2026-02-26 20:00:00
Americans are known for voting with their feet. Recently, they’ve been voting with planes, too. While the politics of the moment have been fixated on immigration, emigration isn’t getting nearly the attention it deserves. A growing number of Americans are exchanging the American dream for a one-way American dream-trip to any country they believe will be more affordable and safe. You may assume that the increasingly common choice to book an exodus out of this place is being driven by Trumpism (if that State of the Union address went on for another five minutes, I may have called my own travel agent). But this trend can’t be painted with such abroad brushstrokes. It has been ramping up and to the right for a while. “Some commentators have labeled this wave of American emigrants the ‘Donald Dash’ since numbers have spiked under President Trump’s second term. But the phenomenon has been building for years—fed by the rise of remote work, mounting living costs and an appetite for foreign lifestyles that feel within reach, especially in Europe.” There are multiple factors behind the trend. There would have to be, because the shift is so stark. “When Gallup asked Americans during the 2008 recession how many wanted to leave the U.S., the answer was one in 10. Last year: One in five.” WSJ (Gift Article): Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers (Alt link). “The exodus poses elemental questions for a country that has always prided itself as a destination. Are the new American emigrants a credit to the strength of their homeland’s economy? After all, it is America’s enviable salaries that allow a new class of students, remote workers and retirees to finance a second chapter abroad … Or do these émigrés personify a loss of faith in America’s future and way of life?”
+ I have no plans of moving, either from the country or from this couch. But I did try to get out of the house on Monday night to avoid the State of the Union address. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. TV ratings were way down, and many of you could relate to my efforts. If you missed yesterday’s SOTU wrap… Not on My Watchlist.
“Even as more than half of Americans have tried large language models (and virtually everyone who has done anything online has inadvertently used A.I.), studies show that people are far more worried than they are excited. According to Pew, 61 percent of respondents to a 2025 survey said they wished they had more control over how A.I. was used in their own life.” NYT (Gift Article): People Loved the Dot-Com Boom. The A.I. Boom, Not So Much. On one hand, this makes perfect sense. The dot com boom threatened to give you pet food delivery and streaming movies. The AI boom is threatening to take your job. But I think there’s more to it than that. People are worried about the AI boom in part because they don’t trust (and in some cases, deeply hate) the messengers who are leading and promoting the revolution. The companies are too big. The CEOs are too rich and too powerful. Some have already proven they don’t care about our privacy. Others have repeatedly bent the knee to our current AI regulation hating-regime. Some heil in public. It’s not just the tech we don’t trust. It’s the technologists.
+ Elon Musk’s makeshift AI power plant generates sound and fury in Mississippi.
+ Of course, whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay, and it will play a bigger and bigger role in our lives. As rabid is the race for consumer adoption, the race to win the war to fight future wars is even more extreme. And more dangerous. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Anthropic’s Pentagon Showdown Is About More Than AI Guardrails. “The confrontation has exposed the Defense Department’s reliance on Anthropic in a head-to-head military rivalry with US adversaries including China. Yet the battle also amplifies the tension between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon over who controls the future of AI as a tool of war and surveillance, including whether the rapidly evolving technology can be used in a lawful manner.”
“Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.” WaPo: Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency. Trump has already shown he’ll go to great lengths to remain in power. And the current polling trends couldn’t be much worse. So you can expect emergency declarations and actual emergencies.
+ This doesn’t mean Trump’s efforts will work, of course. He doesn’t control elections, states do. And a state of emergency doesn’t equal an emergency in a state. But there is some value in expecting the worst, especially when the past has shown you it’s coming. Josh Marshall: Time for the States to Gear Up for Trump’s Fake Elections Exec Order. “The issue is not simply President Trump’s never-ending efforts to destroy the Republic, violate the Constitution, etc. Again, the Constitution is crystal clear about who runs and controls elections. States do that with guidelines set by Congress. Period. The issue is whether we — everyone, the opposition, everyone who purportedly needs to be in perpetual orbit around Donald Trump’s degenerate brain — need to always be allowing him the initiative.”
“Few countries anywhere in the world are passing new climate policies into law anymore. After a period of growing concern and accelerating momentum, the project of greening the world’s energy systems certainly feels as if it has been thrown into reverse. But by the most straightforward measures, that’s simply wrong. There is more green stuff being installed than ever, and judged simply as a global infrastructure project the volume is pretty staggering. In 2024, 92.5 percent of all new power capacity installed around the world was renewable. In 2025, it’s believed that global green installations were even greater. And even in Trump’s United States, which has been behaving in many ways like a petrostate, more than 92 percent of utility-scale electricity capacity planned for 2026 is green.” David Wallace-Wells in the NYT (Gift Article): Don’t Look Now, but the Green Transition Is Still Happening.
Kansas Backwards: “Please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials. That means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.” Kansas informs trans residents their driver’s licenses become invalid on Thursday. “Governor Laura Kelly vetoed the bill on February 13, calling it ‘poorly drafted,’ but the Legislature overrode her veto days later. In addition to the driver’s license provisions, the law bans transgender people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity in public buildings and creates a bathroom bounty hunter system allowing citizens to sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for at least $1,000 in damages, including potentially in private restrooms.” Erin Reed: Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses.
+ A College Try: “Department of Homeland Security agents allegedly detained a Columbia University student early Thursday morning after making ‘misrepresentations to gain entry’ to a residence hall.” And the US justice department sues UCLA over alleged antisemitism amid pro-Palestinian protests. (I don’t think it will work, but I have a feeling there will be an increased effort to make colleges the enemy because polling was better back when that was a focal point.)
+ Hill v Hill: “You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation. in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers. If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.” Hillary Clinton says she has no new information on Jeffrey Epstein in testimony excoriating Republicans. Meanwhile, while Americans are being distracted by this nonsense, people around the world are paying a price for Epstein connections. World Economic Forum chief quits after Epstein investigation. This is part of a broader trend. Adam Serwer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): How America Chose Not to Hold the Powerful to Account.
+ Six Figure: “The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate slipped this week below 6% for the first time since late 2022, good news for home shoppers as the spring home-buying season gets rolling.”
