing the sanctions for months, Mr. Rubio’s announcement came just hours after a committee in Norway said it was awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a South African lawyer who served for nine years as a judge on the International Criminal Court and worked as the top human rights official at the United Nations.” Trump Administration Hits International Criminal Court With Severe Sanctions.
+ Cable Guise: Oil isn’t the only thing looking for an alternate route around the Red Sea. Conflict in the Red Sea is forcing cloud giants to find a new route for the internet.
+ The Wrath of Jon: “If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club.” Jon Ossoff has taken off the gloves and is telling it like it is. Does that make him the Dem frontrunner for 2028?
+ Isaias: “Isaias has strengthened into a Category 3 ‘major hurricane.’ It is now expected to make landfall tonight as a Category 3 on the Gulf Coast around Pensacola, Florida.” Here’s the latest from CNN.
+ Beaking Bad: “Alberto Hernandez Castillo disembarked from his flight on Sunday in a pair of gold-sheened sneakers, according to a criminal complaint. He appeared nervous and authorities observed an ‘unexplained bulge’ around his pelvis.” OK, at this point, to me, this sounds like a pretty familiar trip through the airport. But then things took a twist. 21 Birds Are Found at Miami Airport Stuffed in Underwear and Hidden in a Belt.
“They can arrange a move to a senior living facility, deal with Medicare and Medicaid, recommend doctors, drive a client to the dentist, and much more.” Aging Life Care Managers Can Be a ‘Godsend’ for Families.
+ Teen Knew She Had a Long-Lost Sister Somewhere. They Found Each Other Facing Off at Softball Game.
+ New York City dog backpack rides help shelter pups find homes.
+ Installation of eight canopy bridges in Alta Floresta has enabled 15,000 safe crossings by animals including spider monkeys and marmosets – and more bridges are planned elsewhere.
+ Grandmother of 12 holds plank for 5 hours in new world record attempt. (Ah, if only I had the time...)
2026-10-09 03:20:59
A large pie with pepperoni, mushrooms, and extra cheese. That was the first pizza ordered on the web. PizzaNet from Pizza Hut wasn’t exactly simple. The extra layer of cheese came with an extra layer of complexity. Among other things, the process required a follow-up phone call. “Orders at participating Pizza Hut locations were input on the website, then received by PizzaNet servers headquartered in Kansas. Each order was relayed to the correct restaurant location by phone and internet, and local Pizza Hut employees confirmed the order with customers before beginning to make the pizza.” Well, online ordering’s not in Kansas anymore, and ordering a pizza (or just about anything else online) may soon experience its biggest transformation since someone bit into that pepperoni with mushrooms and extra cheese. Today, shopping online is all about going to a site, but with AI (and AI agents), consumers are starting to purchase things without going directly to online stores. That puts a big investment and a longstanding business model at risk. Will people start shopping through LLMs, and will it cost big ecommerce players if you don’t visit their sites before making a purchase? Amazon seems to think so. The company “sued Perplexity in 2025 to block agents from browsing and shopping on its site. Amazon has also recently blocked Meta’s Muse AI agent from shopping on its site and removed product details from order emails — data that is potentially very valuable for Google’s own agentic shopping features.” DoorDash is worried, too. They recently sent out notices to restaurants that are taking orders from a new, small order service called Bites. Siteless shopping could change the game and allow AI-powered companies to drink ecommerce’s milkshake. From The Verge (Gift Article): AI could upend food delivery.
“She was the first female programmer hired to work on the Apollo project, housed at M.I.T.’s Instrumentation Laboratory, in 1965. Her skills led to her promotion to director of software engineering on the project, which developed the two 70-pound onboard computers for the Apollo flights: one in the command module, which carried the astronauts from Earth, and the second in the lunar module, which set down on the moon’s surface. Ms. Hamilton, who would bring her young daughter to work on weekends and evenings, is credited with popularizing the term ‘software engineering’ to describe the complexity of the work her team did, thus elevating software coding to a status equal to hardware design.” Margaret Hamilton, The Woman Whose Software Guided the Apollo Missions Has Died.
+ “Long before software engineering became a boys’ club — the exclusive domain of tech bros and a mythical force that threatens to either transform the world or snuff it out — it was just Margaret’s thing. ‘There goes Margaret with her software engineering,’ Margaret Hamilton recalled being ribbed by her colleagues in the 1960s at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Instrumentation Laboratory.” Before Computer Science Became a Boys’ Club, Margaret Hamilton Wrote the Code.
“Whether any of the men are guilty of rape is a matter for the New York court system. However, the evidence we have so far convicts them of being cruel, misogynistic jerks who deserve the punishments they have already received. Those Snapchat messages are both revealing and incriminating, because they demonstrate the emotional dynamics of the night more clearly than any witness statement ever could. These men saw Jane Doe not as a fellow human being, but as a vending machine dispensing bro points they could cash in with their buddies.” Helen Lewis in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Simple Truth Behind Jane Doe’s Story.
