2026-03-07 03:53:33
The House always wins. The same is not true for the Frat House. Founders of prediction markets—or gambling sites that have recently added sports gambling to the mix—know how to place a smart bet. That’s why they’re headed to college. While these sites are susceptible to insider trading and market manipulation, neither of those strategies was required for Kalshi and Polymarket to identify a valuable target market. There was already a gambling scourge spreading across college campuses, particularly among males who have adopted sports betting as a normal part of university life. Some non-profits say that as many as 10% of college students could be classified as pathological gamblers. And those numbers were added up before prediction markets took off. So, given the profits over ethics vibe of our current classless cultural moment, it would be safe to bet that prediction markets are coming to a fraternity near you. WSJ (Gift Article): The Prediction Market Bets Driving a Campus Frenzy. “Both companies have begun splashing cash on campuses. Polymarket has offered to pay fraternities, in exchange for signing up users, money that can be spent on throwing ‘epic parties’—one frat raised $30,510 over a two-week period. Both platforms have been paying student influencers to promote them as ways to raise fun money, enlisting student athletes as brand representatives and supporting student clubs ... Polymarket also reached out to fraternities and social clubs across the University of California, Berkeley, last fall, according to students there, offering company-branded beer pong cups and up to $1,000 for parties.” The targeting of youth, many of whom are too young to participate in regular gambling, isn’t stopping orgs like AP, Google, CNN, and the NHL (and the platform I’m sending this newsletter out on) from partnering with the prediction markets, because of a distorted belief that they provide some kind of wisdom of the crowds version of truth. But throwing the fuel of legalized gambling on the fire already engulfing college campuses is a bad bet. Especially if it pays off.
+ Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic (Gift Article): A Technology for a Low-Trust Society. “This is the central lie of prediction markets: They claim to get us closer to the truth but, in the end, they make us less certain about the world. But this erosion of trust is a feature, not a bug, for these platforms. A world where people are suspicious of every motive is a world where the cold logic of gambling feels more rational. A zero-trust society is one where the prediction markets’ dubious ‘wisdom of crowds’ marketing seems extra appealing. In this way, prediction markets are a system that justifies its own existence—a well-oiled machine chipping away at societal trust while offering a convenient solution to its own problem.”
+ Think I’m making Kalshi and Polymarket seem too hateable? Well, consider this: They hate each other, too.
America needs group therapy. In a 25-country survey by Pew, Americans were especially likely to view fellow citizens as morally bad. “In nearly all countries surveyed, more people say that others in their country have somewhat or very good morals than say their compatriots display somewhat or very bad levels of morality. The United States is the only place we surveyed where more adults (ages 18 and older) describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad (53%) than as good (47%).” We don’t just disagree. We dislike our fellow Americans and view each other as bad people. This divisiveness, sadly, is a dream scenario for those with anti-democratic leanings (which is one reason why they spend so much time spewing hate and dividing us).
“We are aware that stuff is happening that we should care about, but the fog of bullshit surrounding this stuff is so thick that we can barely make out its shape or heft. Less than six weeks have passed since Alex Pretti was shot dead by C.B.P. agents in Minneapolis, and yet that, too, already feels like yesterday’s problem.” In The New Yorker, Jay Caspian Kang tries to explain how it sort of makes sense that we could have A No-Explanation War.
+ “Hegseth tries so hard—too hard—to project a tough-guy persona, as if a lot of unresolved issues, a lot of brokenness, are playing themselves out in his life. He seems to be trying to prove a great deal, to himself and to others. There’s a certain poignancy in that. But there’s a danger in that, too, when the person in question happens to be the secretary of defense.” The Atlantic(Gift Article): Pete Hegseth’s Troubled Soul.
+ There’s no doubt that America’s air power has been a dominant force. But there’s something sick about talking about it the way Hegseth does. Especially because we know that war kills innocent victims, not just evil regime members. Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian Naval Base.
+ Trump Demands Iran Surrender as War Upends Global Markets. That may be hard for the surviving members of the regime to do, since it’s essentially signing a death certificate. But they are under extreme pressure, and they don’t have many friends left. Reuters: Iran spent years fostering proxies in Iraq. Now, many aren’t eager to join the war. The weakness Iran showed during the 12-day war was a strong negative signal to their proxies.
+ Meanwhile, maybe someone can turn this into a really exciting TV show or internet meme and get it in front of Trump. WaPo(Gift Article): Russia is providing Iran intelligence to target U.S. forces, officials say. Enemy’s gonna enemy.
What to Rock: It turns out that the best way to get an especially great performance out of a musician is to put them on a stage in an arena filled with music legends. That’s one reason why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies always make for great shows. And the most recent one honoring Soundgarden, OutKast, Warren Zevon, Bad Company, and others was no exception. I teared up during Letterman’s tribute to Zevon and got the chills during Brandi Carlile’s note-hitting during Black Hole Sun. The 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony is on Hulu and Disney Plus.
+ What to Watch: Scrubs has made its return to TV. And it serves up the same goofy, feel-good comedy as it did the first time around (only we may need that a little more now).
+ What to Binge: The Peaky Blinders movie is hitting theaters this weekend. That doesn’t give me much time to binge all six seasons on Netflix. Gonna be a busy weekend...
