2026-04-15 02:13:35
Last night, I attended the Bruce Springsteen Land of Hope and Dreams concert at Chase Center in San Francisco. The tour is more than a concert series, it’s a protest movement; a gathering of pro democracy, like-minded people sharing a lament for what’s being done by this administration and unifying around a determination to fight for American values. Like in Minneapolis and cities across America, it was an invitation to take a clear-eyed view of where we are right now, and to come on up for The Rising. Of course, given the age of most of the folks in the crowd, rising can be easier said than done (especially for the duration of a 3-hour Springsteen show). The age of our protest crowd made sense. Aging rockers/Aging fans. I pre-gamed with my standard concert drug of choice these days: a handful of Motrin. But it turns out that our concert demographics weren’t all that different from what you’d find at a No Kings rally. In the NYT (Gift Article), Thomas B. Edsall looks at some of the interesting reasons why young people could be missing from a movement that so directly impacts their interests. “We have a president who has directly attacked the finances and the intellectual freedom of colleges and universities, is building the technology for a surveillance state, undermines free and fair elections and took the nation into an unjustified war with no explanation while causing domestic economic havoc. But one ingredient is missing: a substantial anti-Trump youth movement.” NYT (Gift Article): Why Aren’t the Kids Out Protesting Against Trump? “’At No Kings 1 (June 14, 2025) the median age was 36, at No Kings 2 (Oct. 18, 2025) the median age was 44, and at No Kings 3 (March 28, 2026) it was 48. Clearly, it’s getting older’ ... So what’s going on? I asked a wide range of experts for their thoughts. Some pointed to such structural developments as the explosion in social media usage and public access to artificial intelligence, both of which weaken users’ sense of efficacy and agency.” The irony is that it’s precisely in-person gatherings like concerts and protests that can renew our shared sense of efficacy and agency. Yes, my back was a little sore when I woke up this morning, but, thankfully, I still have the sound of freedom ringing in my ears (at least until I pop one more Motrin)
+ Photos of young Hungarian voters who helped end Prime Minister Orbán’s grip on power. (Yesterday, I covered the big loss for Orban, and MAGA: Fallen Idol.)
+ Of course, young people have plenty of things to worry about these days, from AI shifts in the job market to the political mess we’ve left them. And they’re coming of age in the age of age. “Although political gerontocracy has operated overtly, the rising economic power of the elderly has escaped much notice. Over the past 40 or so years, American wealth has grown ever more concentrated among the oldest generations. In 1989, Americans over age 55 held 56 percent of it; today they hold 74 percent. During that same period, the share of wealth held by Americans under 40 has shrunk by nearly half, from 12 to 6.6 percent. The color of money is now gray.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): An Oligarchy of Old People.
“The government’s own records complicate that picture. Only about 5 percent of people booked into ICE custody in the last year have been convicted of a violent crime. The number of arrests of people with violent convictions has increased by 37 percent under Trump, while the number of arrests of those with no conviction of any kind has risen by 770 percent, according to ICE data. Many agents and officials we spoke to say the relentless pursuit of deportations is unsustainable and has compromised the department.” NYT Magazine (Gift Article): The View From Inside Trump’s D.H.S.
+ “Under Joe Biden, D.H.S. had designated ‘protected areas,’ where ICE and Customs and Border Protection were discouraged from conducting operations; these included places ‘where children gather.’ Trump’s D.H.S. rescinded that designation, freeing agents to target children, parents, and caregivers at playgrounds, child-care centers, and schools.” The New Yorker: The Return of Family Detention.
+ Not worried about the ethical price? There’s a financial cost, too. Immigrants Are Scared to File Taxes. It Could Cost the U.S. Billions.
“Wellness gurus, Make America Healthy Again influencers and no shortage of startups are urging us to eat healthier. Sure, one could follow Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s revised food pyramid, one purported guide to healthier eating, but there’s an even easier fix these groups are also pushing: supplements. Swallow a capsule, mix a powder in some water or pop a nutrient-packed candy. The fast growing US supplement market was valued at $69 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $87 billion by 2028.” Can we gummy ourselves to good health? We’re sure as hell gonna try. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Unilever Bets Big on Gummies as Next Frontier in Wellness.
There’s no shortage of stories about the great and growing economic divide, and the many categories and companies shifting toward serving the luxury market. But you still might not have expected to see this on the list. Gone are the days of the $1 buffet in Las Vegas. Now $175 buffets offer luxury dining. (I’m still confident I can turn an all-you-can-eat buffet visit into a net loss for these restaurants. But, it’s not as easy as it used to be.)
A Great Deal Left to Be Desired: According to sources, the US has proposed a 20-year minimum suspension on Iranian uranium enrichment (reminder that we had a nuclear deal with Iran that a certain someone tore up). It looks like there could be more peace talks in the next few days. And, “Lebanon and Israel are holding their first direct diplomatic talks in more than 30 years.” Xi Jinping said the world must not be allowed to “revert to the law of the jungle.” Here’s the latest from The Guardian, BBC, and NBC.
Brothers in Arms: “The war in Gaza has hardened positions in the Middle East and around the globe. But two men, an Israeli and a Palestinian, say that after that war began in 2023, they became like brothers. It is a brotherhood born out of trauma.” After losing loved ones, an Israeli and a Palestinian work together for Middle East peace.
+ Quit Pro Quo: “Two members of Congress facing sexual misconduct allegations from former staffers have announced they will resign from the House amid a push to expel them from Congress. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who represents California’s 14th Congressional District, and Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents Texas’s 23rd Congressional District, both said Monday they plan to resign.” (This brings up an interesting philosophical question: Can you step down from Congress when Congress no longer exists?) Maybe resigning in shame isn’t enough. Swalwell sounds like a serial monster. No one seemed all that surprised at this story breaking. Makes you wonder why so many backed him until it did. Woman says Eric Swalwell drugged, raped and choked her.