+ Point Taken: “The crypto bros who spent millions getting Donald Trump elected seemed to get virtually everything they might want: a longtime industry investor elevated to White House adviser; one type of crypto given the imprimatur of the federal government; the near annihilation of effective regulatory scrutiny; invitations to White House dinners hosted by Mr. Trump. But instead of cementing crypto’s legitimacy, the administration has only pulled back the curtain on the fundamental worthlessness of its assets.” NYT (Gift Article): Crypto Is Pointless. Not Even the White House Can Fix That. (Well, not pointless. It provides the means to a lot of crime and corruption and financial gains for insiders.)
+ Fraudian Slip: White House to pause $259M in Minnesota Medicaid dollars in fraud crackdown. Gov Walz: “His [U.S. Department of Justice] is gutting the U.S. Attorney’s Office and crippling their ability to prosecute fraud. And every week Trump pardons another fraudster.”
+ Snowball Effect: Mayor Mamdani has his first controversy. It’s about snowballs.
“People of all ages and body mass indexes line up like spandex-wearing cattle outside the Marina del Rey Marriott on a recent Wednesday morning and are ushered to the sand for a group photo. A 20-something man cups his genitals as he jogs to the lifeguard tower in nothing but red underwear. A middle-aged woman does some last-minute scissor kicks in the parking lot. The 50-degree weather doesn’t stop some contenders from slow-motion running in the water. Yes, the dream of becoming Hollywood’s next David Hasselhoff or Pamela Anderson is palpable.” ‘This Whole Thing Is Not Normal’: Inside the ‘Baywatch’ Reboot Casting Call With 2,000 Wannabe Lifeguards.
2026-02-25 20:00:00
As an experiment, I decided to experience the State of the Union as if I were an undecided swing state voter: I didn’t watch it. That effort took some strategic time-killing and attention-distracting moves for a news addict faced with a buzzy event that was streaming everywhere and lasted long enough to qualify as a miniseries. Shortly before show time, my wife offered to take an Uber to catch a flight. No, I exclaimed. I’m your loving husband. Please, please let me drive you to the airport. Sadly, traffic was lighter than I had hoped. So I stopped by one of my favorite burrito places that was completely out of the way, and where I knew parking would be a challenge. And it was. But not challenging enough. When I finally made it home, Trump was still going. I peeked at my social media accounts, where I saw this quote: “I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.” Oh god, why did I look? This was crazier than I thought. I finally understood why Elvis shot TVs. My sanity was at stake. Happily, there was a Warriors game to distract me. Sadly, my home team was down by double digits to the lowly Pelicans. Ugh, too painful to watch. Drastic times called for drastic measures. I turned off all my screens and sat in silence and quietly hummed (with all the screens off, I wanted to give my beagles some sign that I was still alive). Since the start of the speech, an hour had passed, an hour ten minutes, an hour twenty, an hour thirty. Every now and then, I’d pop on the TV to see if the coast was clear, but he was still talking and his Stockholm syndrome-suffering sycophants kept cheering (Guys, if your genuflection lasts more than four hours, call 911…). I started mumbling to myself, This SOTU shall pass, this SOTU shall pass. But, after a while, I didn’t know if it would. Speeches need term limits. At long last, the fili-bluster ended. Because I’m required to report back to you, I started watching and reading the analysis, and man, did that make me wish I was back stuck in traffic, looking for parking, or humming quietly to my dogs. It didn’t take long to realize that I actually hadn’t missed a newsworthy event at all. What we got was more of the same: Lies, divisiveness, hate … even with polls nose-diving and his own midterm-challenged party in desperate need of the plot twist, the big show was just another re-run.
+ “The longest State of the Union in modern history is now over. Donald Trump held court in the House of Representatives and said little of substance, but substance wasn’t the point. This year, he intended to put on a show, with an array of guest stars and special appearances. He was happy because he was playing the roles he clearly loves: game-show host, ringmaster, emcee, beneficent granter of wishes—and, where the Democrats were concerned, a self-righteous inquisitor. Trump did his usual rote lying about the economy—pity the fact-checkers who tried to keep up even in the first 10 minutes or so of the speech—along with some of his other greatest hits, including the many wars he stopped and the magic of tariffs.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): President Trump’s State of the Union Variety Show. “The only thing Trump did not do was explain his policies—especially about war and peace—to Congress or the American people.”
+ David Frum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The State of the Union Revealed a Sad Reality. “President Trump’s State of the Union address last night was very like the man who delivered it: divisive, abusive, and childish. The speech turned reality on its head in many ways. The president who has enriched himself and his family by more than a billion dollars in his first year in office called on Congress to clean up its corruption. The president who has collected about $175 billion in illegal tariffs from the American people falsely told them that he had given them a great big tax cut. The president solemnly condemned political violence—the same president who ended his first term by inciting a mob to sack Congress and overturn an election. Maybe most shocking, Trump demanded that members of Congress rise to agree that it’s the first duty of government to protect American citizens—even as his own government by its brutal police methods has shot American citizens dead on the streets and then tried to deceive the country about how those Americans had been killed and why. Then of course there were the many misstatements of fact about the economy, about crime, and about wars and peace—many of which look like deliberate decisions to deceive the public watching on television.”
+ CNN: Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address, annotated and fact-checked. (I won’t be surprised if CNN fact checkers offer to pick my wife up at the airport when she gets back…)
“The materials are F.B.I. memos summarizing interviews the bureau did in connection to claims made in 2019 by a woman who came forward after Mr. Epstein’s arrest to say she had been sexually assaulted by both Mr. Trump and the financier decades earlier, when she was a minor.” Here’s a headline that is not surprising, but is highly disturbing (and one that Trump definitely didn’t want the morning after his SOTU). Epstein Files Are Missing Records About Woman Who Made Claim Against Trump.
+ The fallout from the Epstein files continues. Larry Summers will resign from teaching at Harvard during review of Epstein ties. Leader of Columbia Brain Institute Quits Over Friendship With Epstein. Bill Gates Apologizes to Foundation Staff Over Epstein Ties.
