2026-04-17 20:00:00
The Strait of Hormuz seems to be open. The US blockade remains in place until a final deal is reached. Iran has agreed to never close the Strait again. And the US and Iran will work together to collect the country’s enriched uranium, which will then be brought to the US. Does that all sound too good to be true? Can we say with a strait face that we’re getting the strait skinny from a source not exactly known for being a strait shooter? It may take a little while to be sure (and months to hammer out a complete deal). And we’re getting some very different quotes about the negotiations from Iranian officials. As BBC reports: “The president’s optimism may end up well-founded. But if that turns out not to be the case, it wouldn’t be the first time his words have moved ahead of the reality on the ground.” (If his words meet reality, does that mean we’ve reached the singularity?) But for now, the market definitely wants to believe. Oil prices are down, stocks are up, and the ceasefire is holding. Here’s the latest from BBC, NBC, and The Guardian.
+ The war has cost the US lives, money, and international trust and status. So what will we get in exchange for that? Ultimately, for those dealing with reality on a regular basis, the outcome will be measured against what we already had. A few weeks ago, we had an open strait not being controlled by Iran. And a few years ago, we had a working nuclear agreement that was being constantly verified by international inspectors. Trump famously tore up the agreement that included this: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons.” (Maybe we should have fought this war with a roll of Scotch Tape.)
“Congress has voted to extend a controversial surveillance program until April 30. The extension, which first passed overnight in the House, came after GOP leaders failed to secure a five-year renewal, as well as an 18-month renewal President Trump had demanded. Both votes tanked.” Congress extends controversial surveillance powers for 10 days.
+ “We disagree on many issues. One of us is a longtime Democrat, the other a conservative Republican. But both of us are deeply concerned about warrantless government surveillance of the American people.” Mike Lee and Dick Durbin: We Disagree on a Lot. But We Know This Law Must Change.
+ If the law does change, it will be one of the few times in recent memory that we’ll be getting surveilled a little less. From police cameras to private security, we’re being tracked everywhere, all the time. Wired: The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine. “Famously vengeful Knicks owner Jim Dolan has long spied on people at his iconic arenas. WIRED goes deep inside the operation that allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.”
+ And you’re almost certainly having your license plate being tracked by Flock. Privacy concerns have caused dozens of towns to stop using the technology, which is pretty amazing considering people will almost always choose personal security over privacy concerns. When Flock Cameras Appear: Everything You Need to Know About This Surveillance Tech.
A coalition of businesses called Seat the Table is “demanding that Congress and the White House create work permits for ‘long-term, law-abiding immigrants playing critical roles from farms to restaurants.'” Which radical, leftist, open-border-loving state are these people from? Texas. It turns out that immigrants are good for business. “‘I think the vast majority of Americans recognize that there is a large group of undocumented immigrants who have been literally keeping food on our tables,’ said Kelsey Erickson Streufert, the chief public affairs officer for the Texas trade group. ‘And if we remove those people, it is going to hurt everyone in terms of higher prices.'” Of course the vast majority of Americans realize this. But the vast majority of Americans aren’t running our current immigration strategy. NYT (Gift Article): Texas Restaurants Are Forcing a Reckoning Over Immigrant Labor.
What to Book: “Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives.” Both are well worth reading about. Kin by Tayari Jones is a great read.
+ What to Doc: The latest doc from the excellent Marshall Curry on Netflix explores the history of The New Yorker magazine as it hits the century mark. It’s a must-watch for anyone who digs the New Yorker, or magazines in general. It’s also a celebration of journalism.
+ What to Watch: “As Silicon Valley and its overlords veer into AI-fueled peak depravity, a would-be tech titan and his ethically challenged therapist try to find a fortune (and happiness) for themselves.” Audacity on AMC puts the tech industry on the therapist’s couch. In other words, there will be a lot to unravel. This new satire is off to a solid start.
Expanding the Gun Range: “In the last couple of years, a growing number of women and people of color have begun training with Mr. Mills. His clients are conservatives, moderates, liberals, and those who defy simple labels altogether. His star student is Eva, a former infantry soldier who appears at the range in pink stockings and painted nails.” More liberals are buying guns. Why? “L.A. Progressive Shooters, a gun-education group in Los Angeles that welcomes people regardless of their politics, has had to expand its increasingly sold-out training sessions. Another nationwide group based in Newton, Massachusetts, the Liberal Gun Club, saw its membership rise by 66%.” (When it comes to guns, everyone is in the target market. After the past week, the Pope will probably buy a Glock.)