Off the Job: “The US economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, Labor Department data released Friday showed, sharply missing economists’ expectations and stalling the nascent hiring growth that started the year.” (On Truth Social, I’m guessing this is Biden’s fault. Job growth was so good under his administration that it had to go down under Trump!)
+ Noem on the Range: It’s worth noting that Kristi Noem was not fired for overseeing the murder of American citizens or sending untried men to overseas terror prisons, she was fired for a poor TV performance when being questioned by Congress, building her own image, and grifting without permission. Why Trump Changed His Mind on Kristi Noem. “It wasn’t the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year that finally cost Noem her job ... it was her self-promotion.
+ Get Out of Jail Cardholders: Pardons are for sale these days. You just have to make sure you pay the right person. Or pay enough people that someone in the group can get the job done. NYT (Gift Article): Pardon Industry Offers Rich Offenders a Path to Trump.
+ Six Figures: Not everyone had to pay for their pardon. The Jan 6 rioters got theirs for free. Society’s deal has been less good. A Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump was sentenced to life in prison for child sex abuse.
+ Rubio’s Résumé: Trump tells CNN Cuba is soon going to fall: “I’m going to put Marco over there.”
+ In Pod We Trust: When the iPhone first came out, I predicted (luckily, only inside my own mind) that people wouldn’t want to mix their music with all the distractions featured on a smartphone. It’s still unclear if the iPhone is really going to catch on, but a handful of young people are tired of the distractions and are reaching for old-school iPods. Bring On Defunct: The iPod Enthralls Young Music Listeners. (Just as I predicted!)
“Hill is part of a small group of creative types who have found healthy demand for analog subscription services in a world of digital screens. They create or curate packets of art prints, stickers, letters and commentary covering topics from architecture to food to their daily routines. They often use social media to find and market to fans but the real connection happens offline.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Crossing Guard Making $14,000 a Month Mailing Out Her Musings From the Job.
+ His opera career stalled. Now he’s a car salesman, and his ads are viral.
+ If you’re going to lose your money, lose it in Japan. Someone will probably give it back. Record 4.5 billion yen in lost cash turned in to Tokyo police in 2025.
+ A wholesome, affirming forum for bald people.
+ If you missed it, everyone seems to love, A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator. “What I do is I take things that are perfectly fine, and I make them worse. More specifically, I make it shitty.”
2026-03-06 04:21:22
I’ve been taking a GLP-1 to combat high blood sugar for quite a while. A few months ago, I was in a room where, one by one, some fellow injectors explained how the use of the drug had instantly and completely turned off their food noise — the constant, intrusive, persistent thoughts about food. As each person offered their near religious testimony, I fingered the collar of the custom t-shirt I made for the occasion, and one thought entered my mind: Pesto Pasta and Garlic Bread. And that thought stayed in my head throughout the discussion, and beyond. I’m thinking about Pesto Pasta right now. There’s no doubt that the GLP-1 has had an impact on the amount I eat and the levels of glucose in my blood, but apparently, it’s no match for my perpetual and thunderous food noise. I like to view this as evidence of superior mental strength. Whatever it is, I am definitely in the minority. And GLP-1s aren’t just turning off food noise. For many, they’re a miracle mute button that can turn off cigarette noise, alcohol noise, opioid noise, gambling noise, and more. Much more. GLP‑1 drugs may fight addiction across every major substance, according to a study of 600,000 people. This news has me thinking that maybe I should up my dose. It also has me thinking about sesame noodles, dim sum, a fresh, soft and still warm everything bagel, mint-chip ice cream, and PB&J spread across the entirety of a loaf of sourdough.
War, huh, good God y’all, What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Edwin Starr’s anti-war song worked in part because of its simplicity. Limited combat operations, huh, good God Y’alljust doesn’t hit the same way. Neither does, Hostilities, huh, good God Y’all. That doesn’t even have a good rhyme. But anti-war song composers will have to come up with something. Because whatever is happening in Iran, it’s not a war. “When President Trump gave reporters a brief update this week on the accelerating bombing campaign against Iran, he said, ‘We’re doing very well on the war front.’ That complicated matters for Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have spent the days since the U.S.-Israeli attacks began engaging in semantic gymnastics to describe the widening conflict as a ‘major combat operation,’ a ‘mission,’ ‘hostilities’ or really just anything other than ‘war.’” NYT (Gift Article): Republicans Toil to Avoid Saying ‘War’ as Iran Conflict Widens. (What is this abject stupidity and wholly unserious response to this very serious moment good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again, y’all.)
+ “In announcing the goal of regime change through air power alone, President Trump is up against the weight of history. Not just Iran, but the weight of history. For over a century, states—including the United States, European states, Russia, and Israel—have tried to topple regimes with air power alone. It has never—and I’m choosing my words carefully—it has never worked.” Trump Cannot Achieve Iran Goals With Bombing Alone, Expert on Airpower Warns. Can the Kurds offer a ground war solution? Iranian Kurdish Forces Say They May Enter Iran. Who Are the Kurds?
+ Trump says he has to be involved in picking Iran’s next leaderas war ripples across the region. (In fairness, this is Trump’s version of American democracy.)
+ Here’s the latest from NBC, Times of Israel, and the NYT.