“The hospital corridors were full of bloodied people. All the hallways and walls were covered in blood” … “A 7-year-old girl died in my own hands. She had been hit by live military ammunition” … “One of our experienced colleagues, after helping a large number of injured people, was temporarily detained and interrogated. After that, he was placed under surveillance and his communication channels were monitored.” NYT (Gift Article) talked to doctors and nurses about the thousands of protesters killed by Iranian officials. “As street protests spread across Iran in early January, the authorities turned off the internet. Most of the world didn’t see the bloody crackdown that followed. But Iran’s doctors and nurses did.”
“Over the past decade a seismic shift has created a growing demand for watch repair—and, in turn, for competent repair people. A historic stock market run (and a new-moneyed class of crypto capitalists) minted a contemporary order of very rich people, and when the pandemic briefly turned off many of the ways those people spend money, a lot of them got into watches. It’s estimated Rolex now sells over a million watches a year for the first time in its history (while pulling off the remarkable trick in the luxury business of making its product seem rare). Meanwhile, the secondary watch market is flourishing thanks to improving e-commerce platforms and a growing hobbyist culture. Yet there are fewer than 2,000 watchmakers in America capable of mending a timepiece, let alone a luxury one.” GQ: Rolex Opened a College—and It’s as Selective as Harvard. (Alt link here.) I’m guessing that being late to class is frowned upon…
Putin’s War: Putin thought he could take Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks. Here we are, four years of destruction and defiance later. Photos: Four Years of War in Ukraine.
+ Super v Powers: NYT (Gift Article): F.B.I. Raids Los Angeles Schools Chief’s Home and District Headquarters. “The investigation’s target was unclear. The school district is the nation’s second largest, and as superintendent, Alberto Carvalho has one of the highest-profile jobs in K-12 education.”
+ Soft Power: “In 2023, Anthropic committed to never train an AI system unless it could guarantee in advance that the company’s safety measures were adequate. For years, its leaders touted that promise—the central pillar of their Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP)—as evidence that they are a responsible company that would withstand market incentives to rush to develop a potentially dangerous technology.” But we are in a race without rules, and self-regulation doesn’t stand a chance. Anthropic Drops Flagship Safety Pledge. Meanwhile, the company is being strong-armed by the Pentagon to remove all restrictions on the use of its AI. “Anthropic has long stated that it doesn’t want its technology used for mass surveillance of Americans or for fully autonomous weapons.” Will this position hold? Anthropic won’t budge as Pentagon escalates AI dispute. And this seems related: AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations.
+ Market Movers: “Is the Citrini story … compelling? plausible? accurate? These are the questions colonizing all of financial and tech media at the moment. But to me, those questions miss the deepest and most interesting feature of this strange episode: What does it say about the state of AI and AI anxiety that a literal science-fiction story had the power to move a trillion dollars?” Nobody Knows Anything. “The fact that a piece of AI science fiction rocked the stock market this week is a clear indication that absolutely no one knows how the next few years will go.”
+ Between a Flock and a Hard Place: Across the US, people are dismantling and destroying Flock surveillance cameras.
+ Driven to Distraction: “When the light turns yellow, this Waymo does not speed up. It does not calculate whether it could make it. It does not believe in ‘probably.’ It waits. Behind you, a human driver honks. The Waymo absorbs this without flinching. You feel the honk deep in your shoulder muscles.” The New Yorker: Is This Waymo a Better Person Than You? (In fairness, your software hasn’t been updated in years…)
“As the shoe works hard to keep its grip, tiny sections of the sole change shape as they momentarily lose then regain contact with the floor thousands of times per second — at a frequency that matches the pitch of the loud squeak we hear.” A Boston Celtics game-inspired friction test finally pinned down the sneaker squeak.
+ You Want a Lot of Iced Coffee? Dunkin’ Has a Bucket for You. (Toss in a few shots of espresso and I can finish the whole newsletter on one serving.)
2026-02-24 20:00:00
Last week, while answering a question about the energy consumed by artificial intelligence models, OpenAI’s Sam Altman countered by explaining how much energy is consumed by a human. “It takes, like, 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart. And not only that, it took, like, the very widespread evolution of the hundred billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to, like, figure out science and whatever to produce you, and then you took whatever, you know, you took. The fair comparison is, if you ask ChatGPT a question, how much energy does it take once its model is trained to answer that question, versus a human?” This answer made me think that some humans might need to put a little more energy into their opinions before they speak them out loud. It made The Atlantic’s (Gift Article) Mateo Wong ask whether Sam Altman Is Losing His Grip on Humanity.
+ The question of whether or not humans (megatech CEOs in particular) have lost their grip on humanity seems too obvious and depressing a place to start this edition. Instead, let’s focus on a less settled question. How much humanity can computers develop? One place where that question is being asked is in the homes of people like Jan Worrell, older humans who are getting some computer companionship. In the case of the 85-year-old Worrell, who is determined to live alone in her own home as she ages, the companion is a robot called ElliQ. “A few thousand ElliQs have been shipped to seniors across the United States since 2023, which means some of the first people living alongside artificially intelligent robots are octogenarians who came into a world without color television. The robots are available for purchase from the Israeli start-up Intuition Robotics, but so far they have mostly been provided to older adults by nonprofits and state health departments as an experiment in combating loneliness. As A.I. works its way deeper into daily life, ElliQ is designed for the most human act of all: to become a roommate, a friend, a partner. ‘A robot with soul,’ the company’s founder sometimes said.” With an aging and increasingly isolated American population, the question of how much soul ElliQ can show is a pressing issue. And you, like Jan Worrell, might be surprised at the answer. The always must-read Eli Saslow in the NYT (Gift Article): To Stay in Her Home, She Let In an AI Robot. (It went better than it would have if she had let in an AI CEO…)
“There’s a problem with the idea that Trump can simply rerun his 2024 campaign and expect the same result: Over the past two years, many of his most popular issues have turned into political liabilities.” The Atlantic with an overview of Trump’s Suddenly High-Stakes State of the Union. Of course, the media always obsesses over these speeches, even though they have little impact beyond the evening they’re delivered, and it’s hard to imagine a lot of undecided voters in swing states will be tuning in for what political insiders view as the Speech Super Bowl. It’s notable that the speech is getting a lot more coverage than the massive buildup of US military might in the Middle East. More than 150 additional aircraft just arrived, adding to the largest force of warships and aircraft in the region in decades. It’s rare for the military to create this much of a buildup just for show. It’s worth paying attention to what Trump says on this issue. But it’s probably not worth watching any of the speech in real time. Leave that to the fact checkers, for whom this really is the Super Bowl. I’m following the lead of the US women’s hockey team and declining to attend.