+ Doge for Diplomats: “He has shocked its mainstream leaders, many of them with decades of experience in diplomacy, by accusing them of stifling freedom and by frequently meeting with and promoting their hard-line challengers. He is just five years out of college, and he has repeatedly advocated an approach that overturns three generations of American diplomatic orthodoxy.” NYT (Gift Article): The 27-Year-Old Diplomat Waging Trump’s Cultural War With Europe.
+ Life is But a Stream: “In the past, all you needed to watch your favorite NFL team every Sunday was access to local television channels. That can still work these days, but only if you live in that team’s particular city … as long as that team isn’t playing in a prime-time, nationally televised game … or if that team wasn’t selected to play one of the games on the various streaming services.” Sports is one of the few things that still brings us together. (If you’re a subscriber…) U.S. senator to introduce bill aimed at ending sports blackouts.
+ This Must Be Replace: “It’s like the Uber of advanced AI training: a gig-work platform for white-collar and skilled professionals that offers a path for them to earn something extra from their expertise—at the risk of eventually sacrificing their careers to AI.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Mercor is promising to replicate most professional work. It was also co-founded by twentysomethings who previously never held a real job. (Back in my day, if you couldn’t qualify for an actual job, you launched a newsletter.)
+ No Ethics Allowed: “The Justice Department has removed the career Miami federal prosecutor leading the investigation into John Brennan, after she resisted pressure to quickly bring charges.”
+ Shots Across the Bow: “The woman, who fell and injured herself, said in a lawsuit that bartenders had been negligent for serving her while she was visibly intoxicated.” Woman Who Took 15 Tequila Shots on Carnival Cruise Gets $300,000 in Damages. (With that kind of consumption, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she quoted Pulp Fiction as bible scripture…)
“Scientists are often advised to explain their work in terms that a child can understand—a task that is particularly challenging when it comes to such complex topics as quantum mechanics. It’s easier when the interviewer is an actual child, like 9-year-old Kai, aka the Quantum Kid.”
+ NYT (Gift Article): The Hit Erotica Writers Outwitting Nigeria’s Religious Censors. “His Majesty’s great staff is what impresses you all.” (And no, that’s not a line from one of Trump’s cabinet meetings.)
+ Woman, 96, enlists 150-pound dog to plant spring flowers: She points, he digs. (My beagles must be pretty well trained. They dig without me pointing. Even if I stay, “stop digging,” they dig.)
+ “There are few things to know about this historic game: there are no rules, no boundaries, no time limits and no referee.” Uppies and Downies, the medieval football game that has no rules and no time limit.
+ “Chinese carmaker Seres has been granted a patent for what it calls an ‘in-vehicle toilet‘ that slides under a passenger’s seat for visits to the loo while on the road.” (I may finally say yes to going on that road trip…)
2026-04-16 20:00:00
We are entering an era that promises a new kind of arms race. It’s not about bombs, missiles, or drones (at least not yet). It’s about software. People who work at the cutting edge of technology have known this arms race was coming soon, but even they’ve been surprised at how quickly it arrived. The first front in this new war opened in between events at a wedding in Bali, where an AI researcher named Nicholas Carlini “opened his laptop, and set out to do some damage. Anthropic PBC had just made a new artificial intelligence model, called Mythos, available for internal review, and Carlini — a well-known AI researcher — intended to see what kind of trouble it could cause.” The answer: A lot. Like, really a lot. “Within hours Carlini found numerous techniques to infiltrate systems used around the world. Once Carlini was back in Anthropic’s downtown San Francisco office, he discovered Mythos was able to autonomously create powerful break-in tools, including against Linux, the open-source code that underpins most of modern computing. Mythos orchestrated the digital equivalent of a bank robbery: getting past security protocols and through the front door of networks, and breaking into digital vaults that gave it access to online treasures. AI had picked locks, but now it could pull off an entire heist.” The awareness of the power of this new AI model moved Anthropic to limit its release to top software companies and government agencies, giving them a head start to find vulnerabilities before someone else does. But Anthropic won’t be the last AI company to have a model this powerful. And, as we’ve learned, battles between boosting corporate valuations and doing what’s best for society don’t always play out this way. And, as we’ve also learned, bad guys know how to develop technology, too. We’re only going to be able to keep these threats at an arm’s length for so long. Bloomberg (Gift Article): How Anthropic Learned Mythos Was Too Dangerous for the Wild.