+ Rosé Colored Glasses: “Only 10% of Americans said they were more excited than concerned about the increased use of AI in daily life. Meanwhile, 56% of AI experts said they believed AI would have a positive impact on the U.S. over the next 20 years.” Stanford report highlights growing disconnect between AI insiders and everyone else. (In short, the people poised to make billions off the technology are more psyched than the people who are poised to lose their jobs.) If you’re interested in the state of AI, the whole report is available here. The 2026 AI Index Report.
+ Saudi With a Chance of Meatballs: The Hollywood Reporter: Inside Saudi Arabia’s Billion-Dollar Bet on Hollywood. “The Saudis are pouring billions into the Ellisons’ Warner Bros. megamerger — and that’s just the latest move in a Hollywood takeover that’s really about courting Trump, buying Washington influence and giving a restless young population bread and circuses instead of human rights.”
+ Jesus Saves (And Emails): “Generally, people who are working for the government understand that their job is to work on behalf of all Americans ... And this is something very different. This is very explicitly Christian, and even within the realm of Christianity, a very narrow representation of that.” Wired: Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated With Religion. Meanwhile, JD Vance defends Trump amid spat with Pope Leo: “Stick to matters of morality.” (A member of this administration wants to shift the topic to morality? Now, I’ve heard everything.)
+ Hippocrisy: “Colombia is the only country outside of Africa with a wild hippo population. The hippos are the descendants of four brought to the country in the 1980s by Escobar as he built a private zoo in Hacienda Nápoles, a gigantic ranch in the Magdalena River valley with a private landing strip that served as his rural abode.” Colombia to kill dozens of ‘cocaine hippos’ linked to Pablo Escobar. (Cocaine Hippo was my nickname in the eighties.)
“Thirteen thousand miles. Infinite contenders. One beautiful loaf.” Caity Weaver in The Atlantic (Gift Article): I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. (My glucose alarm bell kept going off, so I couldn’t make it to the end. But give me sourdough or give me death.)
2026-04-14 03:21:26
Viktor Orbán attacked and controlled the media. He diminished academia and universities. He acted as a thorn in Europe’s side and a puppet for Putin. He spread falsehoods, attempted to rig elections, limited support to Ukraine, undermined democratic institutions, basked in corruption, weakened checks and balances, described migrants as poison, erected barriers to bar asylum seekers, removed LGBTQ rights, and enriched his friends while ruining the broader economy. Is it any wonder that he was idolized and emulated by the MAGA movement? Yes, it’s a shame that a US administration sent our vice president to campaign for Orbán while our president dangled economic incentives to Hungarians if they kept his fellow autocrat in power. But it’s also a joyful relief that Hungarians said no to all of it, producing a landslide election that will reverberate throughout Europe, and possibly all the way to Mar-a-Lago. “The prime minister’s loss is a crushing defeat for Donald Trump and his vice president, J. D. Vance, who modeled their agenda in part on Orbán’s governance and staffed their movement with activists trained at his think tanks. As Trump alienated traditional U.S. partners, Washington looked to the like-minded leader in Budapest to represent its interests inside the European Union. The bond was so meaningful to Vance personally that he traveled to Budapest last week to campaign alongside Orbán as if they were running mates.” Isaac Stanley-Becker in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Hungary Just Ousted the Unoustable. (It’s worth noting that Orbán accepted the election results, conceded defeat, and appears to be leaving office without violence. Maybe his American admirers should think about emulating that behavior as well.)
+ “Orbán’s loss brings to an end the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement, as well as the belief—also present in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric—that illiberal parties are somehow destined not just to win but to hold power forever, because they have the support of the “real” people. As it turns out, history doesn’t work like that. “Real” people grow tired of their rulers. Old ideas become stale. Younger people question orthodoxy. Illiberalism leads to corruption. And if Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too.” Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Illiberalism Is Not Inevitable.
+ Meet Peter Magyar, the Man Who Ended Trump Ally Viktor Orbán’s 16-Year Rule.
+ The Orbán outcome marks another in a string of bad outcomes for JD Vance. As Ron Filipkowski notes: “He campaigns for AfD in Germany – they lose. Invited the Pope to come to U.S. for Trump’s big event – Pope refuses. Leads peace negotiations with Iran – fails miserably. Campaigns in Hungary for Orbán – who gets smoked.” (Now if only I could convince JD Vance to root for the Dodgers.)
“Speaking at the White House, the US president says Iran wants a deal ‘very badly’ and he was called this morning ‘by the appropriate people’ seeking an agreement.” Meanwhile, the US has imposed its own naval blockade on maritime traffic near the Strait. (Maybe a blockade times a blockade equals a positive.) So far, allies have rejected Trump’s call to join the blockade effort. Here’s the latest on the ceasefire and the ongoing negotiations from The Guardian, BBC, and the NYT.
+ Fareed Zakaria with an excellent overview of how Trump’s suggestion that the US can profit from Hormuz tolls flies in the face of our core values. “These are revealing remarks, not because they are outrageous. Trump has said many outrageous things, but because they distill a worldview. They suggest a shift in how the United States might see its role not as the guarantor of a system, but as the participant in a deal.”
+ While U.S. negotiators shattered peace talks with Iran, Donald Trump was at a UFC event in Miami, fawning over the body of a Brazilian mixed martial artist. (The only war Trump won was the one on parody.)
“Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself to Truth Social on Sunday depicting him as a Jesus Christ-like figure, with divine light emanating from his hands as he heals a stricken man in a hospital bed with a demon from hell floating in the background.” It proved to be a troll too far, even for Trump supporters, and he removed the post. While he deleted the post, he didn’t take back ridiculous attacks on the Pope about being “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and having only been elected because of him. “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” The Pope was undeterred: “I have no fear of the Trump administration, nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel. That’s what I believe in. I am called to do what the church is called to do.” (You think Trump’s comments are gonna bum out the Pope? The guy is a friggin White Sox fan.)
+ NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate. (What’s the debate; whether he qualifies for a chapter in the DSM or deserves to be on the cover?)
“Here are some things that have been found in donation bins: A live puppy. Live Japanese grenades. An 1854 tombstone for Rebecca Jane Nye. Old skulls. A stolen Frederic Remington sculpture. Customized Air Jordans made for Spike Lee. Three pounds of marijuana. Five pounds of marijuana. A five-hundred-pound US Navy practice bomb. A mastodon tooth. An inert mortar shell. A live mortar shell. A Rolex worth three thousand dollars. A World War I machine gun. The first stamp issued in the US. More than five thousand used blood vials. A Bible signed by the 1953 Pittsburgh Pirates. People.” Paul Collins on a problem you almost certainly didn’t know about. Donation containers that are killing people. The Believer: The Death of a Superman.
Moon Shine: Artemis II’s moon-traveling astronauts return home to cheers after a record-breaking trip. “Hansen said the four of them embodied love ‘and extracting joy out of that’ as the four joined together to stand in a row, embracing one another. ‘When you look up here, you’re not looking at us. We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper. This is you.’” (We had to go to the far side of the moon to get a reminder of the decency, diversity, and joyful endeavors of humans here on Earth.)
+ The Fall of Swalwell: “Multiple House Democrats have called for the resignation of California Representative Eric Swalwell following serious sexual assault allegations against him. Swalwell dropped out of the California gubernatorial election Sunday, but remains in the House.” (The stories came out. The end was swift. It sure didn’t seem like many insiders were surprised to learn of Swalwell’s behavior.)
+ Car-cass: “What happened? How did a basic necessity of American life become a luxury good? We have to start with a transformation of the economy itself beginning in the late 1970s ... Today, there are so many wealthy people who can afford luxury cars that it simply isn’t that profitable for companies to produce cars for the bottom 40 percent of Americans by income.” NYT (Gift Article): The Death of the Basic American Car.
+ Do Not Merge: “Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Stiller, Kristen Stewart and 1,000-Plus Hollywood Names Oppose Paramount-Warner Deal in Open Letter: Block the Merger.”
+ Jacket Racket: “Even after a heart-pounding moment on 18, when McIlroy drove his tee shot deep into the woods on the right, there was still no catching him, not even from world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who trailed McIlroy by a dozen strokes entering the weekend only to finish one shot back.” Rory McIlroy collects second straight green jacket at the Masters. And from The Ringer: Rory McIlroy Does It the Hard Way (Again).
+ Making a More Human Zuck? “Meta creating AI version of Mark Zuckerberg so staff can talk to the boss.”
+ Swan Song? “A study found that traffic fatalities increased in the United States by nearly 15 percent on the same days as the biggest album releases.” Is a Big Album Dropping? You Might Want to Watch the Road.
“Ms. Peiker said she often comes across women who are alone on mountain paths because their partners are hiking ahead. So she wasn’t surprised when, during the past weeks, women on Reddit, Instagram and TikTok began sharing stories of being left behind by their partners while hiking, biking and climbing in nature, calling it ‘Alpine divorce.’” NYT (Gift Article): If He Leaves You on a Mountain, End Your Relationship.
+ Ichiro Suzuki honorary statue unveiled by Mariners, but with broken bat.
2026-04-11 03:40:25
What if the 25th Amendment came with a trophy… If that doesn’t work, maybe we should enact a similar amendment for citizens made crazy by the relentless craziness coming out of the Oval Office. I’d say it was ironic that a guy so vehemently against granting asylum has made the whole country feel like it’s one big one, but irony is long gone, having emigrated from America and cut off all internet access about two minutes into Kid Rock’s alternative halftime show. If I were on the Artemis II, which is scheduled to splash down on Friday, I think I’d suggest we do another loop. Why come back to this? In the course of about an hour on Thursday, we experienced the latest maniacal spinning about the Iran negotiations, a shock Epstein-related press conference from the First Lady, and a 482-word presidential postthat attacked former allies like Tucker Carlson and MTG (he gave more details about what is wrong with them than he did about why he went to war with Iran). Maybe this is all a secret plot to get us to look at our devices less often. Sorry, I’m out of the office messages have escalated to Sorry, I’m out of my mind. Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner explain how the craziness has spread, if not all the way to you and me, definitely throughout the administration. “What the past few months and especially the past few weeks have brought into focus is how the president’s pathologies have cascaded downward and outward through his administration. They have become institutionalized. The reason the administration so often does not act coherently is because it cannot. The world faces something new and baffling and frightening in Mr. Trump’s second term: a psychotic state. This does not mean that every individual in the government is emotionally or psychologically unstable. Nor is it a clinical diagnosis of the president himself. The issue is that the administration as a whole lacks a consistent attachment to reality and the ability to organize its thinking coherently. Mr. Trump’s grandiosity, his impulsivity, inconsistency and his outright breaks with reality have become state policy.” NYT (Gift Article): The Trump Administration Is in a Psychotic State. (I’m pretty sure that headline applies to news curators as well.)