“For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program. Cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584-hour program — classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority … New cadets are graduating from the academy despite widespread concerns among training staff that even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs.” Training for New ICE Agents Is ‘Deficient’ and ‘Broken,’ Whistle-Blower Says.
“Users of Kalshi and its primary rival, Polymarket, can bet on events major and minor, from politics to sports to culture to the weather. Recent markets on Kalshi have included whether certain words would be used during a Palantir Technologies Inc. earnings call, whether Elon Musk would win his court case against OpenAI and whether the highest temperature in Seattle on Feb. 4 would be within a certain range. Polymarket users have bet on whether the US would strike Iran on a particular date, whether a given Trump cabinet member would be the first to leave office and whether Jesus Christ would return before 2027.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): How Polymarket and Kalshi are gamifying truth. (What they’re really doing is gamifying gambling; deploying the most addictive tricks of technology, casinos, social media, and AI, to hook as many people as possible. If Jesus Christ does return before 2027, he’ll be right in their target market.)
Lording Over Mexico: “A day after the Mexican army killed the country’s most powerful drug lord, the picturesque town where it happened was a study in contrasts. Children whose classes had been suspended by the outbreak of violence played in cobblestone streets and tourist shops were open on Tapalpa’s main plaza Monday. But gunshots also rang out, and just outside the town a dead man lay on the road next to a Jeep sprayed with bullets.” Soldiers keep up clash with cartel gunmen a day after Mexico’s military killed top drug lord.
+ On Strikes: U.S. strike on alleged drug boat in Caribbean kills 3. No, this is not an old headline. These killings have continued. “More than 40 such strikes have been carried out in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September, killing at least 137 people.”
+ Refund?! “FedEx filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, seeking a full refund plus interest for what it paid in trade duties stemming from President Trump’s tariffs enacted last year.” (I’m guessing the reaction in the White House is going something like this…But it’s interesting that FedEx filed the suit, as it suggests there’s a decreasing level of fear of the administration in corporate America.)
+ The Bliz Fo Shiz: The great blizzard of 2026 caused a lot of travel issues and local headaches. But it sure made for some amazing photos. What the Snowstorm Looked Like Across the Northeast.
+ Hit the Saks: “Richard Baker wanted to create a retail empire when he combined Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. About a year later, it filed for bankruptcy.” NYT (Gift Article): Saks Owner Says He Saved Department Stores. Never Mind the Bankruptcy. “According to Jared Kushner … ‘He is very creative, always coming up with new ideas, always thinking about what the next thing is.'” (Bankruptcies tend to force one to do that…)
+ The Puck Stops Here: Here’s a headline that could only exist in this era: Mom of Jack and Quinn Hughes addresses viral video of President Trump joking about women’s hockey team. (I wonder if we’d be better off focusing our ire on Trump and his enablers and just let the hockey teams – and their mothers – enjoy the victories…)
+ Visual Aide: “Just after midnight on May 9, 2024, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales begged an employee, Regina Santos-Aviles, to send him a ‘sexy pic.’ When she pushed back, saying the conversation had gone too far, the married San Antonio Republican persisted, saying he was ‘just such a visual person.'” Texts show Rep. Tony Gonzales asked for explicit photos from aide who later died by suicide. (In normal times, Gonzales would have immediately resigned in shame or been shamed into resigning by his colleagues.)
+ Choc Full of It: “The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups has lashed out at The Hershey Co., accusing the candy company of hurting the Reese’s brand by shifting to cheaper ingredients in many products.” (Yeah, we miss that natural flavor!)
“Despite the prevalence of digestive-health issues, flatulence researchers have been limited to either invasive laboratory studies or self-reporting, which has proven unreliable. Most of us just don’t know how often we pass gas, or how much.” Until now! It’s Called the ‘Fitbit for Farts’—and It’s No Joke. (Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not funny.)
2026-02-23 20:00:00
Regardless of the way it sounds, the name El Mencho most definitely does not translate into The Mensch. Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes’s nickname apparently derives from Nemesio. But El Mencho was a man with many aliases and many nicknames, including the Lord of the Roosters. He was also a man who rose from small-time crimes in California to lead the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in drug trafficking and extreme acts of sensationalist violence, as he grew into his role as drug lord and, eventually, one of the most wanted men in Mexico. Well, the chickens have come home to Rooster. With intelligence assistance from the US, Mexican troops killed El Mencho over the weekend. The operation was met with a series of retaliatory acts, including multiple fires and the killing of at least 25 members of the Mexican National Guard, that essentially shut down Puerto Vallarta, forcing tourists to shelter in place and airplanes and cruise ships to change course mid-journey. History shows that arrests and killings of top cartel bosses do little to slow the flow of drugs. But the decision to target El Mencho now was about more than just that. NYT (Gift Article): Mayhem Rocks Mexico After Most-Wanted Cartel Boss Is Killed. “Mr. Oseguera’s killing is a major victory in Mexico’s new offensive against drug cartels and it could help reduce pressure from President Trump, who has been threatening strikes in Mexico. The Mexican government said the United States had contributed intelligence that aided the operation against Mr. Oseguera. U.S. officials said that it was a Mexican operation and that no American troops were involved in the operation. That was only the start for Mexican security forces on Sunday. They were deployed across the country to confront the backlash over Mr. Oseguera’s killing.”