While the AI arms race is rapidly changing, the traditional arms race is undergoing a similar transformation. Ukraine and Iran are serving as test cases for a new kind of war, where bigger isn’t always better. “In the past, military power was often determined by size – the number of knights, soldiers, guns or tanks, depending on the era, that an army had. Since the Cold War, advanced militaries have emphasized precise munitions, such as cruise missiles, gaining advantage with fewer but more accurately targeted weapons. Inexpensive but technologically sophisticated drones bring mass and precision together.” The Conversation: One‑way attack drones: Low‑cost, high‑tech weapons ‘democratize’ precision warfare.
+ So far, the use of drones and other low cost munitions has been countered using advanced missiles and other other high cost defense systems. Those weapons are expensive, and they take longer to produce. Hence, we get a headline like this from the WSJ (Gift Article): Pentagon Approaches Automakers, Manufacturers to Boost Weapons Production. “The Trump administration wants automakers and other American manufacturers to play a larger role in weapons production, reminiscent of a practice used during World War II … The Pentagon is interested in enlisting the companies to use their personnel and factory capacity to increase production of munitions and other equipment as the wars in Ukraine and Iran deplete stocks.”
“‘This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan,’ Tom Fletcher, emergency relief coordinator at the United Nations, said in a statement before a conference in Berlin on Wednesday to raise aid funds and call attention to the brutal conflict. ‘Sudan is an atrocities laboratory: sieges, denial of food, weaponized sexual violence.'” NYT (Gift Article): Sudan Enters Fourth Year of War Amid World’s Most Severe Humanitarian Crisis. This conflict is overshadowed by other wars. But it’s not unaffected by them. “The American-Israeli war on Iran has led to rising global fuel and fertilizer prices, Mr. Fletcher noted, compounding the severe food crisis in Sudan.”
“Vance’s slap at Leo—including the pompous implication that he needs to go back and do some theology homework—illustrates the political and religious risks that Vance is willing to take not only with the Vatican, but with a country whose population is one-fifth Catholic, in order to demonstrate his utter fealty to Trump.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Pope James David Vance the First.
+ Amid a quarrel with the Pope, Trump strips Miami charity of funding to house migrant kids. (This move features blasphemy, spite, pettiness, cruelty, corruption, vindictiveness, and the harm of immigrant children. How could Trump resist?)
+ The Pope isn’t backing down. “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth … They turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education and restoration are nowhere to be found … The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.”
+ “Pete Hegseth — always ready to get medieval on someone’s ass — quoted a fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction while leading a prayer service at the Pentagon.” (Also, we have a lot of prayer services at the Pentagon these days…)
Ceasefire Spreads: From Reuters: Trump says Israel and Lebanon agree on ceasefire, optimism grows on ending Iran war. At this point, almost all parties have significant motivations to end this thing (even if they end up in worse positions than before the war). Trump is worried about the stock market and his falling approval numbers. Iran’s economy is on the brink. And Europe has ‘maybe 6 weeks of jet fuel left.’ Here’s the latest from The Guardian, NBC, and the NYT.
+ Swalwell Known: “My whole body felt physically sick and I remember my head rushed, and I just was like, oh, my gosh … I just felt like I had to do everything I could to just hold one man accountable.” NPR: How Eric Swalwell’s fall was brought on by a network of women who organized online. (Now, for the next question: How did his support from insiders last as long as it did?) Also, “Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a rising star in the Democratic Party before his career was derailed by sexual assault allegations several years ago, killed his wife before killing himself, police said Thursday.”
+ Shaker of Salt: WSJ (Gift Article): San Diego Now Has So Much Water That It’s Selling It. “With the Colorado River in crisis, Arizona and Nevada are turning to an unconventional lifeline: the ocean water off California’s golden beaches. Both desert states are pursuing a deal with the San Diego County Water Authority to tap millions of gallons of fresh water produced by a Carlsbad ocean-desalination plant—the largest in North America—to help offset their reliance on the collapsing Colorado River.” (If we desalinate fast enough, maybe we can drink our way out of the sea rise problem!)
+ Yale Gives it the Old Harvard Try: “A 10-member committee offered a brutal assessment of academia’s role in creating the forces challenging American colleges and universities.” NYT (Gift Article): Yale Report Finds Colleges Deserve Blame for Higher Education’s Problems.
+ Arch Madness: “Mr. Trump’s push to build the giant arch — more than quadrupling its size from original plans — has alienated early proponents of the project, classical architects and veterans groups who say it will diminish nearby Arlington Cemetery.” Trump’s ‘Triumphal Arch’ Draws Backlash, Even From an Expert Who Proposed It. (I know everyone is investing in AI these days, but I’m putting all my money into wrecking balls and jackhammers…)
+ Moby Trick: Sperm whales’ communication closely parallels human language. “Not only do sperm whale have a form of “alphabet” and form vowels within their vocalizations but the structure of these vowels behaves in the same way as human speech.” (Wait until they figure out how funny their name is…)
“As a plumbing contractor in Alaska, Henson first served it to workers. His herbs, spices, buttermilk and mayo concoction then became such a hit with guests at Hidden Valley, the dude ranch he and his wife opened in California, that he sold it as a DIY dry mix. Eventually, Clorox bottled a shelf-stable version, and competitors like Ken’s, Kraft Foods and Wish-Bone joined in.” Ranch dressing: An American staple that actually began life on … a ranch.
