2025-12-17 03:19:33
Today, I’m going to break with tradition and lead NextDraft with something that is not news. Vanity Fair has a two-part story that covers eleven interviews with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles. The NYT (Gift Article) shares some of the lowlights. Wiles acknowledged that, while she has tried to stop the tendency, Trump is using Justice Department prosecutions to settle scores. “When there’s an opportunity, he will go for it.” (No way! Trump?) Wiles said that Trump “was not telling the truth when he accused former President Bill Clinton of visiting the private island of the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.” (A falsehood? From Trump? Say it isn’t so!) Wiles explained that “Vice President JD Vance has ‘been a conspiracy theorist for a decade’ and his conversion from Trump critic to ally was based not on principle but was ‘sort of political,’” (Vance? Less than authentic and even political?), that Elon Musk is an odd duck and an avowed Ketamine user (Weird, Elon seems like a sober, rational thinker who comes off as just a regular guy), and Russell T. Vought, the budget director, is ‘a right-wing absolute zealot.’” (Funny, he’s always struck me as being sort of middle of the road). There were insider accounts that could still surprise us during the first Trump term, but that bar has been raised. The badness is not being concealed. It’s being celebrated. So are the mental issues. If Freud watched a Trump press conference, I’m guessing he’d make it through about five minutes before putting down his notebook and saying, “I really have nothing more to add.” What we’re seeing in front of our eyes is worse than what we once imagined to be taking place behind the scenes. None of the Wiles revelations are as bad or disturbing as what we’ve seen in the past 24 hours of livestreamed news coverage of Trump and his enablers, and we’ve learned from experience that the next 24 hours won’t be any different.
+ Yesterday, I got a lot of reactions to my take on the confluence of three stories that made the launch of the holiday season feel like the Hanukkah from hell. Candles in the Wind.
“If the ideas within it are really used to shape policy, then U.S. influence in the world will rapidly disappear, and America’s ability to defend itself and its allies will diminish. The consequences will be economic as well as political, and they will be felt by all Americans.” Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic (Gift Article) on the new National Security Strategy. The Longest Suicide Note in American History. “The security strategy also talks, bizarrely, about Europe being on the verge of ‘civilizational erasure,’ which is not language used by many European politicians, even those in far-right parties ... In multiple indices, after all—health, happiness, standard of living—European countries regularly rank higher than the United States. Compared with Americans, Europeans live longer, are less likely to be living on the streets, and are less likely to die in mass shootings. The only possible conclusion: The authors of this document don’t know much about Europe, or don’t care to find out. Living in a fantasy world, they are blind to real dangers. They invent fictional threats. Their information comes from conspiracist websites and random accounts on X, and if they use these fictions to run policy, then all kinds of disasters could await us.”
“Tennenbaum soon became Epstein’s supervisor. ‘He was proving to be quite talented,’ Tennenbaum told us. But in late 1976, he received a disconcerting phone call from the head of Bear Stearns’s personnel department. Employees had belatedly gotten around to checking Epstein’s résumé, which stated that he had received degrees from two California universities. ‘Are you sitting down?’ the H.R. official asked Tennenbaum. ‘Neither school has heard of him.’” People know a lot about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. But how did he become a rich and powerful player in the first place? The NYT (Gift Article) on how a college dropout clawed his way to the pinnacle of American finance and society. Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich.
“Dummies have been in the news lately, after an updated design for a female dummy took a step closer to widespread adoption. But for many decades, they’ve been quietly doing their work, taking hit after hit in the name of saving lives. And a crash test dummy’s story starts way before they’re buckled in for a collision. They have a life, of sorts, starting at this Huron plant, where their physical parts are born.” NPR: Built to spill: The life of a crash test dummy.
+ I recently posted a new t-shirt to the NextDraft Store: Crash Test Hitch-Hiker.
Weapons of Mass Distraction: Using inflated numbers and shoddy logic, Trump designates street fentanyl as a WMD, escalating the militarization of the drug war. This paves the way for more military on American streets and more unauthorized bombing of boats abroad. Speaking which... U.S. military says strikes on 3 boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean kill 8 people.
+ Short Circuited: “The European Commission backed away from what had been the world’s most aggressive timeline for phasing out internal-combustion engines, granting manufacturers and consumers more time to move off gasoline. A day earlier, Ford Motor Co. announced $19.5 billion in charges tied to the retreat from an electric strategy it vowed to go all in on eight years ago.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Electric Car Transition Unravels Slowly, Then All at Once. (Things went smoother when Dylan went electric...)
+ Bondi Update: Bondi terror attack: alleged gunmen travelled to the Philippines before ‘Isis-inspired’ shooting. And there was more than one bystander who risked everything to save lives. A new video shows an elderly couple trying to stop and disarm a Bondi gunman. “The dashcam video shows a couple who were killed in the attack.”