+ While it might be driving the rest of us crazy, it’s not clear Trump feels uncomfortable in the psychotic state (so long as it’s not a blue state). Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker: The Costs of Trump’s Iran-War Folly. “Defeat will not temper his mania. There is no strategic setback so big as to embarrass him ... He’ll handle this like all the rest by moving on and getting over it even before the cleanup crews have finished in Tel Aviv and Tehran.”
Negotiations over the next days and weeks will determine what we have or haven’t achieved through the Iran “excursion.” But some parts of the scoreboard are already coming into focus. Fareed Zakaria talked to Ezra Klein about what Iran has gained: “What it has gained is a far more usable weapon than nuclear weapons. It has realized — and shown the world — that it can destroy the global economy, that it can block the Strait of Hormuz — and that it would have a cataclysmic follow-on effect.” And what America has lost: “That whole idea that the United States saw itself as different, saw itself not as one more in the train of great imperial powers — which, when it was their turn, decided to act rapaciously, to extract tribute, to enforce a brutal vision of dominance — all that was, in a sense, thrown away. I realize it was just one tweet, but it was the culmination of something Trump has been doing for a long time.”
+ For some, the war losses have been far more tangible. Iran’s Schools and Hospitals in Ruins, Times Analysis Shows.
+ None of the discussions of recent mistakes made by the administration should be seen as excusing a deadly Iranian regime that has been terrible for its own people, the region, and the world. Nadav Eyal in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Forgotten War That Iran Already Won. “The most important war that Iran has fought was largely undeclared and is almost entirely forgotten. It was a war against regional peace and the agreements that might have secured it.”
+ In the latest round of negotiations, the team of Witkoff and Kushner will be led by a new participant. Vice President JD Vance is leading negotiations this weekend toward an end to a war that he had opposed starting. Here’s the latest from NBC, The Guardian, and BBC.
“According to Anthropic, the bot has been able to find thousands of software bugs that had gone undetected, sometimes for decades, a sophistication and speed of attack previously thought by many to be impossible. The model has found a nearly 30-year-old vulnerability in one of the world’s most secure operating systems. The Anthropic researcher Sam Bowman posted on X that he was eating a sandwich in the park when he got an email from Mythos Preview: The bot had broken out of the company’s internal sandbox and gained access to the internet.” Claude Mythos Is Everyone’s Problem.
+ It’s not just tech journalists that are worried about the Mythos threat. “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell summoned bank CEOs to an urgent meeting this week to warn about the cybersecurity risks associated with Anthropic’s powerful Mythos AI model.”
What to Doc: Chess Mates on Netflix tracks the biggest controversy in the chess world (and, as it turns out, in the anal bead world). You might not know who to believe and you don’t have to be into chess, or beads, to be into this documentary.
+ What to Book: Matthew Pearl’s novel The Award is about writers, and award, and the crimes it inspires.
+ What to Couchella: Music festivals are always best enjoyed from the comfort of one’s couch. And, given the possible weather issues, that’s more true for this year’s Coachella. Catch your favorite bands on YouTube.
Political Pawnshops: In large part due to the Iran war, Inflation is way up and consumer sentiment is way down. Don’t want to listen to the economists? Then listen the pawn shop owners. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Pawn Shop Loans Spike as High Gas Prices Weigh on Americans.
+ First Lady Doth Protest Too Much: You can dissect Trump’s motivations for any move in two seconds. Melania stumped us on the first try. Why did she give that Epstein press conference? A lot of people seem to think it has something to do with a former friend who was recently removed from the country and has been threatening the first lady on social media. I have no idea if that’s right and this is just social media theorizing for now. But here’s the backstory, which is real, and disturbing. Trump Friend Asked ICE to Detain the Mother of His Child.
+ Fear Factor: Trump posts graphic video of deadly hammer attack, blames Democratic immigration policies. (Don’t let in outsiders because they’re too dangerous, says a guy who threatens to destroy an entire civilization...)
+ Adding Fuel Prices to the Fire: “The Irish government said it had called in the army to help clear blockades of crucial roads, after days of protests over the surging price of fuel, driven by the war in the Middle East, brought highways and streets to a standstill.” Fuel Protests Cause Transport Chaos in Ireland as Iran War Spikes Prices.
+ Token Gesture: “There was another detail from that afternoon that struck the worker: On the platform at Broad Street was a throng of maybe 20 teenagers avidly filming the orphaned train.” NYT (Gift Article): Who Is Keeping These Trains Moving? Teenagers, Illegally.
+ Chimps and Chumps: NYT (Gift Article): These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. “Two factions split about a decade ago and have been engaged in a highly lethal conflict ever since. Scientists have never seen such widespread, long-running bloodshed among chimpanzees. Further studies may shed light on the roots of warfare in our own species.” But here’s the kicker. “The Trump administration’s proposed budget, released on Friday, has cast doubt on whether the research will continue.” (I’m sure Trump can bring peace among Ugandan chimps in one day.)
“’It wasn’t real until we got here,’ said Steve Gildner, a friend in the insurance business. ‘When he was stretching this morning, he was between [Dustin Johnson] and Rory [McIlroy]. It’s crazy.” Meet the realtor who earned a tee time at Augusta National.
+ Britain breaks solar energy record twice as UK’s biggest solar farm gets approval. In some places, energy advances are still moving ahead. BYD and KFC will pair fast EV charging with drive-thru dining in China. “Central to the agreement is a concept the two companies are calling ‘9-minute one-stop human and vehicle refueling,’ a nod to BYD’s second-generation Blade battery — introduced in March — which BYD says can bring a vehicle from 10% battery to 97% in nine minutes.”