In an administration that prides itself on hiring the worst possible people and gleefully celebrates their awful performances, it’s really something to be fired. Congrats to Kristi Noem for the achievement. Trump ousts DHS secretary Kristi Noem and replaces her with Republican senator. “Noem’s tenure was marked by killings of US citizens by federal agents, a rumored affair, and $220m spent on ads.” Noem will still be part of the administration in her new role as Envoy for The Shield of the Americas. (I can never remember if that role is DC or Marvel...)
+ Here’s the new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin saying of our Iran efforts that “this is war” before explaining that it is in fact, not war. (Think about it. If Mullin doesn’t oversee the murder and disparaging of American citizens, that alone will make him a major improvement.)
“The Philadelphia Inquirer hadn’t written much about suburbs like Lower Merion, Pa., and Cherry Hill, N.J. for years. Now it is revisiting those communities—with an assist from AI. Last year, the Inquirer launched newsletters in four locations, amassing more than 50,000 free subscriptions.” WSJ (Gift Article): Can AI Save Local News? (A new technology that can synthesize information from a variety of sources to produce a clear and cogent newsletter? There was a time when this would have threatened me. But given the 2026 news cycle, I’m willing to be replaced...)
Payback Time: “A federal judge ruled that the US government must begin paying out more than $130 billion in tariff refunds to US businesses in another setback for the Trump administration after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s wide-reaching ‘reciprocal’ tariffs.” (Wait, I thought other countries paid for the tariffs...)
+ The Claude Squad: Consumers have migrated to Anthropic in support of their stand when it comes to the Pentagon. Now, some defense experts have backed the company in a letter to Congress. Anthropic’s investors? Meh. Meanwhile, a leaked memo from Anthropic’s CEO suggests that the acrimony is due in part to the fact that “we haven’t given dictator-style praise to Trump.” All this aside, Anthropic’s AI tool Claude has been central to U.S. campaign in Iran.
+ Vlad Handing: “Russia is one of the biggest winners in the early days of the largest U.S. military confrontation in decades, as Iranian missiles deplete stocks of Patriot interceptors that Ukraine needs for its defense.” Oh...
+ Hey Norm! “At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded by billionaire Steve Feinberg, who until last year ran the company and is now the deputy secretary of defense — the second-highest-ranking official in the Pentagon. Feinberg oversees the office in charge of the Golden Dome for America project.” There’s a word for this. The Norm. Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate.
+ Membership Has Its Untowards: “The group chat — verified by two people in the group — reveals the extent of racism and extremism within the highest ranks of campus Republican Party leadership in Miami at a time Florida’s Republicans are reckoning with an increasingly emboldened far right.” ‘Nazi heaven’: Inside Miami campus Republicans’ racist group chat. (These guys should reserve this kind of commentary for X, where it belongs.)
+ If These Malls Could Talk: A London Shopping Mall Was Dying. Then Taylor Swift Put It in a Music Video.
“What I do is I take things that are perfectly fine, and I make them worse. More specifically, I make it shitty.”
2026-03-05 04:37:07
The market has managed to take in stride things like massive regional wars, Constitutional crises, attacks on law and order, illegal tariffs, and the cracking of the foundation that underpins the modern global order. Even with all these factors at play, nothing moves the market like AI news. For a while, that meant that any press release indicating a company was digging deeper into AI led to a share price boost. More recently, many of the bigger movements have been reactions to the threat posed by AI. The Saas-pocalypse hit many big tech players when investors worried that their functions would be replaced by OpenAI and Anthropic. So tech companies know they have to play the AI market right, and that they have to play the AI news and hype cycle right. And, as is the case with many of the answers you get from LLMs, it can be almost impossible to dissect reality from hallucinations (some of which are intended).
At this point, there’s little doubt that the AI revolution will have an outsized impact on white collar jobs, from how they’re done to how many of them will survive. We’re already seeing worrying signs in the job market. But we’re also seeing signs that corporate CEOs looking to lighten costs via layoffs might use the emergence of AI as an excuse for doing so. This can play as good news in the investment world, which loves lowering costs through layoffs and loves any signal that a company is becoming an AI company. Thus, telling the market you’re preemptively laying off thousands of employees and replacing them with AI can create a perfect storm for a company’s share price. For employees, it’s more of a shitstorm.
Aaron Zamost, a former employee of Block, examines that company’s recent layoffs made in the name of AI, and what they might mean for both the future of public companies and the stories they spin. “Look closer at specific cuts — like shrinking the policy team and eliminating diversity and inclusion roles, former colleagues told me — and Block’s latest reorganization reads like standard prioritization and cost management, not an A.I.-driven reinvention ... Fear that the A.I. tsunami will destroy the traditional software field has led investors to pummel the valuations of long-established companies like Salesforce and Adobe. Like those businesses, Block is not an A.I. company. It is a financial services tech business, and it understandably wants to avoid ‘software dodo’ extinction before it comes for its industry. In that respect, A.I. is both a story line and a survival strategy.” NYT (Gift Article): I Worked for Block. Its A.I. Job Cuts Aren’t What They Seem. Of course, in the market, news is like stock shares. The only thing that matters is what investors buy. And they bought Block’s story. “Wall Street rewarded Block handsomely, sending the company’s stock up 24 percent after the announcement. That incentivizes the rest of corporate America to follow Block’s lead and announce traditional layoffs while playing the A.I. card. I’m sure it will.”