+ Mexican drug cartel boss ‘El Mencho’ tracked through romantic partner. “The operation immediately set off a wave of violence across Mexico, with cartel gunmen blocking almost 100 major roads, torching vehicles and lashing out at security forces, especially in the states of Jalisco and Michoacán.”
+ The latest from CNN.
America is getting out of the life-saving business. One of the first acts of the Trump 2.0 administration was to cut USAID funds that were keeping people alive. This was not a mistake or an oversight or evidence of administrative ineffectiveness. It was part of a new American policy that goes something like this: We don’t provide help to anyone unless there’s something in it for us. Hana Kiros in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Trump Administration Is Ending Aid That It Says Saves Lives. “A year after the Trump administration began the dismantlement of USAID, it is initiating a new round of significant cuts to foreign assistance. This time, programs that survived the initial purge precisely because they were judged to be lifesaving are slated for cancellation … Each of the newly canceled awards represents an occasion in which federal workers had previously convinced Trump appointees that the money would help meet the most basic survival needs of people fleeing war, caught in deadly disease outbreaks, or in danger of starving to death, a former senior State Department official, who left the administration in the fall, told me. ‘It has to be: ‘If we don’t deliver this, people die immediately,” they said.” In other words, the last vestiges of decency must be erased.
I wish Trump knew how to quit tariffs. But he wishes no such thing. You may have reacted to the news of the ruling against Trump’s Congress-less tariffs (and the somewhat surprising revelation that two-thirds of our Supreme Court still believes in the separation of powers among branches of government in certain circumstances!) with a sense of relief knowing that some checks and balances are holding. But Donald Trump reacted by attacking the justices who ruled against him and stating, “I have the right to do tariffs.” CNN’s Stephen Collinson: Trump won’t blink on tariffs — because he can’t. “First, he believes in tariffs with evangelical intensity. His faith in them is so intense it blanks out any evidence they are a tax on consumers or that they don’t work … The second reason for Trump’s refusal to bend is that tariffs are a means to his ultimate ends of unfettered presidential authority and rejection of a constitutional system that by design shares power across government.”
+ Trump threatens countries to abide by tariff deals despite Supreme Court decision. The global chaos and confusion, and what sure looks like the latest constitutional crisis, has rattled the hell out of the markets (which have, to date, been in something of a state of denial about how lawlessness, recklessness, and inconsistency might impact the bottom line.)
+ “There are seven separate opinions—and even the Justices who agree with one another are in some ways at odds.” The New Yorker: The Supreme Court’s Complicated Takedown of Trump’s Tariffs. Of course, the bigger question is whether or not Trump, the immune monster that this Frankenstein Scotus created, will abide by the ruling.
The 1980 Miracle on Ice was a quest that lifted American spirits and unified the nation. It would probably take an actual miracle to achieve that goal today. So, it’s not much of a surprise that the US men’s hockey overtime win over Canada was immediately followed by silly presidential posts, FBI Director Kash Patel chugging beer in the locker room, and Trump’s crap joke about also having to invite the gold-winning US women’s hockey team to the White House. But let’s not fixate on that garbage. The final matchup of a great Olympics was a great game with a great ending and a thrilling win, 46 years to the day after the Miracle on Ice. “Following goals by Team USA’s Matt Boldy and Canada’s Cale Makar in regulation — and a slew of incredible saves by Team USA’s Connor Hellebuyck and Canada’s Jordan Binnington — the game went into overtime Sunday. In that extra session, Jack Hughes took a pass from Zach Werenski and buried it past Binnington, giving the U.S. a 2-1 victory and its first gold medal in men’s hockey since 1980.” How Team USA won a thrilling gold medal game against Canada.
+ Want to hear about the connection between the men’s and women’s winning teams? Ignore Trump. Listen to the guy who hit the game-winning shot (after losing part of his teeth). “Jack Hughes scored at 61:41 to give the team the win and the gold medal after 46 years. The New Jersey Devils center revealed who was the first person he thought of after making history for Team USA. Fittingly, he mentioned Megan Keller, who gave Team USA women’s hockey the gold medal against Canada on Thursday.” Of course, I’m burying the lede. Jack Hughes also became the first person ever to have a bar mitzvah and to score an Olympics-winning golden goal. Mazel Teeth!
+ Following the game, the US team paid tribute to Johnny Gaudreau, who likely would have been part of the team if he, along with his brother, hadn’t been killed by a drunk driver. Johnny Gaudreau’s dream was to be an Olympian. His family lived it for him, in a moment fit for a movie.
+ Norway dominated the games. How do they do it? You might be surprised at their attitude toward youth sports. The Nor-Way: Turning good times into gold medals.
+ A family member dispatched to the Varescos’ apartment reported back, said Alice: “Everything open — and the dog is not there.” How Nazgul the wolfdog made his run for Winter Olympic glory in Italy.
Snow Day: I took my daughter on some college tours back east last week so she’d get an idea of what winter there would be like. Looks like I picked the wrong week to get my point across. “Over 69 million people remain under winter alerts this morning, and blizzard warnings stretch more than 600 miles up the Eastern Coast. More than 600,00 utility customers are without power across the Northeast, with the worst conditions still to come.” Blizzard warnings blanket Northeast as heavy snow and high winds cause travel chaos. In today’s world, this seems particularly ominous: “DoorDash won’t be operating in New York City until at least 2 p.m.” And more from ABC. Snow totals top 2 feet as wind gusts reach 80 mph.
+ If The Coat Fits: “Over the past few months, during his agency’s chaotic crackdowns in Chicago and Minneapolis, the U.S. Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino has worn an unusual uniform: a wide-lapel greatcoat with brass buttons and stars along one sleeve. It looks like it was taken right off the shoulders of a Wehrmacht officer in the 1930s … Even federal agencies are modeling Nazi phrasing. The Department of Homeland Security used an anthem beloved by neo-Nazi groups, ‘By God We’ll Have Our Home Again,’ in a recruitment ad. The Labor Department hung a giant banner of Donald Trump’s face from its headquarters, as if Washington were Berlin in 1936, and posted expressions on social media such as ‘America is for Americans’—an obvious riff on the Nazi slogan ‘Germany for the Germans’—and ‘Americanism Will Prevail,’ in a font reminiscent of Third Reich documents.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Republican Party Has a Nazi Problem.