+ Of course, in this era, social media is touching every part of this case. It’s where the accused shared messages about the victim. It’s where toxic attempted doxxing has taken place. It’s where it seems nearly everyone has shared an opinion on the situation. That even includes the New York Attorney General, now assigned to the case. Accused Cornell fraternity member pushes to remove New York AG as special investigator over alleged bias.
“Kimberly Guilfoyle was preparing for her congressional hearing to become U.S. ambassador to Greece when she reached out to a Trump donor with an urgent request: She needed $100,000 that she said she owed American Express—in a way that wouldn’t leave a paper trail. ‘It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express ... Please.’” WSJ (Gift Article): ‘Honey Please’: Kimberly Guilfoyle Pushed Donor to Wire $100,000 to Her Amex Account. “Text messages with a MAGA ally show her seeking funds and offering access to top administration officials ahead of her confirmation as ambassador to Greece.” (She didn’t ultimately get the payoff. If she had, she probably would have gotten a promotion.) Den ypárchei kapnós chorís fotiá – There is no smoke without fire. And given the widespread nature of the administration’s corruption, we’re going to be putting out these fires for years to come. In the Trump version of the Odyssey, the Trojan horse was actually filled with cash (and crypto).
The Betrayed: For some, the failures in Iran are about more than a temporary hike in oil prices. “US President Donald Trump encouraged Iranian citizens to ‘keep protesting’ and promised on January 13 that help was on its way. Scores of Iranians who took to the streets have since been charged with treason for allegedly cooperating with Iran’s enemies. At least 34 people have been executed for taking part in the January protests. Thousands have been jailed ... Iran’s security apparatus is also reaching across borders to target Iranians who protested from exile. Interviews with dozens of Iranians in Armenia, Turkey and Georgia reveal how Iran is curbing opposition abroad by threatening family members in Iran, cancelling passports and withholding consular services.” Reuters: Iran’s wartime hunt for protesters at home and abroad ushers in a new era of repression.
+ Oct 7: “Hours after some Jewish leaders denounced Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s remarks about the attacks on Israel, activists interrupted a vigil to call him a traitor to the Palestinian cause.” For Mamdani, Oct. 7 Anniversary Sets Off Anger and Bitterness. (If you missed it, I wrote about Oct 7 yesterday.)
+ Wag the Don: “The stretch of relative tranquility is coinciding with the final phase of the midterm-election campaign, and the assumption has been that President Trump will want to keep it going through November 3 so as not to remind voters of an unpopular war that is dragging Republican candidates down nationwide. But that may not be what happens.” The Atlantic(Gift Article): Trump Is Considering a Plan to Strike Iran Before the Midterms. (Given that the war is about the only thing less popular than Trump, striking before the midterms for political purposes would make absolutely no sense. But that factor has rarely impacted decision-making in this administration.)
+ Bad Rep: “Amanda Ghost, a film producer, is not a sex trafficker. Jessica Serfaty, a model and actress, is not a prostitute. And Alexa Nikolas has never been charged with a crime. But anonymous websites that accused the women of wrongdoing — allegations that the three women have said are outright lies — popped up seemingly out of nowhere, as they each faced the most bitter disputes of their lives.” How to Destroy a Reputation in Hollywood, as Told in 5 Women’s Lawsuits.
+ De Bomb: “The calls often come in from metal detectorists and magnet fishers, hobbyists who throw strong magnets into waterways to see what comes up. They surge on bank holidays, when people are out walking and notice things underfoot, or catching up on tasks such as clearing out a grandparent’s home. Not long ago, the bomb-disposal unit was called to deal with a mortar that had been used for 20 years as a paperweight.” The Guardian on the art of defusing a Second World War bomb. (Which is still a very common request.)
+ A Good Working Oeuvre: “The Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday by the Swedish Academy, which cited ‘her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.’”
+ Artificial Intelligence Meets Real Cowardice: “Seventy years ago last summer, a group of scientists met at Dartmouth College to discuss a wild idea—that machines might one day be capable of humanlike thought processes. One of those scientists, John McCarthy, had suggested a name for the new field: artificial intelligence. It stuck. When you search Google Scholar for ‘artificial intelligence,’ approximately 7,420,000 results appear. The term is utterly ubiquitous. Everyone understands it. Even for people who despise AI, the least of their worries is what we call it.” Steven Levy: Trump’s Crazy AI Rebrand Was a Loyalty Test for Tech Execs—and It Worked.
+ Finally, Somewhere to Get a Cup of Coffee! “A county program that gives out licenses to micro-enterprise food and beverage businesses has led to a quadrupling of the spots since the beginning of the year. The program prohibits outdoor signage, so customers led by Instagram and word-of-mouth are lining up at the secret locations for a private-garden experience.” LA Homes Turn Into New Artisanal Coffee Spots.
“William Arnold drove 900 miles from his home in Cornwall this summer to a windswept pay phone on the Isle of Lewis. When he got there, he pulled out a big bag of coins and started making calls, 52 of them to be precise. In doing so, he ensured the phone booth met the minimum threshold of a call a week to stay in service another year.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Quest to Save Rural Pay Phones, 52 Calls at a Time.