+ Brown Update: “Police released images last night of a “person of interest” taken two hours before the shooting, showing a person wearing a black mask, and requested the public’s help in identifying them. A man detained over the weekend was released because of a lack of evidence, after President Donald Trump earlier referred to him as ‘the suspect.’” Here’s the latest from NBC News.
+ Front Not Center: Spencer Ackerman: The Largest and Bloodiest U.S. Battlefield in 2025? Somalia.
+ The Elephant in the Roomba: “iRobot says it’s business as usual for the millions of Roombas in people’s homes, which will continue to function as expected — for now. But how did the most popular household robot company in the world fall so far and fall so spectacularly?” How Roomba invented the home robot — and lost the future. M.G. Siegler blames the regulators for killing Roomba.
+ You Cannot Be Sirius (without Howard): Howard Stern Signs Three-Year Deal After Contract Standoff. I saw a lot of false rumors, not a lot of actual standoffing. Either way, Howard staying on the air is great news because my beagles and I have run out of things to talk about on our walks.
“This is the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, 25 bands on three stages, 10 unbroken hours of heavy music, and all day, I’ve been watching the pit—the mosh pit, the area close to the stage where inflamed dancers whirl and collide. I’ve been watching it, and skulking around it journalistically, because I am possessed by an idea: What if the pit, this ritualized maelstrom at the heart of the hardcore-metal crowd, could teach us something about how to live together in 2025—about how to be? Heavy metal, of all music, knows just how sick we are.” The Atlantic(Gift Article): The Savage Empathy of the Mosh Pit.
+ I feel like I was ahead of the curve when it comes to finding meaning in the mosh. McSweeney’s: An Open Letter to the Guy Who Puked Next to Me at the Heavy Metal Festival.
2025-12-16 04:47:00
When lighting the first menorah candle for the usually celebratory opening night of the Jewish festival of lights on Sunday, it was hard not to perceive the dripping wax taking the shape of teardrops, as a confluence of three stories made the launch of the holiday season feel like the Hanukkah from hell. At Bondi Beach in Australia, a father-son terror team opened fire on a public Hanukkah festival, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. The victims included a 10-year-old girl, a rabbi and a Holocaust survivor. There would have likely been many more victims if not for the heroism of a bystander named Ahmed el Ahmed, who disarmed one of the gunmen, in an incredible, selfless act of bravery. The deadly attack on Bondi Beach follows a rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia. This rise (and the associated violence) is hardly limited to Australia. And sadly, it could be most prevalent among young people. Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Anti-Jewish prejudice isn’t a partisan divide—it’s a generational one. As David Frum explains, “It’s long past time to stop saying ‘Anti-Semitic violence has no place in our society.’ Outrage upon outrage confirms that anti-Semitic violence has a large and expanding place in Western societies—that it is supported by many, that it is tolerated by many more.”
+ Australia is already known for strict gun laws. The country’s leaders have promised to respond to this shooting by tightening those gun laws even more. History shows all too clearly that we’ll see no such American response to the campus shootings at Brown University, which killed two students and injured several others. Campus (and other mass) shootings are so common in America that it doesn’t even surprise us to learn that some of the students who experienced the Brown attack were previously victims of other school shootings. “Officials in Providence, R.I., said Sunday evening that police are releasing a man in his 20s who was briefly held as a person of interest. His release leaves authorities without any known suspect.” Gunman remains at large two days after deadly shooting at Brown University.
+ And then we got the third shocking story of the weekend as we learned that Rob and Michele Reiner had been killed in their home, with their son Nick being held on suspicion of murder. Aside from being a kind, decent, and enormously popular and loved figure in Hollywood who first gained fame in All in the Family, Reiner, A Quiet Titan of Storytelling, is responsible for an almost unimaginable string of entertainment—as a director, a producer, and an actor—that has been released over decades. Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, Spinal Tap, and the list goes on. Reiner’s movies hold a place in American culture, with lines that have entered the cultural lexicon: You can’t handle the truth! ... I’ll have what she’s having ... Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya ... and of course, This one goes to eleven. Some days, like the ones over the weekend, going to eleven is just too much to take. I’m covering these stories together because that’s how I experienced them, and I imagine many others felt the same, as we suffered an extreme version of the bad news onslaught that we dread every time we hear a phone notification in 2025. What’s the solution? I don’t have any pithy lines or humorous outtakes on that topic. The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll strike a match and light the second Hanukkah candle tonight. We could use a little light.
“Despite the steps to insulate themselves, dire warnings poured in from diplomats and government experts around the world. The cuts would cost countless lives, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the other Trump officials were told repeatedly. The team of aides pressed on, galvanized by two men who did little to hide their disdain for the agency: first Peter Marocco, a blunt-spoken Marine veteran, and then 28-year-old Jeremy Lewin, who, despite having no government or aid experience, often personally decided which programs should be axed.” ProPublica: Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera.