The situation in Iran and the region is fluid. Two fluids in particular might drive the course and duration of the war. You can probably guess the first one. WSJ (Gift Article): Strait of Hormuz: The Oil Bottleneck Threatening the Global Economy. But there’s another fluid that could also be at risk. Javier Blas in Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Iran War’s Most Precious Commodity Isn’t Oil. “The CIA calls it the ‘strategic commodity’ of the Middle East. But it’s not referring to oil or natural gas. What the American spy agency has in mind is far more prosaic: drinking water. Don’t underestimate it, though, because if military hostilities continue to escalate, water could become the geopolitical commodity that decides the war between the US and Iran.”
+ “The president specializes in exploiting the weaknesses of his opponents; having watched Israel decimate Iran’s proxy armies and air defenses over the past few years, he sought to capitalize on the regime’s moment of maximum vulnerability. Other countries—most notably Israel and Saudi Arabia—potentially stand to benefit from Trump’s war. But the decision to start it was his alone, and no amount of spin from his surrogates should obscure this fact.” Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Real Reason Trump Went to War. (I don’t pretend to be able to understand the inner workings of Trump’s mind. But there’s no doubt that the 12-day war showed the region and the world how weak and vulnerable Iran is. Whether this invasion was the best way to respond to that weakness remains to be seen.)
+ The U.S. has been remarkably effective at blocking attacks from Iran. But doing so, at this point, requires the use of expensive munitions to block cheaper ones. That could be a factor as this war plays out. And it is very likely on the minds of America’s stronger and more dangerous adversaries. The Dangerous Munitions Mismatch Between America and Iran.
+ “The U.S. has torpedoed an Iranian ship in international waters in the Indian Ocean, among 20 vessels the U.S. military says it has struck.” And bigger strikes may still be coming. According to Hegseth, America and Israel would soon be able to deliver “death and destruction all day long.” (Which is exactly how you don’t want your secretary of defense to talk.) Meanwhile, “NATO air defenses had shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran that had been heading toward Turkish airspace.” Here’s the latest from NBC, ABC, and NYT.
“A lingering question is why the group was clustered together if the guides knew the group was traveling below avalanche terrain. Standard backcountry protocol is to expose only one person at a time if traveling through an avalanche path.” There were several small decisions that led to a massive disaster in the Sierras. The Atlantic (Gift Article): California’s Deadliest Avalanche Turned on One Choice.
“One senses that the climate crisis is not only threatening to destroy property, but is also challenging the confidence of both the insurers and the insured, perhaps providing a hint at fault lines in the economic system.” In fact, economic dangers go hand in hand with climate dangers. Here in California, we’re already seeing insurance companies flee or move customers to much higher-priced and less secure plans. I’ve said it many times. If you want to know how real the threat of climate change is, just follow the re-insurance companies. Aeon: The insurance catastrophe.
+ The sea is higher than we thought and millions more are at risk, study finds.
Talarico-Dependent: There were several primaries across the country on Tuesday, as the 2026 midterms officially kicked off. None were more watched than the ones in Texas, on both sides of the aisle. Does a matchup between James Talarico and either Ken Paxton or John Cornyn suggest the state may really be in play for Dems? Politico: ‘A perfect storm is lining up for Texas Democrats’
+ Trans Parent: “An emergency Supreme Court ruling to temporarily bar California from enforcing a state law that prevents public schools from outing transgender students has advocates raising concerns about its potential to further roll back protections for transgender youth.” (This SCOTUS may surprise us occasionally on economic issues like tariffs, but never when it comes to the religiosity war in America.) Advocates Fear Supreme Court Is ‘Going After the Transgender Community Deliberately.’
+ That’s What Kalshi Said: “On Kalshi, people have placed bets on everything from football games to foreign affairs. The prediction market’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, says this doesn’t count as gambling—and is actually good for society.” Let me counter slightly. It is gambling. And, along with the sports betting sweeping the country (particularly among young men), it is terrible for society. And I’d bet on that. Steven Levy in Wired: How Is Kalshi Not Gambling?
+ Destigmatize: “This government initiative, called One of Us, works with people who have mental health challenges — the program calls them ambassadors — to share their stories in schools, hospitals and police stations, with a focus on their recovery.” NYT (Gift Article): A Danish Program Takes On the Stigma of Mental Illness.
+ Dunkin on Someone: RFK Jr “took aim at processed foods and singled out Dunkin’ and Starbucks for particular scrutiny ... ‘We’re going to ask Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, ‘Show us the safety data that show that it’s OK for a teenage girl to drink an iced coffee with 115 grams of sugar in it ... I don’t think they’re gonna be able to do it.” (I don’t either. But I also don’t think fighting Dunkin’, Starbucks, and teenage girls, all at once, is a winning strategy. Also, I’d rather my daughter get a Frappuccino than measles.)
+ Is Neo the One: Apple unveils its entry into the lower-priced laptop market, and begins to sort of merge mobile with MacBooks. The Verge: Our first hands-on look at Apple’s MacBook Neo. (Why do the lower-priced versions of tech products often get the cooler color choices?)
+ Photo Finish: Finalists from the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards Professional Competition.
Crystal Meth: “If you give a chimp a crystal, she might not give it back. Researchers learned this the hard way. They gave quartz, calcite and other types of crystals to chimpanzees in a rehabilitation center. The apes responded with great interest, and the researchers ended up needing to trade large amounts of bananas and yogurt to get back the largest crystal. Others were never retrieved.” Chimpanzees Are Really Into Crystals.