2026-10-08 03:39:45
Was October 7 a tragic and sickening crime against humanity that would have caused a dramatic response from any country? Yes. Has the Netanyahu government gone much too far in its response? Yes. Did the widespread, pressurized antisemitism that was uncapped after October 7 begin before Israel even responded at all? Yes. Did campus and other protesters who tore down hostage posters betray their serious naivety about the threat of terror groups like Hamas as they betrayed the victims of the October 7 attacks who came from an area filled with liberals, desirous of peace in with their neighbors in Gaza and across the broader Middle East? Yes. Did the unequal and often heinous treatment of Palestinians create an environment in which terror groups like Hamas could thrive? Yes. Is Israel held to a different standard than other democracies? Yes. Has the Iranian regime been a consistent threat to Israel, America, and its own citizens? Yes. Is keeping that regime from having nuclear weapons and further spreading terror a worthy goal? Yes. Has the war in Iran been mismanaged and potentially counterproductive? Yes. Are these issues much too complicated to be debated in a newsletter blurb, let alone via dueling T-shirts on a concert stage? Yes. Could I go on and on? Yes. Will readers be enraged by these simple, obvious statements? Yes. Is there something that still unifies people on all sides of this issue? Yes. Today is a day to mourn. “Israelis mourned at the site of the Nova Music Festival, as well as at bomb shelters, intersections and in communities targeted on Oct. 7, 2023. On that day — the deadliest in the country’s history — militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed much of Gaza and drove most of its 2 million residents from their homes.” Israelis mourn Oct. 7 attack as Palestinians in Gaza languish in ruins of the war it sparked.
+ Are the contradictions created by one of history’s longest festering wounds felt by Jews in synagogues and sitting at dinner tables across the world? Yes. Are they also felt by families who survived the Oct 7 attack and are only now moving back? Yes. “For a family moving back to a kibbutz on the border, in what many would consider a bold act of Zionist commitment, to simultaneously plan a possible future outside Israel might seem like an enormous contradiction. But it’s no more of a contradiction than that embodied by our many friends who have served hundreds of days in the reserves since October 7, fighting in Israel’s longest war, losing friends and risking their own lives, only to reach the same conclusion we have: If this government stays, they’re out.” Amir Tibon in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Three Years After October 7, I Moved Back to Nahal Oz.
+ Have the children of Gaza been the victims of both Hamas and Israel? Yes. Pulitzer Prize winner Mosab Abu Toha in The New Yorker: Back to School, in Gaza. (Alt link.) “My nephews study in a big tent surrounded by bombed-out houses. They have no access to chairs or desks, so they sit on the dirt.”
+ Could Bibi, who built his entire brand on being strong on security, possibly survive the first election following the worst security failure in Israel’s history? Yes. David Remnick in The New Yorker: Will Netanyahu Escape His Reckoning? (Alt link.) “What is astonishing—politically, morally, strategically—is that Netanyahu has any chance at all. Within days of the Hamas attack on Israel, the worst disaster in the history of the state, it was all but a given that he would soon be out of power.” (Does the story of a candidate who should have no chance of winning again—politically, morally, strategically—but who still does have a chance to win sound familiar? Yes.)
+ Ronald Brownstein in Bloomberg (Gift Article): Netanyahu’s Oct. 7 Legacy Is Isolation. “The Hamas terror attack on Israel, three years ago today, horrified the world. But the indiscriminate ferocity of the Israeli response under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has almost completely eclipsed the initial atrocity in shaping global attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Regardless of who wins this month’s Israeli election, will we be done discussing this painful issue? Sadly, no.
“Mr. Trump intended the attack on Iran as another demonstration of the American military’s extraordinary power, following the successful bombing raid on three Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025 and the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from his bed in Caracas in January. But rather than enhance American power, the war has constrained it. The closing of bases in the Middle East and limiting the use of one in Britain have, at a minimum, vastly complicated the logistics of projecting power.” David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s Retreat: From the Gulf to Britain, American Forces Pull Back.
+ I wrote about this issue yesterday. Bombers Away. “While small devices have been used to defeat larger enemies since David aimed his slingshot at Goliath, it would have been hard to imagine, even just a few years ago, a drone threat chasing B-1 bombers off of an American base. But times and tech have changed.”
“A 16-year-old solo hiker had to be rescued Saturday from a mountain near Vancouver after getting stranded while following a route he had planned with the help of AI.” Artificial intelligence may not be good at everything, but this story proves its got metaphors down. We are headed to an uncertain destination on a map created by people often talking about technologies we don’t understand. Stephen Witt on the guy who might have the most say when it comes to mapping the route forward. He’s the Most Powerful Engineer on Earth. Here’s Why He Thinks A.I. Is Going Great. “The phone call, which had the feel of an orchestrated publicity stunt, was a public declaration of Mr. Trump’s resistance to A.I. regulation. But where others saw the president taking a forceful stand, I saw Mr. Huang engineering the president. The input was shameless public flattery: in the phone call, Mr. Huang called Mr. Trump “sir,” praised Mr. Trump’s intellect (“You know so much about A.I.,”) and stoked Mr. Trump’s bottomless need for validation. (“Did you hear that? Thousands of people are clapping for you.”) And the output? Little regulation on A.I. and freedom to export some of Nvidia’s hardware to China, and whatever else Mr. Huang wants. This situation worries me. Mr. Huang is the most capable individual I have ever met — but, I fear, A.I. is more capable still.”