+ “Sixty years after it invented sports drinks, Gatorade is making a surprising pivot: It’s no longer focusing primarily on athletes.” Now, it’s all about offering hydration that’s supposedly better than water.
2026-04-15 20:00:00
Welcome to the clinical trial. Tens of millions of us are volunteers in the world’s biggest medical study. Only, the study isn’t being run by doctors. It’s being run by us. GLP-1s were first introduced to lower blood sugar in people suffering from Type 2 diabetes. We quickly learned that those same drugs tended to make people lose weight, often a lot of it. As if that weren’t enough of a medical holy grail, we’ve since been getting reports that these drugs with names like Ozempic and Mounjaro help with symptoms of long Covid, IBS, addiction, depression, concussions, and much more. These anecdotal results have been supercharged by the wellness and longevity craze, and the use of these drugs is now wildly outpacing researchers’ ability to study them (or their potential downsides). In the spirit of the modern era, we’re all doing our own research. You have become your own doctor. How much more primary can care get than that? Julia Belluz in the NYT (Gift Article): The Great Ozempic Experiment. “Technology moves fast, while science accumulates slowly. Humans have a history of rushing ahead with new technology, well before understanding how it affects us. (Just think of smartphones and ultraprocessed foods.) Still, GLP-1s may be a medical first: a blockbuster drug class, enthusiastically taken up by millions, not for one or a few uses but, it appears, a multitude.” (Is being a guinea pig in an unprecedented human experiment making you feel anxious? Don’t worry. GLP-1s can reduce anxiety, too.)
You thought that Trumpian attacks on the Pope would be a bridge too far for the sycophants who have sold their souls? Have you learned nothing over the years? NYT (Gift Article): Vance Says the Pope Should Be More Careful When Talking About Theology. “In the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.” Mike Johnson has joined the papal critique. “‘I was taken a little bit aback, just honestly, frankly, by something that he said, I think he said several days back, something about ‘those who engage in war, Jesus doesn’t hear their prayers’ or something’ … Johnson went on to preach against the highest Catholic’s teachings, claiming that it’s a ‘very well settled matter of Christian theology’ that war is sometimes justified, and invoking the ‘just war’ doctrine within military ethics.” Look, I’m more of a Moses man myself, so if these guys want to argue with the Pope about how Jesus feels about war, I’m going to stay out of it. But it does seem notable that the Trump cultists are now telling the Pope he’s wrong about religion. (If Jesus is really in favor of this war, maybe he can offer a strategy to win it.)
+ Here’s one factor that makes it a little harder to argue that the war on Iran is doing god’s work. WSJ (Gift Article): Iran’s Regime Has Changed—for the Worse. “On March 13, a massive billboard appeared in Tehran’s Enqelab Square. It showed Iran’s newly selected supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, standing in a trench and instructing commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fire missiles at their enemies. The text suggested the mission is divinely inspired, comparing Khamenei to Imam Ali, a revered Muslim figure known for his legendary victory over Jewish tribes. For opponents of Iran’s regime, the image is the visual representation of their worst nightmare: a militarized Iran ruled by a younger, hard-line leader where the Revolutionary Guard plays an even more dominant role.” (Leaders who believe they are divinely commissioned to violently suppress their own people and wantonly attack other countries? If nothing else, Trump, Vance, and Johnson should be able to find some common ground with these folks.) Here’s the latest on the Strait, the blockade, and continuing talks from NBC and BBC.
“Studies show that overreliance on these digital tools causes cognitive decline, but if current events are any indication, nobody’s making much of a contribution anyway. Go ahead and use A.I. however you like. Except art. If you use it for your art, you’re a freakin’ hack. Why is it that the most vocal cheerleaders of generative A.I. are always the hackiest motherfreakers around? You expect studio executives to say things like ‘it’s going to revolutionize content’ and ‘from a bottom-line standpoint it’s inevitable’ and ‘I’ve finally found an instrument as cold and empty as myself,’ but you’d hope that an artist would have more self-respect. Some people say, ‘I just use it to brainstorm ideas.’ If you don’t know what to paint or compose or write, you’re in the wrong job. Art is the business of making up stuff — go make up some stuff.” Colson Whitehead in the NYT (Gift Article): Don’t Use A.I. to Do This. “Data centers — gigawatt-sucking, pollution-spewing slop houses of mediocrity — are ravaging the environment, consuming all the water and electricity and supercharging utility bills … [But] do you realize how much water and power it’d take to replicate the average writer’s narcissism, self-loathing and despair? It’d drain the Indian Ocean. You could light up Times Square for a year. We can’t afford it.”