2026-03-04 03:15:30
In The New Yorker, Susan Glasser goes over some of the reasons we’ve been given that America launched the Iran war. “In the two and a half days since Donald Trump unleashed a new war in the Middle East, the President and his Administration have come up with an astonishing array of different, even contradictory, rationales for the American military attack on Iran. By my count, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few, these include outright regime change, assistance to the oppressed peoples of the Islamic Republic, stripping Iran of ‘the ability to project power outside its borders,’ stopping future Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks while exacting revenge for past ones, preëmptive action against an imminent Iranian threat to attack U.S. forces, preëmptive action to block Iran from building ballistic missiles that could hit the U.S. mainland, and preëmptive action to stop the Iranian nuclear program that Trump had, as recently as last week, claimed was ‘obliterated.’ Many of these explanations are based on false premises; some already seem to have been abandoned.” Can Donald Trump Win a War with Iran If He Can’t Explain Why He Started It? I touched on this issue in yesterday’s edition, where I argued that Epic Fury looks a little more like Blind Fury. Among the most preposterous reasons given for launching an attack when they did was served up by Marco Rubio, who explained that the US had to strike Iran before Israel did—because an Israeli pre-emptive strike would have put troops in the region in danger, so the U.S. was cornered into striking first. This could be one of the more gutless falsehoods ever spewed by buck-passing men famous for spewing them nonstop. Has Bibi been pushing for the US to strike and reduce the threat posed by a regime as determined to destroy Israel as it was to violently squelch dissent among its own citizens? Yes. Were there a lot of other voices across the region (including Saudi Arabia) lobbying Trump to make a move? Yes. But a government that spent months building up forces in the Middle East, changing its defense department name to the Department of War, and tough-talking its lethality, can hardly pass the buck and say, our ally made us do it (even though Let’s the blame the Jews can be a convenient reflex among this crowd). No, this is Trump’s war. Don’t take my word for it. Take his. He was none too pleased with Rubio’s assessment. “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand. We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they [Iran] were going to attack first.”
+ The broader issue remains. It’s still unclear to everyone from the American public to top Congressional officials exactly why we attacked now and what our ultimate goals are. Just today, Trump told reporters: “I guess the worst case would be — we do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person… That could happen.” Are we watching a war unfold or waging one? I suppose if you have no clearly defined goals, you can always claim any outcome as a victory. Maybe we can rephrase The New Yorker headline: Can Donald Trump Lose a War with Iran If He Refuses to Explain Why He Started It? Let’s hope that the actual outcome is something other than a worst case.
+ Apparently, a lot of different people have a lot of different motivations. According to indie journalist Jonathan Larsen: U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for ‘Armageddon,’ Return of Jesus. “A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,’ according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.” (Editor’s note: If true, holy shit...)
“Israel stepped up airstrikes on Iranian missile launchers and factories Tuesday, and Iran retaliated against Israel and across the Gulf region, disrupting energy supplies and travel. As explosions rang out in Tehran and in Lebanon — where Israel said it struck Hezbollah militants — the American embassy in Saudi Arabia came under drone attack.” AP: Israel steps up airstrikes in Tehran, as Iran widens its response across the region.
+ NYT (Gift Article): Iran’s Strategy: Expand the War, Increase the Cost, Outlast Trump. (One of the biggest questions moving forward is how countries in the region that have become the targets of Iran’s missiles and drones will react. Iran is betting they’ll push Trump to stop the war. But they could also join the fight.)
+ Middle East war could be decided by who runs out of missiles or interceptors first, analysts say.
+ Iran war heralds era of AI-powered bombing quicker than speed of thought. And about those Pentagon software vendor pronouncements. US Military Using Claude to Select Targets in Iran Strikes.
+ “When FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen FBI agents and staff last week for their role in the classified documents investigation of Donald Trump, he targeted an elite counter espionage unit that investigates threats from foreign adversaries and specializes in Iran.” (No one at the hockey game could have warned him about this?) And a reminder of The Intern in Charge: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention
+ Here’s the latest from BBC, The Guardian, Times of Israel, and NBC.
Maybe, instead of self-driving cars we needed to invent self-driving automakers. “They have been whipsawed by tariffs. Chinese carmakers are breathing down their necks around the world. Self-driving taxi companies like Waymo are changing the very nature of transportation. Software has replaced horsepower as a key selling point. Sales are flat almost everywhere, and profits are declining. How U.S. carmakers cope with this pivotal moment will determine whether they survive as global players or slide into irrelevance, becoming niche manufacturers of pickups and sport utility vehicles that only Americans buy. The early indications are not promising.” NYT (Gift Article): US Automakers Risk Being Reduced to Niche Producers of Gas Vehicles.
“To be free, one must be feared. To be feared, one must be powerful.” So said French President Emmanuel Macron as France Floats Nuclear Deployment Across Europe.
Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor: “A Georgia father was found guilty on Tuesday of ignoring warning signs and allowing his son unfettered access to an assault-style rifle that prosecutors say the teenager used in a deadly school shooting.” Man Who Gave His Teen a Rifle Is Guilty of Murder After School Shooting.
+ Strike That, Reverse It: “The Trump administration indicated on Tuesday that it planned to renew its defense of executive orders that it had leveled against law firms, a sharp reversal a day after asking a court whether it could abandon the fight.” (Someone didn’t like the press coverage of the first decision.)