“Colin O’Brien was the chief security officer at the United States Institute of Peace. Mostly that meant keeping the institute’s 400 employees, scattered across 28 difficult countries, safe from harm ... Now, on this late afternoon of March 14, 2025, the threat was right here, in Washington, D.C. Three young men from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were trying to argue their way into the institute building—a building that housed an institute that should have been far removed from the politics of the day.” WSJ (Gift Article): Michael Lewis on the Lone Security Guard Who Resisted DOGE.
Roll the Calls: “The Federal Communications Commission is considering a request by a conservative group to loosen rules on political robocalls, including those with artificial intelligence-generated voices, before November’s midterm elections.” (On the plus side, the robocalls might take my mind off all the unsolicited texts.) We could be talking about a lot of calls. Can $1 billion power Republicans to victory in the midterms?
+ Run It Off? “The program is part of a growing effort around the country to help cancer patients exercise, as the benefits of doing so become increasingly clear.” It Can Keep Cancer in Remission. Why Is No One Talking About It? (The more we learn about exercise, the more we learn how beneficial it is. Don’t tell my pilates teacher I admitted that.)
+ The Republika Srpska Midterms: “The engagement is the latest example of Trump advisers profiting from far-right politicians abroad who have sought favor from the U.S. president while bucking the international community.” Amid Midterm Crunch, Trump Advisers Took Time to Help Russia-Aligned Government. (At this point, many GOP candidates probably wish Trump would campaign in some remote country.)
+ Ad Nauseam: Trump will not reimburse federal government for taxpayer-funded advertisements. “Following bipartisan backlash to the more than $10 million spent on what the White House dubbed ‘Patriotic Ads,’ Trump announced Monday on Truth Social that his super PAC would cover the cost of the ads. But White House officials clarified on Tuesday to POLITICO that the president’s post did not mean the PAC would pay for the spots that had already aired.” (Seems like a long way of saying tax payers paid for the initial ad buys but the ads weren’t effective, so there won’t be any new ad buys. Those are ones Trump will pay for...)
+ The Apprentice’s Sorcerer: “Surgeons have long trained on an apprenticeship model: they observe others at work before operating themselves, and eventually master the techniques well enough to instruct a peer. The American surgical pioneer Dr. William Stewart Halsted called it ‘see one, do one, teach one.’” Can AI be the next apprentice that gets trained? Can Artificial Intelligence Learn the Art of Surgery? Plus, Utah will become first state to let AI examine patients and prescribe medicationwithout direct human oversight. (At this point, I just need occasional help choosing between Sativa and Indica...)
+ Do it With Mirrors: “Scientists Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for untangling mysterious mirror images in molecules, a discovery that has been used to develop countless drugs and transformed modern medicine.” (Dammit, I just had that exact same idea this morning!)
+ You Are Here: “On Monday night, it was our understanding that Christa was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day ... But on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone ... Christa woke up and began talking.” Christa Pike’s first words after surviving execution: ‘Where am I?’
“The annual event involves contestants putting their head through a horse collar, known as a braffin, and distorting their faces before a team of judges.” (I think I might try this instead of Pickleball.) I competed at the World Gurning Championships and nearly passed out. I must’ve been hideous.
2026-10-07 02:22:26
A few days ago, the most powerful superpower in the world evacuated 12 of the most powerful aircraft in its military from the base of a strong ally because of the threat of a drone attack from a country we’ve been repeatedly told has been completely defeated. NYT (Gift Article): Potential Iranian Drone Attack Led to Exit of U.S. Aircraft From British Air Base. “The rushed order to withdraw the [12 B-1] bombers was highly unusual: Such moves are rarely made so quickly from an allied air base in a peacetime country thousands of miles from a combat zone. Indeed, the need to move the bombers from the base was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being deployed to support their flights to the United States.” While small devices have been used to defeat larger enemies since David aimed his slingshot at Goliath, it would have been hard to imagine, even just a few years ago, a drone threat chasing B-1 bombers off of an American base. But times and tech have changed, and as Anne Applebaum recently remarked, “Nobody is prepared for the world of drone warfare that is coming, in fact is already here.” It doesn’t inspire great confidence that preparing for these rapid changes is currently in the hands of a commander in chief who rambles about letting Iran take out a city such as Los Angeles or San Diego, and a testosterone-obsessed secretary of defensewho’s more obsessed with winning the culture war than the real war he’s supposed to be managing. From Ukraine to the Middle East to the American B-1 bomber heavy tarmac of a British Airbase, we are in the middle of a serious and urgent global military inflection point, and we have exactly the wrong people in charge.