+ Chicago Turns All Public School IDs Into Library Cards To Boost Student Access.
+ “A woman who had three different autoimmune conditions has not required treatments for almost a year after her immune cells were genetically modified and used to kill off the rogue cellsattacking her body.”
+ “New groundbreaking research by Stanford researchers has shown to do something that was previously believed not possible: reverse age-related cartilage loss in joints.”
+ Cambodia unveils statue to honor famous landmine-sniffing rat.
+ Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog’s chip reunites with him after 11 years.
+ Three-week-old mountain lion cub rescued by California biologists. (Oh, I’m definitely getting one of these!)
+ Reminder to longtime readers who have followed along with Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson and their excellent Busload of Books program. The couples’ latest book is about to launch, and it’s getting remarkably good reviews! Like out of this world. Get your copy of Life on the Moon now.
2026-04-10 03:15:42
These days, you’re so overwhelmed by the constant flow of bad and stressful news that even your browser tabs are begging to be closed. So it’s a good time to be reminded that there’s good news out there, you just have to look for it. OK, in fairness, the good news is, like, way out there. It requires a voyage beyond the terrestrial headlines and out into the final frontier, to seek out new stories and new civilizations (not under the threat of being wiped out), to boldly go where no news curator has gone before. So let’s beam back up to Artemis II, where a four person crew is reminding us of the joy we can take in (real) strength, courage, and expertise. And yes, science. Sally Jenkins has a stud finder that she aimed all the way to the heavens. The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Artemis Astronauts Are Studs. “These are the kinds of tough-minded pressure performers whom NASA turns out in the space program, and you could be pardoned for thinking, Now, this is what making America great again should look like: people of accomplishment bringing expertise—not bravado—to difficult problems. The agency seems well worth preserving in the current cultural spiral—rife with so much blowhard false valor that grappling with cage fighters is regarded as training.” And a little more good news. These four humans are on their way back to Earth, and their return couldn’t be scheduled to come soon enough. I was just a few open tabs away from trying to join them up there.
“As the strikes on Iran grew deadlier and more destructive, many Iranians opposed to or ambivalent toward their government began to see the suffering inflicted on them as unacceptable. Some Iranians who once voiced hopes that bombardment could dislodge their rulers say they are now worried that they have ended up with the worst of both worlds — abandoned in a country in ruins, governed by an entrenched, emboldened leadership who they fear could act more aggressively against dissent.” NYT (Gift Article): Iran’s Battered Leaders Emerge From War Confident — and With New Cards.
+ “The war against Iran was not begun in consultation with allies. And it came after a series of events that have confounded them. Mr. Trump’s tariff wars were an unpleasant shock, but his threat to take Greenland by force if necessary from Denmark, a European and NATO ally, is seen as an inflection point about American predation, unreliability and contempt for traditional friends. ‘The Iran war and its economic impact are piling on and reinforce this sense that the U.S. right now has become unpredictable and undependable.’” NYT (Gift Article): A Cease-Fire for Now in Iran, but a Blow to American Credibility.
+ Blocking the Strait of Hormuz essentially held the world’s energy economy hostage. China is watching. And they know “a blockade of Taiwan would hurt the global economy more than Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.” Oil isn’t the only thing the global economy depends on. We also need chips. “China will have paid close attention to Trump’s pain threshold. Although Beijing has numerous options for conquering Taiwan, the most appealing for the Chinese military would begin with a partial blockade of the island, much like the one Iran imposed on the strait. The resulting shock to the global economy would be far worse.” Simon Shuster: What China Just Learned From the Iran War.
+ Almost certainly under pressure from the US, Israel is opening talks with Lebanon, but Bibi keeps striking Lebanon, the Strait remains mostly closed, and Trump says he’s optimistic about negotiations: Iran’s leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable. They’re agreeing to all the things that they have to agree to. Remember, they’ve been conquered. They have no military.” (Let’s hope both sides are much more reasonable and honest in private...) Here’s the latest from BBC, The Guardian, and NBC.
“What is actually affecting the birth rates are likely lower rates of teen pregnancy overall, which is in the context of higher use of contraception and lower sexual activity for youth, and then also continued access to abortion care.” Teen birth rates hit another historical low in 2025, CDC says.
Betting on world events may be morally suspect, and turning every event into a gambling opportunity is almost certainly going to degrade our culture. But the news business could hardly be more willing to bet its future on the prediction markets. It seems almost every major news org has done a deal with one of the leading players. And now Google is getting in on the action. Google News Now Prominently Featuring Polymarket Bets.
Throwing Shade at Trees: “Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the agency’s 121-year history. Not a budget cut. Not a policy shift. Not a ‘reorganization.’ An execution.” Trump administration orders dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service.
+ Breaking Badder: “Illicit labs are creating new synthetic drugs at breakneck speed. Dangerous, untested compounds are reaching users long before health agencies know they exist. Older drugs are regularly modified to create novel threats.” NYT: The Fast-Changing Chemistry of New, Dangerous Drugs.
+ Getting the Picture: A set of incredible, and often painful, images. Winners of the 2026 World Press Photo Contest.
+ The Last Emperor: I’ve often argued that if you want to know the truth about climate change, just pay attention to the number crunchers at insurance and re-insurance companies. Or you can pay attention to the penguins. Emperor Penguins Are Now Endangered, a New Assessment Finds.