“At the hospital three years ago, meeting the newborn who would become their daughter, Mr. Garner was the first to notice the tiny flaps of skin where her ears should be. Annie, the child they were adopting, was deaf. Over the next few months, as they got to know their daughter, the Garners would discover more challenges, including poor vision, a developmental disability and weak muscles.” NYT (Gift Article): Born Deaf and Blind, She’s Caught in Trump’s Anti-Diversity Crusade. “A program for deafblind children helped 3-year-old Annie Garner, born with poor vision and no ears, learn to communicate. The Trump administration cut the program’s funding over diversity goals.” (This is sick cruelty, pure and simple.)
“Then Captain Kohli made a fateful decision. He needed to, he said — to save the climbers’ lives. ‘Secure the equipment. Don’t bring it down.’ ... ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ The climbers scampered down the mountain after stashing the C.I.A. gear on a ledge of ice, abandoning a nuclear device that contained nearly a third of the total amount of plutonium used in the Nagasaki bomb. It hasn’t been seen since. And that was 1965.” NYT (Gift Article): How Did the C.I.A. Lose a Nuclear Device? “A plutonium-packed generator disappeared on one of the world’s highest mountains in a hush-hush mission the U.S. still won’t talk about.”
Hong Kong Wrong: “A Hong Kong court convicted pro-democracy former media mogul Jimmy Lai of conspiracies to commit sedition and collusion with foreign forces in a case that marks how much the semi-autonomous Chinese city has changed since Beijing began a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent five years ago.” (As we’ve learned, political winds can shift quickly and with great effect.)
+ An American Disgrace: Even by the sick and low standards he’s set, Trump’s response to Rob Reiner’s death was disgusting. I didn’t include this in the section above because nothing out of Trump’s mouth deserves to be anywhere near Rob Reiner.
+ Grok Schlock: Shocker: Grok is spreading misinformation about the Bondi Beach shooting.
+ Seed Investors: “Some Chinese parents, inspired by Elon Musk’s 14 known children, pay millions in surrogacy fees to hire women in the U.S. to help them build families of jaw-dropping size. Xu calls himself ‘China’s first father’ and is known in China as a vocal critic of feminism. On social media, his company said he has more than 100 children born through surrogacy in the U.S.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Chinese Billionaires Having Dozens of U.S.-Born Babies Via Surrogate.
+ Panda-Monium: “The two countries had made positive noises about continuing the loan, but tensions between them have increased since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan could help defend Taiwan from any Chinese aggression.” Chinese pandas to leave Japan amid diplomatic row.
+ Strike a Pose: Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza becomes the school’s first Heisman winner. (Obviously, his key jump in skill and ability came during his year playing for Cal...)
+ Tails Tax: “They have no independent income; they reside exclusively with their humans, and they have annual expenses that top $5,000. Calling them property, she argued, does not accurately reflect their role in a household.” IRS faces a lawsuit that would reclassify pets as dependents.
“We were even more shocked that they were doing their own spin on this by also inserting the grass and sticks in a different orifice.” Chimps are sticking grass and sticks in their butts, seemingly as a fashion trend.
+ Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year is ... Slop.
2025-12-13 05:33:12
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. Maybe Holden Caulfield would have admired his modern day adolescent counterparts, because it sure seems like they don’t really want to hear about all that kind of crap, or much else, for that matter. If you must share the details of a protagonist, a brief AI-summarized blurb will do (and please limit summaries to those figures who possess main character energy). For many of today’s teens, reading a novel is a novel activity. It’s easy to blame the trend on social media and other tech distractions, and those are certainly a factor. But, as I’ve noticed in my own kids’ education, teachers also don’t seem to be assigning as many books. Literature is no longer considered lit. I’ve always been a big fan of the impact of first lines of novels, from Toni Morrison’s 124 was spiteful, to García Márquez’s It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love, to Snoopy’s It was a dark and stormy night. Sadly, I think Dana Goldstein may have added to this literary canon with the first line in her latest piece for the NYT (Gift Article): “In American high schools, the age of the book may be fading.” Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class. “Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows, and college professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly reporting difficulties in getting students to engage with lengthy or complex texts.” (Back in our day, when we said, “I’m still working on my novel,” we meant writing one, not trying to read one.)
I’ve shared countless stories about the American economy being driven by the highest income earners. But it’s worth noting that this trend is not just limited to the luxury market. Even brands known for pushing bulk items to cost-conscious buyers are reorienting themselves in the age of the ever-expanding divide. “Costco’s latest earnings were strong across almost every major metric. But they were particularly strong amongst one crucial demographic: The company’s ‘Executive Members’ now account for a whopping 74.3% of all Costco sales, ticking up slightly from last quarter. These Executive Members are Costco’s whales — affluent, high-frequency shoppers ... A retailer once built around broad middle-class value is now powered overwhelmingly by its most affluent, most loyal, most economically insulated members.” Inside America’s Costco economy.