“They are too young to buy a beer and barely old enough to drive, yet these four teenage boys have already found their way into the criminal underworld ... These teenagers are part of a growing network of American high school students and young adults who are helping to arm some of Mexico’s most powerful and violent cartels, according to U.S. officials and trafficking experts who are tracking the trend. They source weapons like handguns and high-caliber rifles, and sell them almost exclusively to cartel operatives based in the United States.” NYT(Gift Article): American High School Students Are Selling Guns Bound for Cartels. “Sometimes, they said, they steal the guns and then resell them. They aren’t loyal to one criminal group or another; instead, they say, they are motivated by making money, gaining status and having a sense of belonging.” (Whatever happened to joining a club?)
“The administration’s lack of action so far on the Cornell case comes amid an apparent drop from Mr. Trump’s first term in resolved investigations of sexual assault, which are cases that end with a signed agreement to remedy violations of civil rights law, according to a review of public records. The administration has largely used Title IX to open dozens of investigations aimed at removing protections for transgender students, blocking transgender athletes from participating on female sports teams and eliminating gender-neutral bathrooms from schools.” Cornell Case Highlights Drop in Resolved Sexual Assault Cases Under Trump. (I wonder why Trump and his enablers wouldn’t want to hold sexual assaulters to account?) “In 2011, Mr. Obama’s administration issued a public letter telling colleges that sexual harassment and assault create an environment so hostile that women’s access to education is jeopardized and violates their civil rights. Mr. Trump’s administration rescinded that letter in 2017 and rewrote the guidelines, providing more protections for people facing accusations.” (If they really want protections, they should run for president...)
“The champagne is chilled, the caviar is served, and you don’t have to worry about your luggage. Pink couches covered in green palm trees are very Miami. Lounge chairs around a reflecting pool offer a quiet escape. From a private suite with a balcony, you can order croquetas and Cuban panzanella, or request a massage, manicure or haircut. When it’s time to board, a driver is waiting to chauffeur you in a BMW across the tarmac, directly to your commercial flight at Miami International Airport. It’s the perks of flying private, without actually flying on a private jet.” Airports want more revenue. The economic divide is growing. Enter exclusive terminals. Bloomberg (Gift Article): A $5,000 Private Lounge With BMW Tarmac Drop-off Is the New Airport Luxury.
Class Struggle: “Demonstrations swept across France on Tuesday as labor unions rallied in solidarity with high school students who have spent two weeks blockading schools to protest understaffing, overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated buildings. Marches were held in more than 40 cities, from Caen in the north to Marseille in the south, as activists, teachers, parents and university students joined swelling protests that had spread to hundreds of schools across the country.” Thankfully, President Trump is adding his calming and reasoned voice to the chaos. “What’s happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration. This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country!” Here’s the latest from the NYT and The Guardian.
+ Measles and Chumps: Pennsylvania measles cases reach more than 1,000. And Gov. Hochul Declares a Measles Emergency as Cases Rise in Rural New York. Meanwhile, Texas Pediatricians Face Paxton Investigations for Vaccinating Children.
+ Brad’s Pit: “A new video from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was standard issue Republican messaging for promoting her state’s stricter rules for people on Medicaid. No more could able-bodied people lounge around while receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare, she said — they needed to work.” But she made a big mistake for the MAGA-minded. The example she used was a white guy named Brad. Arkansas campaign ad sparks conservative backlash for portraying lazy welfare recipient as white.
+ On the Rocks: “Francis Halzen won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and his discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.” (The fact that you don’t understand what that means is evidence that he deserved it.)
+ Justice Denied: This seems worrisome. “President Trump invited infamous election denier Tina Peters to the White House to discuss plans for the midterms.”
+ You Don’t Know Me But I’m Your Brother Father:“Goessling, who recently went public with his story, had seen the Doobie Brothers perform twice, once in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s, without knowing that the man onstage was his biological father.” Adopted man discovers Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers is his biological father.
“As autumn approaches in Spain, teams at festivals and competitions can be found forming spectacular human towers (castells) up to nine levels tall. The Catalan tradition is believed to have originated among local dance groups at the end of the 18th century.” In Photos, It’s Human-Tower Season. (From the looks of it, it’s also super-spreader season.)
+ And some more photos: Flamenco’s heart-wrenching wail captured in images. (These look about the same as the news curator’s heart-wrenching wail...)