+ From Friend to Foe: NYT Magazine (Gift Article): They Fought for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. In America, They’re Living in Fear.
+ Pot Hole: The relationship isn’t clearly causal, but these findings are troubling. A huge study finds a link between cannabis use in teens and psychosis later.
+ Survival of the Unfittest: “You can argue whether and how much the course of American history would be different if not for ‘Survivor.’ But as the show airs its all-star 50th season — one for each star on the flag — it is clear that ‘Survivor’ has been a game changer, on TV and off.” NYT (Gift Article): ‘Survivor’ Is America. (And like in Survivor, we occasionally fail to vote the right person off the island.)
+ Arresting Development: “Peter Mandelson was arrested on Monday on suspicion of ‘misconduct in public office’ following revelations about his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, the sex offender.” U.K. Police Arrest Ex-Ambassador to U.S. Amid Epstein Accusations. (Accountability. What a concept!)
+ We Have a Verdict: Judge forced to slash SF jury pool over hate for Elon Musk. (If that’s a disqualifier, the entire jury system could collapse.)
“The focal point of the room is not a dance floor, but three rows of rubber mats, each sectioned off by rope. Event organisers in pink T-shirts scurry about, placing headgear and high-waisted briefs around the makeshift arena. This is not a bar crawl, or rave, or ticketed DJ set. It is Grownkid’s Wrestling Speed Dating night, and attendees came ready to tussle.” Could singles wrestling be an alternative to dating apps? (Maybe I’m getting too conservative, but back in my day, we didn’t wrestle until at least the second date.)
2026-02-13 20:00:00
One of the ironies of the story of AI’s impact on jobs is that it came first for the companies that helped create it. Recently, software as a service (SaaS) companies that can potentially be disrupted by AI have been experiencing what investors are calling the SaaSpocalypse — a result of “Anthropic and then Open AI launching agentic AI systems for enterprises that appear to perform some key functions currently provided by SaaS players, undermining their business models.” And these market forces are hitting companies in every sector. Earlier this week, logistics and freight companies took a hit “after a little-known Florida company announced a new tool that would scale freight volumes without increasing headcount. (By the way, until this year, that little-known company was in the Karaoke business.) But the new tech is hitting the tech sector the most directly. The disruptors are being disrupted by a force they themselves unleashed. Like many in tech, Matt Shumer has had a front row seat for the impending changes (and more time to ponder them as some of his technical duties have been offloaded to the machine). In his essay, Something Big is Happening Here, he explains what’s coming, not just for his industry, but for everything, and compares this moment to just before the pandemic hit. “Think back to February 2020. If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed a few people talking about a virus spreading overseas. But most of us weren’t paying close attention. The stock market was doing great, your kids were in school, you were going to restaurants and shaking hands and planning trips. If someone told you they were stockpiling toilet paper you would have thought they’d been spending too much time on a weird corner of the internet. Then, over the course of about three weeks, the entire world changed. Your office closed, your kids came home, and life rearranged itself into something you wouldn’t have believed if you’d described it to yourself a month earlier. I think we’re in the ‘this seems overblown’ phase of something much, much bigger than Covid. I’ve spent six years building an AI startup and investing in the space. I live in this world. And I’m writing this for the people in my life who don’t… my family, my friends … The people I care about deserve to hear what is coming, even if it sounds crazy.”
+ And just in case the impending pace of change does sound crazy, it’s worth noting that there is a lot of consensus about what’s coming. Microsoft AI CEO predicts ‘most, if not all’ white-collar tasks will be automated by AI within 18 months. (Luckily, summarizing the news in 2026 is so depressing, even the machines don’t want my gig.)
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off for most, and probably all, of next week, unless, you know, something really newsworthy breaks into the break.
Inside the administration, there’s a combination of inexperience, cruel intentions, and extreme corruption; a model that has put the least qualified in charge and pushed the most qualified toward the exits. Nowhere is that more clear than in Kristi Noem’s Dept of Homeland Security. The WSJ (Gift Article) proves that some stories can still make you say wow: A pilot fired over Kristi Noem’s missing blanket and the constant chaos inside DHS. “Within DHS, Noem and Lewandowski have cut employees or put them on administrative leave. The pair have fired or demoted roughly 80% of the career ICE field leadership that was in place when they started. In the blanket incident, Noem had to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket wasn’t moved to the second plane, according to the people familiar with the incident. The Coast Guard pilot was initially fired and told to take a commercial flight home when they reached their destination. They eventually reinstated the pilot because no one else was available to fly them home.” (Good thing the pilot didn’t bring his dog on the trip.)
+ And the excellent Dahlia Lithwick in Slate (Gift Article) on how the Epstein story (and this week’s repulsive performance by Pam Bondi in Congress) represents everything. “The Epstein file dump is not simply playing out as a backdrop against which other acts of American lawlessness are occurring. The Epstein story is also the template and the proof text for all that is happening in Minnesota; at dangerous detention centers; in efforts to punish members of Congress for lawful speech; for crypto scams; and for measles outbreaks. It is an ongoing road map for an administration that lives out the reality that they are rich and powerful and famous enough to be above the law each day, and wishes for the rest of us to ultimately learn and accept that fact.” Pam Bondi’s Epstein Testimony Exposed the Whole Game. “What Bondi, and Donald Trump, and Lutnick, and Todd Blanche are doing under the banner of law and law enforcement and pardons and immunity and impunity is an operatic performance of a single truth: The ‘law’ will now protect those who are within the network of favors and privilege and secrets and side-eyes and snickers and abuse of young girls, and the ‘law’ will also abandon those who are not.”
“Perhaps more than anything, the operas that Italians began creating 400 years ago are designed to make you feel. To have the rest of the world melt away as you get lost in a story sung in a language you might not understand, but whose stakes are unmistakable. No wonder the country that invented the art form where music and poetry merge, and these Winter Olympics seem to be such a perfect fit.” Bravo! Act I of the Winter Olympics’ visit to Italy has been filled with drama, catharsis and tears.