Trump just signed an executive order that attempts to prohibit states from regulating AI. I doubt having 50 different regulations governing a massively growing technology is an efficient way forward. But what we’re going to get instead is a version of self-regulation (translation: no regulation) pushed by lobbyists and stakeholders. Chuck Hagel in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “Proponents of AI preemption equate competitiveness with deregulation, arguing that state-level guardrails hamper innovation and weaken the United States in its technological competition with China. The reality is the opposite. Today’s most serious national-security vulnerabilities involving AI stem not from too much oversight, but from the absence of it.” Banning AI Regulation Would Be a Disaster. (By the time we get around to regulating AI, it may have already started regulating us.)
What to Watch You Must: We’re late to the party, but my wife and I have been binge-ing The Mandalorian. It’s not a perfect series, but it’s almost impossible to get enough of the character that came to be known as Baby Yoda (even though it’s not Yoda as a baby). If you haven’t already seen Andor, do that instead.
+ What to Holiday: The Norwegian holiday-themed series Home for Christmas on Netflix is excellent, and a third season just dropped.
Requesting Oral: “Across the country, a small but growing number of educators are experimenting with oral exams to circumvent the temptations presented by powerful artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT.” WaPo (Gift Article): Professors are turning to this old-school method to stop AI use on exams.
+ Peace of Cake: “President Trump has made it well known that he is coveting the Nobel Peace prize, and rarely passes up the opportunity to say he has solved eight conflicts around the world in eight months. But despite the efforts, the results have been mixed: some outcomes are precarious, and the president’s role in brokering a deal is disputed. Others have simply unraveled.” (Yeah, but when they unravel, he can make peace in the same conflict again, thereby doubling his total number of peace deals!)
+ It Gets Bettor: “Last week, CNN announced a deal with Kalshi, a federally regulated online exchange where Americans can wager on current events, from basketball games and congressional elections to whether it will rain tomorrow in New York City. This marked Kalshi’s first partnership with a major news organization and, according to several close observers of the media business and gambling industry, could foreshadow a deluge of similar deals.” The New Yorker: America’s Betting Craze Has Spread to Its News Networks. (In 2025, just bet on the worst-case scenario for any news story. It’s a sure thing.)
+ Landman: “Mr. Hamm is a wildcatter, an oil prospector who drills wells in unproven areas, taking big bets that can turn into black gold or financial ruin. Not long ago, it seemed as if Mr. Hamm and his allies in the oil industry were losing. They were deeply out of favor in Washington — and on Wall Street — shunned for contributing to climate change and failing to deliver the returns investors wanted.” Well, times change. And fortunes often follow. NYT (Gift Article): The Oilman Who Pushed Trump to Go All In on Fossil Fuels.
+ Indiana Stones: “The president’s threats of retribution ultimately failed.” The State That Handed Trump His Biggest Defeat Yet.
+ Driving to the Rim: “Each day, the NBA legend sat in the same spot on a wooden bench in a historic 1930s courtroom, glued to the trial revolving around the antitrust lawsuit his race team and one other had brought against NASCAR, accusing the stock car series of illegal monopolistic conduct.” Michael Jordan was already a basketball legend. Now, he’s one in NASCAR too.
There are a lot of year-end photo collections. This is the one you need today. Hopeful Images of 2025.
+ If you missed this story, don’t. David Guavey Herbert: Playing Santa Does Strange Things to a Man. What It Did to Bob Rutan Was Even Stranger.
+ “Aria Moreno was excited when she walked into class on Hofstra University’s campus in Long Island. It was late August, her fourth week of medical school, and Moreno had volunteered to undergo an ultrasound as part of the day’s lesson on the gastrointestinal system. It probably saved her half a kidney.”
+ “Mr. Dirks did not have cell service, so he said he reached for a Garmin satellite messenger to send an SOS. He was unable to use Bluetooth to connect it to his phone, so he typed out his plea on the Garmin’s tiny keyboard.” Stuck in Quicksand, a Hiker in Utah Has His SOS Answered. (Reason 987,347 that I’m indoorsy.)
+ “While journalism as a major has seen shrinking enrollment for years and is even being dropped by some schools entirely, Baker, a senior at Stanford University, has doubled down on old-school investigative reporting, and it is paying off spectacularly.” Stanford’s star reporter takes on Silicon Valley’s ‘money-soaked’ startup culture.
+ American Lindsey Vonn became the oldest skiing downhill World Cup winner at St Moritz in Switzerland on Friday.
+ Letterman on Kimmel. So enjoyable.
+ How Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Are Made. (This is the first time my glucose monitor alarm was set off by a video.)