2026-10-06 02:49:24
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country.” Somehow, the guy who said that then laughable line during a presidential debate won that presidential election, with support from many who were still certain his immigration hardline policies would only be aimed at real criminals. A couple years later, no one is laughing, as many of the Haitian immigrants in Springfield are being fitted for ankle monitors. That included Pierre Damas Bel. “He was 20, and had arrived legally in the United States in March 2024 and been granted something called Temporary Protective Status, or TPS, due to dangerous conditions in Haiti. He had joined his family in Springfield, where roughly 15,000 Haitians had settled in recent years. He had just graduated from high school, where he’d been a standout student, soccer player, and member of the Junior ROTC program. He’d enrolled at Wright State University, half an hour from Springfield, and wanted to study neuroscience.” That doesn’t sound like the kind of immigrant we should be targeting. It sounds more like the type of person America has always benefited from welcoming to our shores. But did you expect logic from a president who kept repeating that people like Pierre Damas Bel were eating your pets? Did you expect compassion and decency from a then Vice Presidential candidate who described his own repetition of the pet-eating claims by explaining, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” Well, there’s no need to create repulsive stories about Springfield anymore. Wearing his ankle monitor, Pierre Damas Bel recently stepped out in front of a speeding truck. Stephanie McCrummen in The Atlantic (Gift Article): A Reckoning in Springfield. “A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become.”
+ WaPo (Gift Article): As Trump rallies his base in Ohio, a Haitian migrant is laid to rest nearby. “Trump brought up Springfield during his remarks and recited a version of ‘The Snake,’ a song by civil rights activist Oscar Brown Jr. in which a woman dies after being bitten by a snake on which she took pity and invited into her home.” It’s too late for Pierre Damas Bel, but more people are finally realizing who the snake is in the current American story.
“It’s the individual gambler that Silicon Valley can make the most use of. Casinos need marks. Crypto needs bag holders. Prediction markets need dumb money. And L.L.M.s need information.” Max Read in NYT Mag (Gift Article): How Everything Became Gambling. “What underwrites this emerging industry — besides an excellent business model and billions of dollars of revenue from suckers and billions of dollars of investment from the smart-money set — is a shared vision of a world built around gambling and the calculated risks that accompany it. The influencers, livestreamers, podcasters and aggregators (not to mention rappers and comedians and athletes) who have reoriented their output around the imperatives of betting capital not only work in service of what you might call the speculative sector but operate according to its logic as well. What is social media, after all, but a venue where you can wager your reputation and stake high-risk claims — and, perhaps, trigger a lavish (if infrequent) payout? All while enjoying the addictive satisfactions of endless nondeterministic push-button stimulus. Gambling, in other words, is not simply paying for the culture. It is the culture.”
“Upbeat spending is particularly remarkable because it seems to contradict downbeat consumer sentiment. Long-running gauges of consumers’ moods are running near historic lows, weighed down by high gasoline prices, subdued hiring and contentious politics. Lousy consumer moods once correlated with lower consumer spending, but since the pandemic, sentiment has increasingly decoupled from spending and other economic indicators.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Mighty American Consumer Is Crashing Through Inflation and Driving Growth.
“Researchers have implanted millions of functional human brain cells in mice, for instance, prompting speculation that the work might someday endow mice with consciousness. Philosophers and theologians are musing about whether A.I. will become conscious, and how we can know for sure. Amid all the uncertainty, there’s one fact that everyone can agree on. In each of our lives, there was a time when our brains were still too rudimentary to support consciousness, and there was a time when that changed.” Carl Zimmer with an interesting look at what consciousness is and when it begins. Are Babies Conscious? (I always advised mine to avoid it as long as possible.)
Break a Plague: “The death of a Russian researcher who is believed to have shattered a test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen at a laboratory in Siberia has triggered worldwide alarm.” Russian scientist dies after ‘dropping test tube’ containing pneumonic plague. More from MoJo: Reports of a Plague Outbreak in Russia Follow the Death of a Researcher. As many as five hospitals might be under quarantine. It’s unclear how broad a risk there is right now because in Russia, pathogens spread faster than clear information.
+ Bolsonaro Victory: “A surprise victory for a right-wing populist embroiled in scandal. Crushing defeat for a party deemed out of touch with its base. Supporters on the left grasping for answers. The scene may feel familiar to Americans. This time, it unfolded in a Latin American nation thousands of miles away. And the results could profoundly reshape the region and its relations with Washington.” In a Major Boost for the Right, Another Bolsonaro Nears Brazil’s Presidency.
+ Greasing the Skids: “The Trump administration’s talks with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine have expanded to include a multibillion-dollar oil deal that would benefit Middle Eastern business executives with ties to the two main U.S. negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.” U.S.-Russia Talks on Ukraine Now Involve an Oil Deal Tied to Trump Allies. (The worse the midterm numbers look, the faster the corrupt will move to get what they can get.)
+ Brainiacs: “Three scientists won the 2026 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for discoveries that allow researchers to switch on and off nerve cells in the living brain.” (Weird, I was sure it would go to the guy who popularized the notion that dumb has a B at the end.)
+ Read All About It: US book bans in public schools reach record annual high of 12,000. (Congratulations to Texas for topping the list.)
+ The Claude Mod Squad: “I’m going to shoot up the sheriff’s right the [expletive] now ... This is 100% last chance I’m done. I got a new [expletive] gun today. [Expletive] you.” Carli Michelle Heller was arrested for those threats. But she didn’t make them directly to Lee County Sheriff’s Office. She made them to Claude.