+ Apparently, amid all the drama, catharsis, and tears (and competition), athletes have found time for horizontal pursuits. Winter Olympic village runs out of condoms after three days.
+ “U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim’s quest for a historic Olympic halfpipe three-peat was foiled by none other than her teenage protégé. Kim took home silver, after 17-year-old Gaon Choi of South Korea rebounded from a dramatic crash to overtake her in the final run.” It’s still quite a result for Kim, who has an injured shoulder and barely competed at all leading up to the games. Besides, Chloe Kim’s smile will always be worthy of gold. (Note to Miles Garrett: I mean that in a purely platonic sense…)
+ “If you’ve watched even a small amount of figure skating at the Winter Olympics, you’ve probably seen Benoît Richaud. He’s the tall, slender, bald man sitting next to seemingly every athlete after they compete, when their scores are read aloud.” You may also notice that he wears a lot of different jackets. He coaches 16 skaters from 13 countries at the Winter Olympics.
+ High-Level, Actionable Insights From Watching Doubles Luge For The First Time. “Unlike other baffling Olympic sports like biathlon and curling, doubles luge has no legible explanation rooted in Scandinavian military training or bored Scottish people. Doubles luge appears to be the consequence of somebody watching luge and being struck by the idea of stacking another guy on top of the first guy. Apparently back then there were no bad ideas.”
What to Watch: It took a while for Industry on HBO to gain a big following. But I’m glad it has. It could be the best show on television these days, and it’s especially welcome to those who have been missing Succession. Season four remains excellent.
+ What to Movie: Splittsville on Hulu with Adria Arjona, Dakota Johnson, Kyle Marvin, and Michael Angelo Covino in a somewhat crazy look at two couples going through some relationship issues. There are some really funny moments in this movie.
Glass Houses: NYT (Gift Article): Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Technology to Its Smart Glasses. “Meta’s internal memo said the political tumult in the United States was good timing for the feature’s release. ‘We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.'” (Big tech is not your friend…)
+ There Goes the Neighborhood: “It’s not hard to see why ICE has expanded its reach beyond the Twin Cities. The qualities that have hindered ICE’s operation in Minneapolis and St. Paul — density and walkability; a large, almost exclusively left-of-center population — are absent here. In Minneapolis, I saw patrollers on nearly every street corner. It’s easy to gather for protests or come together to organize a mutual aid network. The sidewalks in Lakeville were deserted, as were the broad streets that led onto the highway. Had there been any bystanders, they may not have wanted to get involved.” ICE moves out to the suburbs.
+ There’s Something Happening There: High-profile resignations and replacements as Epstein case fallout spreads. (Some people in some places are being held accountable.)
+ Who’d Have Predicted? “This was in Iowa City in 1988, long before anyone could bet on elections or Super Bowl halftime shows with their phone. The professors were trying to solve the sort of problem social scientists tackle over lunch. Why did polls get elections so wrong — and what could be done about it?” Three economists grabbed a beer. A multibillion-dollar industry was born. (The breakthrough came too soon for them to lay a bet on Bad Bunny’s first halftime show song.)
+ Ejected: “This school prepared more umpires for professional baseball than all the other schools combined. Over half of MLB’s 76 active major-league umpires this year are graduates from the Wendelstedt school. Numerous others are working toward that goal in the minor leagues. ‘It’s the Harvard of umpire schools.'” And it just closed. The machines are coming for these jobs, too. The Athletic (Gift Article): The ‘Harvard of umpire schools’ closes as changing times favor tech over tradition.
+ Cost in Space: “Summer Heather Worden claimed that McClain had illegally accessed her personal bank account from the International Space Station in July 2019.” Astronaut’s Ex-Wife Sentenced for Lying That Former Spouse Committed First Ever Crime in Space. (Elon still has a shot to be the first space criminal.)
The first strike by San Francisco teachers in nearly 50 years has ended after four days of picket lines, rallies and long negotiations.
+ Renewables are being deployed aggressively across much of the world even as the US, historically the world’s biggest emitter, overturned a landmark domestic climate ruling. And, Africa leads growth in solar energy as demand spreads beyond traditional markets. (You’ll never guess which superpower is benefiting from this growth and which isn’t.)
+ Inflation cooled in January, offering some relief for consumers. (Let’s hope these numbers are accurate.)
+ Surfers raced into ‘crazy’ Santa Cruz surf to save family of six.
+ Teen grabs kayak, paddles through icy pond to rescue neighborhood dog.
+ Firefighter bear-hugs terrified deer on icy lake in daring rescue.
+ 88-Year-Old Grandmother Flies for the First Time on Plane Piloted by Her Grandson.
+ Florida man saves pregnant woman from drowning hours before baby’s birth. (Come on, a feel good story about Florida Man! What more do you people want?)
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off for most, and probably all, of next week, unless, you know, something really newsworthy breaks into the break.
2026-02-12 20:00:00
“I have proposed and President Trump has concurred that this surge operation conclude.” So said border czar Tom Homan as he announced that the Trump administration is ending its immigration surge in Minnesota. Of course, we’ll have to see it to believe it. The move likely has to do with budget negotiations in Congress, the incredible resistance of everyday Minnesotans, and (mostly) the extreme damage the images out of Minneapolis have done to presidential approval ratings and recent GOP election results. Here’s the latest on the planned departure. Even if federal agents do evacuate the city, many questions remain. Will they just be redeployed to another blue city? Are we witnessing Veni, Vidi, Retreati, or Veni, Vidi, Relocati? (As Minneapolis Mayor Jaocb Frey explained, “[This surge] has been catastrophic for our neighbors and businesses … They thought they could break us, but a love for our neighbors and a resolve to endure can outlast an occupation. These patriots of Minneapolis are showing that it’s not just about resistance — standing with our neighbors is deeply American.” Let’s just pause and consider that this is an American mayor talking about an invasion of his city by American officials.) How many of the 4,000 arrestees actually committed crimes or posed any danger to anyone? Will there be any justice for the innocent protesters who were gunned down in the streets, or will those involved just be able to take their ball and go home—or to their next domestic deployment? And what will be the next twist in this troubling American saga?