+ Nerves of Steal “President Trump has championed the U.S. steel industry, promising to strengthen it and to impose stiff tariffs on foreign metals to shield manufacturers from overseas competitors. Yet the White House has secured tens of millions of dollars worth of donated foreign steel for Mr. Trump’s $400 million ballroom project.” NYT (Gift Article): White House Secures Foreign Steel for Ballroom Project. (Relax, it’s just part of a bribe.)
+ Speed Demon: “The overhaul of the immigration courts has been far less visible than the militarized deportation raids that President Trump scaled back after public protest. But the effort has helped reshape a hugely consequential, if little-known, corner of the government that the administration is harnessing to advance its mass-deportation policies.” How Trump Purged Immigration Judges to Speed Up Deportations.
+ A Hot Mess: “A Tennessee county school board voted unanimously Wednesday to censure a member who told a student, ‘God, you’re hot‘ at a public board meeting last week.”
You’re gonna need a bigger cup... “When Nate Wallick takes his kids tubing on the Illinois River near their home in Peoria, he makes them wear football helmets. He’s also built a cage around the front of their inner tube, and gives everyone nets to catch the carp ... Wallick wears a helmet and a cup when he goes water skiing, after once taking a hit to the groin that knocked him off his skis.” WSJ (Gift Article): Humans Are Losing the Fight Against Flying Fish.
+ And the Financial Times issues a correction that could define an era.
2026-04-09 02:49:59
The rest of the world is playing checkers. Trump is playing fortnight. The president backed down from his threat to wipe out a civilization and announced a ceasefire and peace-talk process that would take place over his favorite period of time: two weeks. The news had many shouting Trump’s second-term nickname: TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). Call me pro TACO. I have been in favor of most de-escalations since Trump de-escalated down the Trump Tower escalator and into the White House. The public markets seem to be sharing in my sigh of relief. If this precarious ceasefire holds, the big question will be whether Trump achieved anything by escalating in the first place. David Sanger in the NYT (Gift Article): “Without question, it was a down-to-the-wire tactical victory, one that should, at least temporarily, get oil, fertilizer and helium flowing again through the Strait of Hormuz, and calm markets that feared a global energy shock would lead to a global recession. But it resolved none of the fundamental issues that led to the war. It leaves a theocratic government, backed by the vicious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in charge of a cowed population that has been pummeled by missiles and bombs, and finds itself still under the thumb of a familiar regime, even if under new management. It leaves Iran’s nuclear stockpile in place, including the 970 pounds of near-bomb-grade material that was, in theory, the casus belli of this war.”
+ How Trump went from threatening Iran’s annihilation to agreeing to a two-week ceasefire in a day. Well, it sure wasn’t because of any major concessions made by Iran. Iran Releases 10 Points It Says Are Basis for Cease-fire Talks. “Iran released its version of the proposal the morning after the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week cease-fire, and calls for American troops to leave the region, reasserts Iran’s control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz and maintains Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment.” (Iran is suggesting that they will charge $2 million per vessel that travels through the Strait.) Hegseth said Iran “begged” for a ceasefire, but these deal points sure don’t sound like total surrender. (FWIW, Trump called this ten point plan fraudulent and explained he is dealing with another set of points: “These are the POINTS that are the basis on which we agreed to a CEASEFIRE. It is something that is reasonable, and can easily be dispensed with.”)
+ Who could have predicted things would play out like this? Lots of people, including many inside the administration. And, as is always the case when things don’t go well, they’re more than happy to leak their opinions. “When Mr. Trump joined the meeting, Mr. Ratcliffe briefed him on the assessment. The C.I.A. director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister’s regime change scenarios: ‘farcical.’ John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, cautioned against considering regime change an achievable objective in a Situation Room meeting the next day. At that point, Mr. Rubio cut in. ‘In other words, it’s bullshit,’ he said.” NYT (Gift Article): How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran.
+ Bibi, not ceasing: At least 254 killed after Israel hits Lebanon with massive wave of airstrikes.
+ For now, the Strait traffic is halted, Iran is still apparently attacking its neighbors, and the warring parties are disagreeing about what they agreed to ahead of the ceasefire. Here’s the latest from the NYT, NBC, and The Guardian.
However the peace negotiations play out, it’s hard to imagine America’s evolving place in the world will be better off than it was a couple months ago (when it was already suffering). The Atlantic (Gift Article): A New Geopolitical Reality Is Here. “The war has exposed the contradictions of the Trump administration’s geopolitical worldview. Under this president, the United States has rewarded Russia, ignored China, punished Europe, and abandoned its Asian allies and partners to an economic crisis that it helped set in motion.” (Is pulling out of NATO next?)
“The good news is that Anthropic discovered in the process of developing Claude Mythos that the A.I. could not only write software code more easily and with greater complexity than any model currently available, but as a byproduct of that capability, it could also find vulnerabilities in virtually all of the world’s most popular software systems more easily than before. The bad news is that if this tool falls into the hands of bad actors, they could hack pretty much every major software system in the world, including all those made by the companies in the consortium.” Tom Friedman: Anthropic’s Restraint Is a Terrifying Warning Sign.
+ Anthropic may have gotten to this point first. They won’t be the last. Casey Newton explains why Anthropic’s new model has cybersecurity experts rattled. “One of the world’s three frontier labs has now created a model it says is too dangerous to release to the general public. These dangers emerged not from any specialized cyber training but from the same general improvements that every other lab is currently pursuing. As a result, models with similar capabilities may soon be accessible to criminals, hackers, and nation states — or even more broadly via open source models.”