2025-12-12 03:52:05
The Mandalorian, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and a few Jedis walk into a bar. And Sam Altman walks out carrying a billion dollars in a custom Moana branded tote bag. Disney just announced a content licensing deal with OpenAI. Did Mickey bend the knee and cede to the inevitable? Or is joining forces with an AI leader the best way to turn a potential beast into a profitable beauty? More importantly, is this really the world we want Grogu to grow up in? We don’t yet know how this toy story will play out, but the deal marks a big change in AI relations for an industry that felt like it was Epcot with its pants down. “In a watershed moment for Hollywood and generative artificial intelligence, Disney said on Thursday that it would buy a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and bring its characters to Sora, the A.I. company’s short-form video platform.” (This is sort of like Gepetto investing a billion dollars in Monstro the Whale just before he and Pinocchio are swallowed by it.) NYT (Gift Article): Disney Agrees to Bring Its Characters to OpenAI’s Sora Videos. “Disney is the first major Hollywood company to cross this particular Rubicon. Disney, Universal, Warner Bros. Discovery and the like have spent the past couple of years trying to sort through major concerns about how generative A.I. software is built, how copyright holders are compensated and how Hollywood unions may react.” (The truth is that no one really knows how to react to any of these advances. We’re all on a nonstop ride on Space Mountain—lots of high speed turns and drops, all taking place in total darkness.)
+ Wired: The Disney-OpenAI Deal Redefines the AI Copyright War.
+ As for OpenAI’s competitors? Frozen... Disney Hits Google With AI Copyright Infringement Cease-and-Desist Letter.
+ Meanwhile, The Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year. (Although it seems more like the magazine is celebrating the CEOs who employ the architects of AI.)
+ And if you missed it yesterday, I covered one of the more ridiculous stories of a ridiculous era: The State Dept and the fight over woke fonts. The Highway to Helvetica. “Apparently, the Trump administration doesn’t know that sans serif typefaces are more straight.”
“Hours after missing the ceremony in Norway’s capital that awarded her the Nobel Peace Prize, the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared in the city’s streets after midnight on Thursday, greeting a cheering crowd.” NYT (Gift Article): Venezuelan Dissident Appears in Norway After Missing Nobel Ceremony.
+ “Wearing a wig and a disguise, María Corina Machado began her escape from Venezuela on Monday afternoon ... Over the course of 10 nerve-racking hours, Machado and two people helping her escape hit 10 military checkpoints, avoiding capture each time, before she reached the coast by midnight, said a person close to the operation.” WSJ (Gift Article): Disguised and in Danger: How a Nobel Peace Prize Winner Escaped Venezuela. (With a little more effort and heroism, she could have qualified for the FIFA Peace Prize...)
+ The political environment that María Corina Machado faces is even more perilous than her journey to Oslo. And it’s getting more so by the minute. Trump says the U.S. has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
They “commonly start out in poverty when they arrive in the U.S., but catch up quickly, according to studies of U.S. Census Bureau data. They have high rates of entrepreneurship and over time produce more in tax revenues than they receive in government benefits, a number of studies of census data show.” America’s current policy regarding refugees is saddled by an ethical deficit and an economic one. WSJ (Gift Article): Are Refugees Good or Bad for the Economy? Here’s What the Numbers Say.
+ Not everyone is barred from entering. The Trump Gold Card applications are now open. (Please send a check for a million bucks and a list of your sexual crimes.)
“Around the 1920s, a certain class of parents—those with enough money to indulge their kids from time to time—started to panic. Toy companies and trinket manufacturers were buffeting kids with ads, and children were pestering their parents for gifts. Many parents wanted their kids to have these new luxuries, but they also wanted them to understand that money had limits. Parenting magazines suggested an intervention: small weekly payments, called allowances, that kids could squirrel away and use to buy toys or other treats on their own.” Cut to today. “As credit cards, digital investment tools, and ‘buy now, pay later’ apps have proliferated, some parents (especially wealthier ones) are using the payments to introduce their kids to more complex aspects of the financial ecosystem: bank fees, interest rates, investing, credit scores, loan payments.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The New Allowance.
Weaponized Profits: “The militarization of the police in the US is nothing new. Local police departments splurged on vehicles, weapons and tactical gear as part of the Nixon, Reagan and Clinton administrations’ fight against drugs and the Bush administration’s war on terror after the 9/11 attacks. But the size of those buildups is dwarfed by President Donald Trump’s push to vastly expand immigration arrests and make Democratic-run cities a proving ground for domestic military operations.” That’s good news for the companies that sell the weapons. Bloomberg(Gift Article): The Military Suppliers Behind Immigration Raids.
+ Shot Caller: “A laser-guided bomb had killed nine of the 11 people on board, sunk the boat’s motor and capsized the vessel’s front end, according to people who have viewed or been briefed on a classified video of the operation. As smoke from the blast cleared, a live surveillance feed provided by a U.S. aircraft high overhead showed two men had survived and were attempting to flip the wreckage.” WaPo (Gift Article): How a U.S. admiral decided to kill two boat strike survivors. (As you’re reading this, keep in mind the bigger story is not what decision Adm. Frank Bradley made, but that he was put in a position to have to make it in the first place.)