+ For an answer to that last question, you may want to tweak a famous political adage, and follow the leases: “Over the past several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have carried out a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US. Documents show that more than 150 leases and office expansions have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations.” Wired: ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next.
+ And, in case you needed one, here’s yet another reminder that many of the people who are being targeted for deportation aren’t who you think they are. NYT (Gift Article): Judge Ends Deportation Case for Mexican Father of 3 U.S. Marines. Narciso Barranco was detained while landscaping outside of an IHOP in Southern California. “At the time, the Department of Homeland Security defended the agents’ aggressive arrest, saying the agents had felt threatened by Mr. Barranco and accusing him of having raised his weed trimmer at them.” Given what we know now, I guess Narciso Barranco is lucky he’s still alive.
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off for most, and probably all, of next week, unless, you know, something really newsworthy breaks into the break.
“We are officially terminating the so called endangerment finding, a disastrous Obama era policy. This determination had no basis in fact — none whatsoever. And it had no basis in law. On the contrary over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world.” So said Trump, as the Environmental Protection Agency just repealed “its own conclusion that greenhouse gases warm the Earth and endanger human health and wellbeing.” EPA reverses longstanding climate change finding, stripping its own ability to regulate emissions. “If climate change law was a tower in the game Jenga, the endangerment finding would be a wooden block at the base.”
“You’re siding with the perpetrators, and you’re ignoring the victims. That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change course.” So said Rep. Jamie Raskin during an oversight hearing with Pam Bondi that devolved into a schoolyard fight. And when it comes to Bondi and the Epstein files, there are a lot of MAGA folks who would agree. But turning oversight committees into chaotic shouting matches certainly appears to be part of some bizarre strategy. To you, it probably looked like Bondi was crashing out, that the photo of her with her back toward Epstein victims was soulless, and that holding a burn book with canned personal attacks prepared for each questioner looked pathetic. But this show is for an audience of one, and the new goal in these oversight hearings is no oversight.
+ This hearing was similar to Bondi’s past performances. During the last one, the personal attacks “went for hours, a calculated performance that amounted to a giant middle finger to basic notions of decorum and accountability, leaving all sorts of questions unanswered, including a fundamental one that some of Bondi’s old friends and colleagues back home in Florida had been asking. As one of them put it to me: ‘I keep asking myself, What the f-ck happened to Pam?‘” (You could ask the same question about a lot of people these days…)
In one of the mostly hotly-contested events on ice, USA’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates got edged out for ice dancing gold by the controversial duo of Beaudry and Cizeron. “The reigning European champions only teamed up last year and continue to face questions over their former partners.” Meet France’s controversial ice dance Olympic champions. The judging also proved to be controversial, driving headlines like this one: Olympic judge who cost Madison Chock and Evan Bates gold has a history of questionable scores. I’ve only been an expert in ice dancing since last night, but the winners looked pretty damn good to me. So did the silver medalists, for that matter.
+ IOC boots Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych from Olympics for wearing helmet honoring war victims.
+ Breezy Johnson gets engaged at Winter Olympics after boyfriend proposes at finish line. (The proposal came right after she crashed in her final event. If I had done something like that, I’m convinced I’d still be single.)
+ “No ice is colder and harder than speedskating ice. The precision it takes has meant that Olympic speedskaters have never competed for gold on a temporary indoor rink – until the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games.” Meet the man behind the ice.
+ “‘We sell it because it works, not because it tastes good,’ says Emil Sjölander, one of Nomio’s three founders, who described that taste as ‘some combination of wood and Dijon mustard.'” WSJ (Gift Article): Olympians Can Eat All the Pasta in Italy. So Why Are They Drinking Broccoli?
Alef Bet: The widespread adoption of sports betting has led to several scandals involving players and coaches. But with prediction markets, you can bet on anything. Will stories like this one become the norm? “Two Israelis have been charged with using classified military information to place bets on how future events will unfold.” I covered this topic in detail yesterday. As I wrote in ‘Dict Picks, I believe the increasing popularity of prediction markets will cause a gambling addiction scourge the likes of which we’ve never seen.
+ Tariff Not Now, When? “The House voted Wednesday to slap back President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, a rare if largely symbolic rebuke of the White House agenda as Republicans joined Democrats over the objections of GOP leadership.”
+ I Need Another ‘Gram: “Mosseri said that he didn’t think that it was possible to be addicted to Instagram but that “problematic use” was possible, though it varies from person to person.” Instagram chief denies social media can be ‘clinically addictive’ in landmark case.
+ Lead Balloon: “Officials targeted what they thought was a drug cartel drone, but turned out to be a party balloon, they said.” Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser.
+ Nut Givin’ Up My Shot: “It’s hard to recall a regulator who has done as much damage to medical innovation in as little time as Vinay Prasad. In his latest drive-by shooting, the leader of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division rejected Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine without even a cursory review. This is arbitrary government at its worst.” WSJ Editorial Board: Vinay Prasad’s Vaccine Kill Shot.
+ Your Place Or Mine(field): “Security measures once reserved for presidents and royalty—safe rooms, biometric access controls, laser-powered perimeter defenses—are now mainstream items in luxury homes. Executive-protection teams and armed guards patrol gated enclaves and suburban estates, while tech startups are rolling out predictive threat-detection systems built for the ultra-wealthy. The shift reflects a hardening view among the affluent: Traditional policing and communal safety are no longer enough, so security is being privatized, customized.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Mega-Rich Are Turning Their Mansions Into Impenetrable Fortresses.
Everything good about the early internet seems to have disappeared. Even cat videos have changed. They used to refer to videos of cats that humans could watch. Now they refer to content created for your pet. TV, It’s Not Just for Humans Anymore. (My beagles got bored with this stuff and now mostly just use AI to confirm their preconceived biases about my cats.)
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off for most, and probably all, of next week, unless, you know, something really newsworthy breaks into the break.