+ Liquid Courage: “Tell them: hey dont give me no bs maisntream [sic] stuff about urine therapy.. give me esoteric knowledge please. And they will give you a bunch of really cool info.” A headline that defines an era. People Who Drink Their Own Pee Are Obsessed With AI, Using It to Reassure Themselves That It’s a Miraculous Cure-All. (The official drink of doing your own research.)
+ Rocket Science: The controversy over fraternities is nothing new, and the Cornell 7 led an old Caitlin Flanagan lede to go viral over the weekend. “One warm spring night in 2011, a young man named Travis Hughes stood on the back deck of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house at Marshall University, in West Virginia, and was struck by what seemed to him—under the influence of powerful inebriants, not least among them the clear ether of youth itself—to be an excellent idea: he would shove a bottle rocket up his ass and blast it into the sweet night air. And perhaps it was an excellent idea. What was not an excellent idea, however, was to misjudge the relative tightness of a 20-year-old sphincter and the propulsive reliability of a 20-cent bottle rocket. What followed ignition was not the bright report of a successful blastoff, but the muffled thud of fire in the hole.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me there’s an animal that smells exactly like hot, buttered popcorn? Researchers at Duke University spent years wondering the same thing, and in 2016 they finally tracked it down: binturong urine contains a compound called 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, or 2-AP, which happens to be the exact same molecule responsible for popcorn’s smell.” (One of my beagles has a snout that smells exactly like a tennis ball. Even more perplexing: That smell becomes more pronounced during majors.)
+ Some of the 2026 Comedy Wildlife Awards Finalists.
2026-10-03 03:33:59
Can’t stand the heat of starting another edition with the latest hellish news? Let’s change things up and begin with a story about a ritual that is the very definition of a heated competition. It’s an age-old practice that has become a remarkably hot industry. Strip down, grab a towel, and enter the hot air swirling through the Aufguss World Masters, “where spa enthusiasts twirl towels in saunas to distribute heat, scent, and showmanship.” Liz Plosser in GQ: Inside the Sauna Olympics (alt link). “For the next 15 minutes, Talmadge, 39, will whip a towel through thick, sticky air to push waves of heat and scent toward 200 naked strangers, including a six-person international jury. Aufguss is a sauna ritual; a performance is called a set, and the most elite of them combine choreography, scent, storytelling, steam, and stamina. A competitor—known as a sauna master—enters the sauna to music and places a scented snowball on the hot rocks, then disperses its aroma with their towel. For every one of three or four song changes, another snowball goes on the stove. Contestants are forbidden from drinking water while competing, and judges dock points if they appear fatigued. Within the span of his set, Talmage’s heart rate will hit about 195 beats per minute, according to the Whoop he wears on his left wrist.” (I never disrobe in public, and the vigorous thwacking of towels doesn’t make the idea sound any better. If I want a good sweat, I’ll open a few more tabs.)
The numbers — both economic and polling — are not looking great for the GOP. So it’s not that big of a surprise that we’re seeing a concerted effort to reframe the midterms as a culture war. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The GOP’s Culture-War Hail Mary. “Last week, as the war with Iran dragged into its seventh month, gas prices shot up to an average of $4.50 a gallon, and polling showed President Trump about twice as far underwater with American voters as he was at this point in 2018, Republican senators determined that the time had come to discuss something else entirely: youth sports. ‘Girls’ sports are for girls. Boys’ sports are for boys,’ Senator Marsha Blackburn said in a news conference. With 32 days to go until the midterm elections, Republicans’ closing strategy is obvious: They’re going all-in on trans. (It seems to have worked for them before, after all. More on that in a minute.) In Texas, Republicans are running an unsettling AI-generated ad that shows the Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico dressed as Maria von Trapp and singing about girls with mustaches. A spot in Iowa accuses the Senate candidate Josh Turek of supporting ‘sex changes for kids.’ On X, former Representative Matt Gaetz offered a tidy summary of his party’s agenda: ‘I hate the war too,’ he told a concerned voter. ‘But the Democrats want to trans your kids.’” The messaging is stupid and cruel, and of course, none of this is really about changing gender, it’s about changing the subject.
+ The bad poll numbers won’t just make messaging more desperate and extreme. All the stops will be pulled out. And when you control all three branches of government, that’s a lot of stops. Is There Anything Kash Patel Won’t Do for Trump Before the Midterms? “In recent months, Patel has been briefed on the FBI’s ‘election integrity’ investigations in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, and beyond. Officials told me their understanding is that many of the election-related investigation requests came directly from the White House, many times with the instruction that ‘this is a big deal for the president’ or ‘this is a push from 47.’ But all of that attention hasn’t yielded results. In meetings, Patel has expressed frustration that there have been no new findings, and instructed staff to ‘look harder’ or ‘look again,’ according to three people familiar with the conversations.”