+ Detention Contention: Judge orders immediate release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention. (It’s a safe bet that the administration will come up with another way to arrest this guy.)
+ The Other Big House: In a story that has completely consumed sports media (and still features many unanswered questions), Sherrone Moore went from being Michigan’s football coach to being fired to being arrested in a matter of hours.
+ Battle of the Bulg: “Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov announced he was stepping down, becoming the latest leader to leave in the past four years, amid public anger over corruption and democratic dysfunction.” Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Resigns in the Face of Mass Protests.
+ A Tough Cell: “We learn that prisoner number 320535 had a 12 square metre cell, equipped with a bed, desk, fridge, shower and television. There was a window, but the view was blocked by a massive plastic panel placed outside.” Nicolas Sarkozy releases prison diaries about his 20 days behind bars.
“Seems some folks were planning an early holiday Old Bay crab boil and steak dinner along with their marijuana and cigarettes.” Crab legs, steak, and drugs sent by drone to a South Carolina prison.
+ That thing when you go skydiving and your parachute gets tangled up with the plane’s wing.
2025-12-11 04:08:01
Apparently, the Trump administration doesn’t know that sans serif typefaces are more straight. During the Biden years, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken ordered the department to start using the sans serif font Calibri “to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers.” After this transition, Marco Rubio’s State Department memos and directives were being subjected to what can only be referred to as a woke font. We get it, Marco. Calibri is not your type. But fear not, State Department employees, Calibri has been officially deported from your printer port. In modern parlance, the Calibri font has been officially undocumented. The return of the Times New Roman Empire is upon us. “While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio’s directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed ‘radical’ diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.” (It goes without saying that all files must only be printed in black and white: Documents of color are not welcome.) NYT (Gift Article): At State Dept., a Typeface Falls Victim in the War Against Woke. “Serif typefaces are ‘generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,’ Mr. Rubio’s order said, adding that they were used by the White House, Supreme Court and other state and federal government entities.” If this administration really wants a font that represents the current American government, I suggest they consider Comic Sans.
“The Trump administration plans to require all foreign tourists to provide their social media histories from the last five years to enter the country, according to a notice published Tuesday in the Federal Register. The data would be ‘mandatory’ for new entrants to the U.S., regardless of whether they are entering from countries that require visas, according to the notice from Customs and Border Protection.” (Too bad we didn’t have that requirement for running for president...)
+ As we make America less welcome, other countries are taking advantage. NYT (Gift Article): ‘Come North!’ Canada Makes Play for H-1B Visa Holders With New Talent Drive.
In general, it’s a bad time to be an immigrant and a pretty decent time to be a tax dodger. “President Donald Trump’s administration has carried out a sweeping overhaul of U.S. law enforcement this year, forcing out scores of attorneys and focusing large sections of the Justice Department on tracking down immigrants. Its retreat from tax enforcement illustrates the toll that shift has taken on other crime-fighting efforts.” Exclusive-Tax prosecutions plunge as Trump shifts crime-fighting efforts.
+ WaPo (Gift Article): DHS inks contract to create its own fleet of 737 jets for deportations. “The agency will spend nearly $140 million to buy the planes, funding that comes from a massive budget increase for immigration enforcement approved by Congress.”
+ Of course, the shift of resources to deportation efforts will have an impact on many other crime and terrorism fighting efforts. The question is, to what end? “Trump’s push for the largest mass deportation in history has had an outsized impact on the child care field, which is heavily reliant on immigrants and already strained by a worker shortage. Immigrant child care workers and preschool teachers, the majority of whom are working and living in the U.S. legally, say they are wracked by anxiety over possible encounters with ICE officials. Some have left the field, and others have been forced out by changes to immigration policy.” Trump’s crackdown on immigration is taking a toll on child care workers. (Feel safer?)
Tired of being cheated on? Want a partner you can actually trust to be monogamous? Stop swiping left and right and consider this one piece of advice: Date a California deermouse. WSJ (Gift Article): A Scientist Produced a Monogamy Ranking of Dozens of Mammals, Including Us. If you’re still at the point when multiple partners sounds like twice the fun, you can’t beat the bleat of a Soay sheep.
+ Seemingly related: These Utah Beavers Are Moving. They’ll Get New Jobs and More Space.
Miami Hurricane: “Democrat Eileen Higgins won the Miami mayor’s race on Tuesday, defeating a Republican endorsed by President Donald Trump to end her party’s nearly three-decade losing streak and give Democrats a boost in one of the last electoral battles ahead of the 2026 midterms.” Democrat wins Miami mayor’s race for the first time in nearly 30 years. (Who knows if the momentum will last, but at this point, a Democrat could win an election to be club president at Mar-a-Lago.)