+ Cancer Trend: “Colorectal cancer rates in people under 65 are surging, with nearly half (45%) of new diagnoses occurring in this age group, up from 27% in 1995. At the same time, colorectal cancer rates are falling in people 65 and older.” Rectal cancer rates are rising in U.S., driving an increase in illness in younger adults.
+ Mortgaging, The Future: “If you’ve secured a loan and you are closing on a new home in the near future, congratulations. You’ve taken part in an essential middle-class rite of passage—and you’re one of the lucky few.” Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic(Gift Article): The Disappearing American Mortgage.
+ Plus None: Donald Trump Says He’ll Attend This Year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Ending His Boycott. (No self-respecting journalist should attend a Correspondents’ Association Dinner with Trump there. Nothing about any of this is a laughing matter.)
+ A Cozy Getaway: Mark Zuckerberg’s $170 Million MansionBuy Breaks Miami Price Records. Very related from yesterday’s edition: The Hole World in Their Hands.
“Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are a privacy nightmare, with footage of naked people, sensitive information, and violent acts captured and seen by Meta’s AI and an army of employees.” What privacy? As expected, Meta Ray-Bans are a privacy disaster.
2026-03-03 04:47:24
During his first press conference of the Iran war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explained that Operation Epic Fury is not a so-called regime change war. That may surprise many observers because the first salvos of the operation decapitated the regime. No, the war is about denying Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But we were told that America’s bombing runs in 2025 obliterated that nuclear program. America and Israel chose this moment to attack Iran because, since October 7, Iran has shown its military and intel weakness, and has become increasingly isolated in the region. Of course, Iran’s weakness could also just as easily be used as a reason not to attack them now, at a moment when the overall risk they present is relatively low. Trump has told Iran’s security forces to surrender, but it’s unclear that there’s anyone to surrender to. Trump told the Iranian people to rise up. But the attack comes after thousands of them were killed by the regime while doing just that. At different points over the weekend, we were told to expect this war to last days, weeks, months or some other amount of time, but that it definitely won’t be endless. We’ve been offered no such duration assurances when it comes to how long the contradictions will continue. Most administrations spend a lot of time justifying and explaining their strategies before taking the country to war. This administration isn’t giving clear explanations even after starting one. Maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Our Contradicter in Chief ran on an agenda that called for an end to global interventions, and yet, “no president in the modern era has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries.” During the 12 day war, Iran was outed as more of a paper tiger than anyone in the Middle East imagined; one that had been fully infiltrated by foreign intelligence. The fall of the regime has seemed more likely than ever. Whether this is the right way to get rid of the regime, or whether Bibi, Trump, and Hegseth are the right guys to do it, is a different matter. Here’s what we know so far. The leaders of an evil and destabilizing regime behind much of the world’s terrorism have been eliminated and that is a great thing for the region and the world. Unless something worse follows. So let’s hope this is a so-called regime change war and not an endless, destructive quagmire that recent history suggests is a very real possibility. How will it turn out? Don’t ask me. And don’t ask the Trump administration, either.
+ “I hope this effort to topple the clerical regime in Tehran succeeds. It is a regime that murders its people, destabilizes its neighbors and has destroyed a great civilization. There is no single event that would do more to put the whole Middle East on a more decent, inclusive trajectory than the replacement of Tehran’s Islamic regime with a leadership focused exclusively on enabling the people of Iran to realize their full potential with a real voice in their own future. Second, this will not be easy, because this regime is deeply entrenched and is hardly going to be toppled from the air alone.” Thomas Friedman in the NYT(Gift Article): How to Think About Trump’s War With Iran. “This is the most plastic, unpredictable moment in the Middle East since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Everything — and its opposite — is possible.”
+ The Atlantic (Gift Article): Hubris Without Idealism. “Today, it’s impossible not to feel happy for Iranians inside the country and overseas as they celebrate the deaths of their oppressors, above all that of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose rule destroyed the lives of so many people, especially young ones. But the surest way for worse to follow is to fail to believe that it can.”
+ WSJ (Gift Article): Trump’s Shifting Goals for Iran Complicate Military’s Mission.
+ Pentagon tells Congress no sign that Iran was going to attack US first.
+ “The American bombardment of Iran has been launched without explanation, without Congress, without even an attempt to build public support. Above all, it has been launched without a coherent strategy for the Iranian people, and without a plan to let them decide how to build a legitimate Iranian state.” Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Has No Plan for the Iranian People.
+ “Trump is telling lies about the war that not only contradict one another, but contradict themselves internally. Is it about a nuclear program that doesn’t exist? Or is it about a regime change that we haven’t thought through? Or is it about an imaginary Iranian threat to elections?” Timothy Snyder: Losing the War on Truth.
+ U.S. Races to Accomplish Iran Mission Before Munitions Run Out.
+ What would a free Iran mean for the world?
+ A strike on a girls school may have killed as many as 175 people, at least four members of the American military have been killed, nine people in Beit Shamesh were among those killed in Israel by Iranian missiles, three US planes were shot down by Kuwaiti friendly fire, in addition to attacking Israel, Iran has fired missiles and drones at countries throughout the region, Hezbollah attacked Israel, and the war, for now, continues to spread. Here’s the latest from the NYT, Times of Israel, NBC, and CNN.