“We used our names and news organization email addresses, following each state’s rules for starting private or microschools, a type of private school intended for just a few students. Experience running a school wasn’t needed. No one from any of the states asked us about our backgrounds or qualifications, though West Virginia did ask for proof of a high school diploma. No one questioned what we plan to teach or how we would measure whether students are learning. And yet we could enroll students in two states right now, if we wanted to. Arkansas even suggested ways our school could accept public money through the state’s voucher-style program.” ProPublica wanted to find out just how easy it is to start a private school. It was A) Easy B) Simple C) Effortless and D) All of the above. We’re Reporters, Not Teachers. We Were Able to Start Private Schools Anyway.
What to Doc: In appointing a special prosecutor in the Cornell rape case, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said, “I want the truth. How is this woman denied justice?” The sad truth is that women are not only often denied justice in many of these cases, they are also turned from victims of a crime into suspects in an investigation. If you haven’t seen it, this is the right time to watch the Center for Investigative Reporting’s excellent documentary Victim/Suspect on Netflix.
+ What to Wear: This probably means I’m a man of a certain age, but I love a good shacket. And my latest fave comes from Criquet.
+ What to Read (and watch, if you haven’t): “Twenty years after the beloved football and family drama premiered, Peter Berg, Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Taylor Kitsch and others look back on its legacy.” Friday Night Lights Oral History. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!
Surf’s Up: “Sea surface temperatures just hit a record high in a 2.4-million square mile region of the deep Pacific Ocean known as Niño 3.4, the key area scientists are tracking to measure the rapidly strengthening El Niño.” ‘Perfect storm’: El Niño goes off the charts. We’re already seeing flooding from high tides in my neck of the woods. And it’s even worse in SoCal. “In the coming days, sea levels off Southern California are expected to begin rising by half a foot or more and then stay elevated for months, as an enormous pulse of wave energy generated by El Niño travels up the coast, lifting the water as it goes.” A Kelvin Wave Is Heading Toward the California Coast, Bringing Trouble.
+ Telling Tales Out of School: “Outside a high school in Seine-St.-Denis, a working-class suburb north of Paris, a crowd of about 100 students milled in the street on Thursday afternoon, their shouts echoing through the towering apartment buildings. They were protesting overcrowded classrooms, crumbling facilities, and absent teachers.” Blockades, Fireworks and Tear Gas: Young Protesters Are Rattling France. And, fires, fury and hundreds of arrests as France gripped by student protests.
+ Traffick Jam: “Criminal gangs lure immigrants to Russia and Belarus on commercial flights and then send them to the border, Latvian officials said, with the backing of those countries. Officials said that the Russian and Belarusian governments sometimes even offered chartered flights to Moscow or Minsk for migrants and then provided transport to the forested frontiers bordering Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and elsewhere.” NYT (Gift Article) on how Putin uses immigration as a weapon. A Front Line at the Border: How Russia Uses Migrants as Weapons Against Europe.
+ The Upside: Steven Rattner in the NYT (Gift Article): Six Charts That Show Just How Much We Need A.I.
+ Help Unwanted: U.S. added 29,000 jobs in September, missing forecasts by a wide margin.
+ Sauce Loss: “My mom grew up during the civil-rights movement in Shelby, Mississippi, a farming town that is now dead, and soon after she married my father, they moved 20 miles north to Clarksdale, a farming town that is now dying. She’s 79. The headlines she reads these days feel like dispatches from a time she thought would never return. Like a lot of progressive southerners, she’s had to watch the thing she counted on most, the flawed yet moral core of the United States, turn to ashes in the last years of her life. Sometimes the big losses are too much to process, and little things, such as losing a familiar taste, become mourners’ benches. (Also, those sandwiches were really good.) She asked me, her reporter son, to find out what had happened.” Wright Thompson in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Requiem for a Condiment.
“At The Yard, elementary school children play with hammers, saws and knives. They climb ladders, romp in mud and push each other around in secondhand wheelchairs. No parents are allowed. Adult staffers called ‘playworkers’ watch, but try to avoid telling kids to be careful unnecessarily.” WSJ (Gift Article): Don’t Call Me a Helicopter Parent. My Kid’s in a Junkyard Playing With a Saw.
+ Yung Lean and GENER8ION recreated their viral video “Storm” with a live performance at the VMAs. So great. As is this version from Laerskool Vredekloof Primary School.
+ MacArthur Foundation Announces 2026 ‘Genius Grant’ Winners.
+ “I will never do that. Honestly, I think it’s very sad to see some players promote it. Everybody does whatever they want, but without me.” Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama not interested in promoting betting sites. Talk about an outlier...
+ British chess prodigy, 11, is the youngest ever woman grandmaster.
+ My favorite baseball writer on my favorite baseball commentator (and baseball, in general). Grant Brisbee: Mike Krukow made Giants fans appreciate the future, even one without him behind the mic.
+ Hitting the sweet spot: bear treats itself to baked goods at Colorado farmers’ market. (The best thing about being a bear is that a glucose monitor can’t stick to fur.)
+ Barking beautiful: the 2026 Dog Photography awards.