+ Split Decision: “A Federal Reserve split over where its priorities should lie lowered its key interest rate Wednesday, but signaled a tougher road ahead for further reductions.” Divided Fed approves third rate cut this year, sees slower pace ahead.
+ Dropping Pinocchios in the Poconos: Trump is back on the rally tour, offering gems like these: “I said, why is it we only take people from shithole countries? Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, Denmark… But we always take people from Somalia— places that are filthy, dirty, disgusting.” ... “Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is. With her little turban. I love her. She comes in, does nothing but bitch ... we ought to get her the hell out ... she’s here illegally.” (After that one, the crowd started chanting “send her back.”) Trump strays from script at Poconos rally, calling affordability a ‘hoax’ and Pa. a ‘dumping ground’ for immigrants.
+ Foreseeable Future: Everything is television, AI is eating the economy, Gen Z is bummed, America is on drugs. Derek Thomas sums up the year ahead with The 26 Most Important Ideas For 2026.
+ A’ja: “Wilson, a seven-time All-Star, has positioned herself as an ideal leader in this pivotal moment in women’s sports history. She is an effervescent WNBA ambassador, who in recent weeks has been everywhere, finally getting her due.” A’ja Wilson Is TIME’s 2025 Athlete of the Year.
+ Bounty Hunters: Think your budget is stretched thin these days? The United Nations just got rid of paper towels at global HQ in NYC.
+ Photo Finish: Often, the story of our time is best told in photos. From The Atlantic (Gift Article): Top 25 News Photos of 2025. The photos of our time can be pretty bleak. So you may want to follow them with Instagram’s Favorite New Yorker Cartoons in 2025.
“When a small town in Oregon couldn’t afford to properly clear the snow from its streets, residents took the only natural step: They stripped.” WSJ (Gift Article): One Town’s Plan to Address a Financial Crisis: Nude Calendars. “Alan Munhall, the September model who was photographed by his wife in their garden with a basket strapped to his waist, wasn’t sure if they’d raise much money but figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. ‘I’ve gotten a few comments like ‘Oh, it’s a good thing that harvesting bag was as big as it was.”
+ In-N-Out “has removed the number 67 from its order system, as it found teens would go crazy when the number was called, launching celebrations of the nonsense term that have turned into viral videos.” (You may be thinking, “Well, at least we’re that much closer to 69.” But sadly, they got rid of that number, too.)
2025-12-10 04:27:59
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except the main thing that happens in Vegas. That stays with you. You can bring it on the plane when you leave. It stays with you at home, at work, on the subway, on vacations, and even during trips to the restroom. In many states, your phone has become a legalized mobile casino. Sports betting is the main activity we often associate with phone-based gambling. But betting on sporting events is a drop in the quarter-filled bucket when it comes to casino economics. So predictably, in many states, slot machines are now on your phone, too. And people like the slot machines that fit into your pocket as much as they like the ones that serenade Las Vegas casinos on a non-stop basis. The slot machines aren’t the only Vegas highlight that travels well. So do the problems associated with gambling. “Traditional slot machines were once the most common reason people called the problem gambling hotline run by the Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania. But in the years since the state legalized online gambling, online casino games have become the No. 1 reason for calls, ahead of physical casinos and sports betting.” With the risks associated with such behaviors, you’d assume states would be hesitant to legalize mobile slot machines. But here’s the rub. The state is in on the action. NYT Upshot: States Are Raking In Billions From Slot Machines on Your Phone. When it comes to sports betting, you have to wait for the game. With slots, the game is always waiting for you.
It’s hard to imagine that there’s anything that could make social media more addictive to teens. But outlawing it might do the trick. Australia launches youth social media ban it says will be the world’s first domino. “More than 1 million social media accounts held by users under 16 are set to be deactivated in Australia on Wednesday in a divisive world-first ban that has inflamed a culture war and is being closely watched in the United States and elsewhere.” There’s no doubt that there’s something attractive about ungluing kids from their phones. But when I think back to my teen years, something not being allowed only tended to make it more attractive. Being 21 took a lot of the thrill out of scoring a six-pack of beer and legal dispensaries took some of the fun out of buying a joint. And one can safely assume that teens getting around a technological age barrier will be a lot easier than breaking other rules. BBC: Can you ban kids from social media? Australia is about to, but some teens are a step ahead. “It took 13-year-old Isobel less than five minutes to outsmart Australia’s ‘world-leading’ social media ban for children. A notification from Snapchat, one of the ten platforms affected, had lit up her screen, warning she’d be booted off when the law kicked in this week – if she couldn’t prove she was over 16. ‘I got a photo of my mum, and I stuck it in front of the camera and it just let me through. It said thanks for verifying your age,’ Isobel claims. ‘I’ve heard someone used Beyoncé’s face,’ she adds.” (There is some irony at play here. When Facebook first launched, it was only available to college students and then high school students. So in the early days of social media, you had to pretend you were younger than you were if you wanted to check out the newest social tech.)