“In 1976, Chris Espinosa rode his Puch moped a mile and a half every Wednesday afternoon, parked it and went to work. Just 14 years old, he still had to go to school and didn’t have a driver’s license. But his employer, Apple Computer, had customers who wanted to try its earliest computer, and Mr. Espinosa was responsible for demonstrating it. Mr. Espinosa’s job has changed many times in the 50 years since. But he still works for Apple.” One of Apple’s First Employees Looks Back at 50 Years.
Crypt Script: “Bitcoin’s creator has hidden behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto for 17 years. But a trail of clues buried deep in crypto lore led to a 55-year-old computer scientist named Adam Back.” John Carreyrou in the NYT (Gift Article): My Quest to Solve Bitcoin’s Great Mystery. (I still think Bitcoin’s greatest mystery is: what is it good for?)
+ Moon Shots: Here are some more excellent photos from the Artemis II crew. (If these go viral on Instagram, everyone’s gonna want to visit the far side of the moon.) And Kottke’s got you covered if you need some Stunning Artemis II Phone Wallpapers. (It’s gonna take a lot more than a lunar joy ride to get my beagles off my lock screen...)
+ Plea Change: Rex Heuermann admits to killing 8 women in Gilgo Beach serial killings.
+ Ketamine Time: “She also said she had sold ketamine to Cody McLaury, a 33-year-old who died in 2019 shortly after purchasing the drugs, as well as Perry, and continued dealing after learning of their deaths.” ‘Ketamine Queen’ sentenced to 15-year prison term for role in Matthew Perry’s death.
+ Generic Rolled: “The country has one of the largest diabetic populations in the world by sheer number — more than 100 million people are estimated to be living with some form of the disease. And 350 million people there live with obesity. Heart attacks and strokes, which are lumped together under cardiovascular disease, claim 2.8 million lives a year in India, and strike nearly a decade earlier on average than in high-income countries.” That’s why the generic versions of GLP-1s could be a massive game changer. Ozempic just got cheap enough to change the world.
+ New Management, Same Boss: “The decision [to target Cassidy Hutchinson] was in keeping with the administration’s bid to find new ways to use the powers of the federal government to target Mr. Trump’s political opponents.” Justice Dept.’s Civil Rights Division Is Investigating Star Witness Against Trump. (Remember, Pam Bondi was canned in part because she wasn’t terrible enough when it comes to targeting Trump’s enemies...)
+ The LLM Will See You Now: “Online communities focused on health anxiety—an umbrella term for excessive worrying about illness or bodily sensations—are filling up with conversations about ChatGPT and other AI tools. Some say it makes them spiral more than ever, while others who feel like it helps in the moment admit it’s morphed into a compulsion they struggle to resist.” The ChatGPT Symptom Spiral. (I tend to spread my symptoms across several LLMs so none of them get as irritated with me as my friends and family are...)
“The door slides open to reveal an interior in a lovely shade of peacock blue more akin to what I’ve seen in a fancy hotel powder room. After you do your business and exit the stall — you can wash your hands inside or at a little station on the exterior that includes a potable water spigot — the door closes and the cleaning process commences after each use. It looks a bit like a toilet theme park: the bowl is drawn back into the rear wall, where it’s sprayed down and disinfected.” A deep dive into self-cleaning public toilets in Paris. The best seat in town. (I’m thinking about getting one of these for my house.)
+ The latest fashion statement: 7-Eleven merch.
2026-04-08 02:26:47
In between posting that “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F-ckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH. Praise be to Allah” and announcing that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” the president of the most powerful country in the world stood next to the Easter Bunny and shared some thoughts about Iran. Donald Trump may not have yet been able to bomb open the Strait of Hormuz, but he has blown his strait jacket clean off. We are in uncharted territory, with an unhinged president repeatedly threatening war crimes and a cast of enablers unwilling to stand up to the monster they helped create. I’m no expert on mental illness, even though I’ve been forced to confront its symptoms plastered across the news since that fateful Trump Tower escalator ride. But I’d imagine that if you were a cornered, frustrated, attention-addicted malignant narcissist with flourishing sociopathic tendencies, you’d be getting off bigly right now as a whole civilization waits to see if you’ll destroy it. I hope this manifestation of unbridled symptoms proves to be bluster or leads to some kind of deal and that the civilization in question does not die. In the meantime, American civilization is dying a little more with each passing day.
+ “Whatever happens tonight, the president, by saying such things, has already changed the world for the worse, and made acts of mass violence more likely. If we are Americans, he has also changed our country. He has changed us, because he represents us; we voted for him, or we didn’t vote and allowed him to come to power, or we didn’t do enough to stop him. These words are America’s words, until and unless Americans reject them.” Timothy Snyder: The president speaks genocide.
+ “The bombings and threats have left many Iranians living in fear not only of their own government, which killed thousands of people in a crackdown on protesters early this year, but their would-be American rescuers, who pledged at the beginning of the war to create the conditions for their government to fall.” WSJ (Gift Article): Iranians Fear Trump’s Threatened Escalation.
+”Lili, the Tehran resident, said that as someone who long opposed her government and sympathized with the nationwide demonstrations that sought to topple it just months ago, Mr. Trump’s threats have shifted her feelings toward the United States and Israel. Both countries’ leaders have repeatedly voiced support for Iran’s opposition and encouraged Iranians to use the war to rise against their leaders. But their warplanes are now bombing not just military sites, she said, but critical industrial facilities, universities and schools. ‘So now, we are supporting Iran and whatever government is running it.’” NYT (Gift Article): Iranians Voice Shock and Defiance in Face of Trump’s Looming Deadline.