“The Jackson Hole region has long been a refuge for the rich, but an explosion of new affluence has allowed a growing cadre of extraordinarily wealthy people to dominate both the local economy and Wyoming state politics. Teton County is not merely the richest county in the country, per capita, by far; it is a window into America’s near future, as the country enters a new gilded age, one in which millionaires are turning into billionaires overnight.” NYT (Gift Article) with a very on-point article for this moment in time. Welcome to Wyoming, the Frontier of America’s New Gilded Age.
“Across social media and the AI industry, people immediately began to challenge Altman’s claim. Why, they asked, would the Pentagon suddenly agree to these red lines when it had said — in no uncertain terms — that it would never do so? The answer, sources told The Verge, is that the Pentagon didn’t budge. OpenAI agreed to follow laws that have allowed for mass surveillance in the past, while insisting they protect its red lines.” The Verge (Gift Article): How OpenAI caved to the Pentagon on AI surveillance. (We’ve got the wrong people making the most important decisions.)
+ Anthropic said no to the Pentagon. Not coincidentally, they just overtook ChatGPT in the app store. As with many other political controversies, the American consumer is the last line of defense.
“Thanks to decades of such refinements, today’s jets may be the world’s most reliable machines. Flying in them is less likely to kill you than walking on staircases. It’s the sky that’s grown more unreliable. Fierce storms and erratic winds are increasingly common with climate change. But the rise in clear-air turbulence, often far from storms and undetectable by radar, is especially alarming.” The New Yorker: Buckle Up for Bumpier Skies.
I Fought The Law and... “The Trump administration has decided to drop its prolonged court fights against four law firmswith ties to Democrats, after it had sought and failed to cut out the firms’ access to the federal government as part of an apparent retribution campaign by President Donald Trump.” (Seems like there’s a lesson here for those firms that immediately bent the knee...)
+ Rx Post Facto: “The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm.” ‘One year of failure.’ The Lancet slams RFK Jr.’s first year as health chief.
+ Austin Shooting: “Three people died and 14 people have been hospitalized in a shooting on West Sixth Street in Austin early Sunday. The incident is being investigated by the FBI as a potential act of terrorism.”
+ Patty Meltdown: “Burger King is launching an AI chatbot that will live in the headsets used by employees. The voice-enabled chatbot, called ‘Patty,’ is part of an overarching BK Assistant platform that will not only assist employees with meal preparation but also evaluate their interactions with customers for ‘friendliness.’”
+ Stuck in the Middle With You: “Ottawa and Delhi vowed to reach a multi-billion dollar trade deal this year, the latest step in a recent push by Canada’s leader to knit together an alliance of so-called middle powers in an effort to resist US and Chinese dominance.”
+ It’s Not the Years, Honey; It’s the Mileage: The SAG awards were dominated by Sinners and The Studio. The highlight was Harrison Ford’s life achievement acceptance speech.
Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie hosted SNL over the weekend. And the appearance by real-life hockey players was perfectly played.
2026-02-28 04:21:41
Because we live in an age when the worst-case scenario is always the most likely one, Larry and David Ellison’s Skydance Paramount “won” the bidding war over Netflix, and is now positioned to own Warner Bros. By refusing to up the ante on an already ridiculously overpriced transaction, Netflix looks like this deal’s real winner. The rest of us are the losers. We’ve already seen the damage that the Ellison lineage has done to CBS News. CNN’s fate is likely to follow a similar path. You may argue that CBS is old news and CNN hasn’t really been reporting on the news since they replaced Bernard Shaw with nonstop, endlessly irritating opinion panels. But the billionaire bankrolling of media includes new and old media. The Ellisons will have CBS, CNN, and a huge chunk of the American version of TikTok. Bezos has WaPo. Zuck owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Elon owns X. The Murdochs own Fox, WSJ, and a host of other sources. Local TV news stations are being bought up by right-leaning conglomerates. From old media printed newspapers to new-fangled AI answer machines, the American brain is increasingly being fed a steady diet of feeds by mega-billionaires who probably have very different political views and goals than you do. And if their media machines don’t sway enough people, their ability to spend endlessly to support political candidates and causes should do the trick.
+ Given the buyers’ relationship with Trump, federal approval of this deal is a given. Can California stand in the way of a merger that will hurt jobs as much as it hurts democracy? California now biggest obstacle to Paramount’s Warner Bros takeover.
+ If you’re looking for a silver lining, this is a really bad deal for the buyers. “Mr. Ellison’s deal for Warner Bros. Discovery, which values the company at $31 a share, is an outcome few would have predicted just months ago. Shares of the media giant were trading as low as $12 a share in September, as it faced headwinds in its traditional television business.” NYT (Gift Article): Netflix Backs Out of Bid for Warner Bros., Paving Way for an Ellison Takeover. (Sort of like the Roadrunner always paves the way for the Coyote to win the race, by stopping at the edge of the cliff.)
If the absolutely massive buildup of arms in the Middle East didn’t convince you of the real possibility of a US attack on Iran, this headline might. U.S. tells embassy staff in Israel to leave now if they want amid Trump threats to attack Iran. It seems Marco Rubio didn’t send that memo, or like it very much. Marco Rubio orders US officials to stop commentary that could strain Iran talks. (Of course, even though Rubio is Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor, he’s not the one actually negotiating with Iran. That gig was given, again, to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.)