“A video on TikTok in October appeared to show a woman being interviewed by a television reporter about food stamps ... [the guest discussed] selling food stamps for cash, which would have been a crime ... Despite subtle red flags, hundreds vilified the woman as a criminal — some with explicit racism — while others attacked government assistance programs, just as a national debate was raging over President Trump’s planned cuts to the program.” Here’s the thing: The whole interview was AI generated. The same could very well be true about something that enraged you online. NYT (Gift Article): Even though the consumer apps to create them are only a few months old, A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready. (Who would have thought that in an era filled with real news that seems like it must be fake, we’d feel the need to create fake news that appears real.)
+ Yesterday, I covered the way campaigns are using AI to convince voters of certain ideas, even in remote areas. Don’t think you can be swayed? You’ll Come Around.
“More than 40 strangers logged in to Instacart, the grocery-shopping app, to buy eggs and test a hypothesis. Connected by videoconference, they simultaneously selected the same store — a Safeway in Washington, D.C. — and the same brand of eggs. They all chose pickup rather than delivery. The only difference was the price they were offered: $3.99 for a couple of lucky shoppers. $4.59 or $4.69 for others. And a few saw a price of $4.79 — 20 percent more than some others, for the exact same product.” NYT (Gift Article): Same Product, Same Store, but on Instacart, Prices Might Differ. “The Groundwork study found no evidence that Instacart was basing different prices on customers’ individual characteristics like income, ZIP code or shopping history. But there is little doubt that Instacart and other online sellers have the ability to do so.” (Oh, as sure as eggs is eggs, they will.)
Lies, Lies, and Allies: WSJ (Gift Article): “In a rambling and sometimes incoherent interview ... the US president struggled to name any other Ukrainian cities except for Kyiv, misrepresented elements of the trajectory of the conflict, and recycled far-right tropes about European immigration that echoed the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory.” Trump lambasts ‘weak’ and ‘decaying’ Europe and hints at walking away from Ukraine. What’s weak and decaying are American values. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Why Russia Loves the New US National Security Strategy. “It calls, after all, for a rupture in the Transatlantic Alliance that every Kremlin leader — with brief exceptions for Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin — has sought since 1945.”
+ Not the War of Yore: “To counter the growing threat, America must simultaneously win the race to build autonomous weapons and lead the world in controlling them.” NYT (Gift Article) on the state of weaponry, battles, and what America needs to do to avoid falling behind. This Is the Future of War.
+ Patriarch of History: “Networked misogyny is now firmly established as a key tactic in the 21st-century authoritarian’s playbook. This is not a new trend – but it is now being supercharged by generative AI tools that make it easier, quicker and cheaper than ever to perpetrate online violence against women in public life – from journalists to human rights defenders, politicians and activists..” We see examples on the daily from the very top. Michelle Goldberg: Republican Women Suddenly Realize They’re Surrounded by Misogynists. “Last week, The Times reported on Republican women in Congress who say that Johnson ‘failed to listen to them or engage in direct conversations on major political and policy issues,’ which they seemed to attribute to his highly patriarchal evangelical Christianity. (He recently said that women, unlike men, are unable to ‘compartmentalize’ their thoughts.)” Some men are even able to compartmentalize their ethics.
+ Chips on the Table: “By letting Nvidia sell its H200 artificial-intelligence chips to China, he gave the U.S. company the giant market it demanded. But he also handed China’s AI industry what it couldn’t build itself: the high-end semiconductors needed to rival America.” WSJ (Gift Article): How Trump’s U-Turn on Nvidia Chips Changes the Game for China’s AI.
+ The Reel Deal: “New problems are plaguing old reels, putting decades of history at risk. One man, armed with hair dryers and a love of tinkering, is leading the charge to rescue them.” NYT(Gift Article): The ‘Race Against Time’ to Save Music Legends’ Decaying Tapes.
+ You Seriously Need to Chill: “Your first thought on hearing this is probably ‘Why?’ Why is leftover pizza healthier for me? And the answer has to do with what happens when you cool the delicious crust. When you cool a pizza to below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, some of the starches in the dough will start to mingle together to form these long chains called resistant starches.” Why Leftover Pizza Might Actually Be Healthier. (And it’s not just pizza...)
+ Gift Sift: Jason Kottke, the gift that keeps on giving, is back with his unique and always fun annual gift guide. (It’s slightly shorter than the list my daughter texted to me earlier this week.)
“Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.” A symphony of woofs: This is what happens when 2,397 golden retrievers gather in an Argentina park. (The noise was the equivalent of two beagles noticing a squirrel.)