+ “What benefits the Iranian people—global economic reintegration, diplomatic recognition, investment, normalcy—threatens a regime that operates an extensive mafia and thrives in isolation. The carrots that America offers the nation are sticks to the men who rule it. And the sticks that America wields against the regime—isolation, conflict, and chaos—are carrots to men whose power depends on all three.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s Fundamental Misunderstanding in Iran. Even if you take ethics out of the equation (which many have already done), you have to wonder how further harming the Iranian citizens harmed by this regime will lead to the regime doing a deal?
+ US-Israeli strikes hit Iran’s oil, rail and bridges, U.S. strikes Kharg Island, here’s the latest from NYT, NBC, The Guardian, and BBC.
At one point yesterday, the Artemis II team was on the other side of the moon and completely out of contact with Earth (making them the happiest humans in the universe). They traveled farther from the Earth than any humans had ever gone before, and they’ve got the photos to prove it. Moon Joy: Photos From Artemis II.
+ “As the astronauts of Artemis II traveled farther from Earth than any humans before them, they paused. Speaking solemnly, they called down to mission control to request that an unnamed crater on the moon be dedicated to Carroll Wiseman, the wife of mission commander Reid Wiseman, who died of cancer in 2020.”
+ Not satisfied ruining everything on Earth, Trump called the astronauts to ruin a little of their trip. (The next thing NASA needs to invent: Intergalactic voicemail.)
“He heaped praise on Mr. Orban as a ‘statesman’ who is ‘wise and smart’ and abuse on European Union ‘bureaucrats’ who he said ‘tried to destroy the Hungarian economy’ to sway Sunday’s result ‘because they hate this guy.’ Mr. Orban’s leadership, he added, “can provide a model to the Continent.’” Vance Visits Hungary to Boost Orban Before Election. Meanwhile, Russia supplies Iran with cyber support, spy imagery to hone attacks.
+ “Mr. Vance is responding as he always has whenever ambition calls: He’s humiliating himself. The vice president is scheduled to go to Hungary on Tuesday to campaign for the country’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban, a Kremlin-allied white nationalist who proclaims that Europeans ‘do not want to become peoples of mixed race.’” Dana Milbank in the NYT (Gift Article): How Much Humiliation Can Vance Take? (How much can wetake?)
Some crops are currently wasting away in fields because there aren’t enough workers to pick them. Wait, what gives? I thought the plan was to chase away immigrant labor and wait for Americans to come take the jobs that are rightfully theirs? Well, it went something like this: “High wage mandates have ‘not resulted in a meaningful increase in new entrants of U.S. workers to temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs.’ Farmers received applications from U.S. workers for only 182 of 415,000 positions advertised in the last fiscal year.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Farm Labor Shortfall Bites.
Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and AI: “A recent analysis of AI Overviews found that they were accurate approximately nine out of 10 times. But with Google processing more than five trillion searches a year, this means that it provides tens of millions of erroneous answers every hour (or hundreds of thousands of inaccuracies every minute) ... Whether a response rate that is almost — but not quite — accurate should be celebrated is part of a widespread debate in Silicon Valley.” (It’s just not as heated as the debate over who will make the most money from AI...) NYT: How Accurate Are Google’s A.I. Overviews?
+ Some Assembly Required: Michigan held off UConn to win the March Madness crown. It was the second win for Michigan, but the first of its kind. Dusty May “deployed a starting five this season made up entirely of transfers. It was the first time in NCAA basketball history that a team with an all-transfer starting five won the championship.” For anyone old enough to remember the old Gabe Kaplan movie Fast Break, the NIL era has basically turned it into a documentary.
+ Hook, Lines, and Linker: “’It’s not like he was just holed up in his room 24-7,’ Freudenberg says. ‘He ran track. He played soccer. He was a great student.’ Until he dropped out of college at age 19. That’s when his mom found out that he had been gambling for nearly half his life.” More teens are getting hooked on gambling. Parents say it often goes undetected.
+ Lithium Valley: “In Imperial County, Calif., half of the roads are unpaved and the unemployment rate is sky-high. The shimmering water at a once-thriving lakeshore is toxic. Perhaps nowhere in California needs a lifeline more than this arid borderlands region in the southeastern corner of the state. And a mile underground, there might just be one.” NYT (Gift Article): The California Lake Billed as the Saudi Arabia of Lithium. (Not everyone is so sure the locals would benefit...)
+ Ye Nods: “Kanye West was barred Tuesday from entering the U.K., where he was scheduled to headline the Wireless Festival in July, after a backlash over [his] history of antisemitic remarks.” Sadly, the reaction of the public to his return isn’t quite the same. He was just joined by a bunch of famous guests during a couple sold out shows at SOFI in LA.
+ An International Terminal Case: “New Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin wants to punish ‘sanctuary cities’ for refusing to cooperate with Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda by stripping them of customs and immigration services.” New DHS Secretary Threatens to Sabotage America’s Biggest Airports.
+ To Recede or Reseed:“Ansell, the dermatologist, said she has had parents come in asking about finasteride for their teenage sons, looking to make sure they get ‘all the best they can have in order to succeed in life.’ Young men are also coming in on their own for help keeping their hair. ‘More of them are really anxious about it,’ Ansell said. ‘There’s no new epidemic of hair loss, but there is an epidemic of men freaking out about it.’” NYT (Gift Article): The Hair-Loss Drug Rewriting the Rules of Masculinity. (What about tradition? I made fun of my dad for being bald. And now I’m going bald. This is the way.)
“American families are leaning in to the low-tech life for their kids, installing home phones to stave off smartphone use. It’s creating some hiccups. For weeks after getting her phone, Elsie would call friends only to sit in agonizing silence, not knowing what to say.” WSJ (Gift Article): Kids Are Discovering the Joys—and Pains—of the Landline.