+ “As they made their public case this week for another American military campaign against Iran, President Trump and his aides asserted that Iran has restarted its nuclear program, has enough available nuclear material to build a bomb within days, and is developing long-range missiles that will soon be capable of hitting the United States. All three of these claims are either false or unproven.” NYT (Gift Article): In Trump’s Case for War, a Series of False or Unproven Claims. (False and unproven claims are the bread and butter of this administration. Why would war be different?)
+ And, as if things weren’t complicated enough ... Pakistan Strikes Afghanistan in ‘Open War’ Against Taliban Government.
“The Pentagon’s version of Claude could not be used to facilitate the mass surveillance of Americans, nor could it be used in fully autonomous weaponry—situations where computers, rather than humans, make the final decision about whom to kill. According to a source familiar with this week’s meeting, Hegseth made clear that if Anthropic did not eliminate those two guardrails by Friday afternoon, two things could happen: The Department of Defense could use the Defense Production Act, a Cold War–era law, to essentially commandeer a more permissive iteration of the AI, or it could label Anthropic a ‘supply-chain risk,’ meaning that anyone doing business with the U.S. military would be forbidden from associating with the company.” Anthropic is refusing to bend. The Atlantic (Gift Article): Anthropic Takes a Stand.
+ “The danger is not that Silicon Valley will wield too much power over the military. It is that neither will fully understand the systems it is rushing to deploy—and that the consequences of that ignorance will be tested not in a laboratory, but on the world.” Thomas Wright: The Real Reason Anthropic Wants Guardrails. “AI is too powerful and too new to be set free from human oversight.” (And that’s even considering that human insight can look like this: Pentagon Fires Another Laser at a Drone, Prompting a New Air Closure.)
+ Anthropic might not be the only holdout. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shares Anthropic’s concerns when it comes to working with the Pentagon.
+ You can be sure not every AI CEO will be so careful. WSJ(Gift Article): Government Agencies Raise Alarm About Use of Elon Musk’s Grok Chatbot. “Warnings about xAI’s safety and reliability preceded Pentagon decision to approve Grok for use in classified settings.”
What to Watch: The second season of Paradise is off to an excellent start. While the first season takes place in a bunker city, the second season starts off in an even weirder location. Graceland. Paradise is on Hulu.
+ What to Book: Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House is “a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go.”
+ What to Movie: In the excellent Triangle of Sadness, a cruise for the super-rich sinks, leaving survivors, including a fashion model celebrity couple, trapped on an island. It’s like Send Helpmeets The White Lotus. If you haven’t seen it, it’s now available on Netflix.
Block of Sh-t: “We’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble. Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. But something has changed.” Jack Dorsey’s Block lays off 4,000 and blames AI. If humans are stupid enough to believe Block’s layoffs are not actually about over-hiring, mismanagement, and a flat stock price over the last four years, maybe we really do need AI to take over. But that obvious reality didn’t stop the market from celebrating Block’s announcement. Expect to see a lot more of this. “Wall Street rewards CEOs who make steep cuts and attribute those cuts to AI. That could embolden other management teams to follow suit.” As I wrote yesterday, news like this is why it’s not just the tech we don’t trust. It’s the technologists.
+ Church and Seizure: “The Trump Justice Department secured a new indictment charging 30 more people in connection with an anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, in January.” Killing innocent people, ok. Protesting those killings, not ok.
+ Hasta La Vista, Babies: “Not so long ago, women like Ms. Paz — in their early 20s, from backgrounds that are far from privileged — would have been among the most likely to be having children. Now this group is a key contributor to the country’s declining birthrate, which is at an all-time low, down by over 25 percent since 2007, the year the fall began.” The Birthrate Is Plunging. Why Some Say That’s a Good Thing. (And why some are freaking out.)
+ Look Younger? “As brands sell children eyeshadow, lip gloss and skincare, parents face a dilemma: How young is too young to expose children to beauty?” WSJ (Gift Article): 6-Year-Olds Want Makeup. These Brands Are Cashing In.
+ The Kreme Always Rises: Ozempic and other weight loss drugs have drastically changed our eating habits. But don’t count out the carbs just yet. Krispy Kreme Shares Jump as Turnaround Gains Traction.
“Akbar’s medal comes with a quiet footnote: He is believed to be the last newspaper hawker left in Paris. A job that once dotted street corners across the city has almost vanished, pushed out by the internet and the collapse of print journalism sales. In a city that now gets most of its headlines on phones, Akbar still delivers them by hand.” Ali Akbar, who’s sold newspapers on the streets of Paris for 50 years, is now a knight.
+ “The couple had about 15 extra invitations and decided to send them out to companies they liked, including In-N-Out Burger, Trader Joe’s, Sephora and Pokémon, in hopes of receiving some freebies. Also on the list was Bad Bunny, Mr. Wolter’s favorite artist, whom they bonded over on their first date. At best, maybe they would receive a signed postcard, they thought.” They Met in an E.R. and Were Married at the Super Bowl.
+ Could a vaccine prevent dementia? Shingles shot data only getting stronger.
+ “We have senior citizen retirees showing up saying, ‘I’m an old white woman — how can I help?’ We have students from community colleges and universities. We have people who look like longtime activists and people who look like they’ve never done this before.” Older, white Angelenos are joining Latino volunteers to monitor ICE raids.
+ A children’s hospital is renamed for Dolly Parton and hopes to transform pediatric care in Tennessee.