“High-quality bagels, with their finicky baking process, have always been notoriously unprofitable and unscalable. But recent developments in bakery and coffee technology, along with changes in social media, consumer tracking, capital funding and delivery platforms, have changed that.” Big Money Is Betting on Bagels. (Bagels are bigger than ever because people feel they can use the dough missing from where the hole is to argue they’re cutting down on carbs.)
+ It’s only a matter of time before the bagel industry comes up with an AI angle. After all, everyone else is doing it. A headline for the ages: Allbirds Soars After Sneaker Firm Rebrands as AI Stock. (Sometimes, the idea of computers replacing humans doesn’t seem all that bad…)
Under the Gun: It’s a good time to be in the weapons business. It’s not just that we’re depleting our arsenal in Iran. It’s also that our allies have realized they can no longer count on America. That makes it a bigly buyer’s market in the defense industry. WSJ (Gift Article): Europe Is Accelerating a NATO Fallback Plan in Case Trump Pulls Out. It’s also not a bad time to be in the oil business. Big oil reaping huge war windfall from consumers. And that includes Russia, where Oil Revenues Nearly Doubled in March.
+ Trading and Abetting: According to Bloomberg, US Probes Suspicious Oil Trades Made Before Trump Pivots. (Five bucks says this investigation gets dropped as soon as they find out some of the people making the trades…)
+ Big Ticket Case: “A jury in a high-stakes antitrust trial on Wednesday found that Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market.” (Knowing Live Nation, they’ll probably sell tickets to the appeal…)
+ Justice Just Isn’t: “The Justice Department moved Tuesday to wipe out the seditious conspiracy convictions of the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were found guilty of organizing key aspects of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.” (Meanwhile, another pardoned Jan. 6 rioter to admit guilt in child sexual abuse case.)
+ Without Reserve: As Trump threatened to fire Powell, federal prosecutors showed up unannounced at the Federal Reserve building.
+ The Tragical Mystery Tour: “While carrying out public business for his father-in-law, he has continued to pursue his private interests and declined to disclose any information about them.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Jared Kushner’s Mysterious Role in the Trump Administration. (Ethics aside, what about qualifications?)
+ Manspleening: “After Dr. Shaknovsky removed the organ, ‘The staff looked at the readily identifiable liver on the table and were shocked when Dr. Shaknovsky told them that it was a spleen.'” This story is even crazier and more disturbing than its headline. Surgeon Who Removed Wrong Organ From Patient Is Charged in His Death.
“The people who gather in this small room on the eighth floor of the New York Stock Exchange look like a group of middle-aged caffeine addicts. They sit around what resembles a school science lab sniffing coffee beans and slurping coffee so aggressively that there’s loud music playing to drown them out. But these aren’t junkies with bad manners. They’re part of an elite team of graders who help keep the commodities market running. Their ratings help set U.S. futures-market prices for arabica, and in turn, the global coffee industry. And they’ve arguably never been more valuable.” WSJ (Gift Article): Wall Street’s Elite Team of Coffee Tasters Who Keep the Global Market Running. (I wonder if they offer similar gigs for the cannabis market…)
+ Scientists just discovered 5.6 million bees under a New York State cemetery.
2026-04-14 20:00:00
Last night, I attended the Bruce Springsteen Land of Hope and Dreams concert at Chase Center in San Francisco. The tour is more than a concert series, it’s a protest movement; a gathering of pro democracy, like-minded people sharing a lament for what’s being done by this administration and unifying around a determination to fight for American values. Like in Minneapolis and cities across America, it was an invitation to take a clear-eyed view of where we are right now, and to come on up for The Rising. Of course, given the age of most of the folks in the crowd, rising can be easier said than done (especially for the duration of a 3-hour Springsteen show). The age of our protest crowd made sense. Aging rockers/Aging fans. I pre-gamed with my standard concert drug of choice these days: a handful of Motrin. But it turns out that our concert demographics weren’t all that different from what you’d find at a No Kings rally. In the NYT (Gift Article), Thomas B. Edsall looks at some of the interesting reasons why young people could be missing from a movement that so directly impacts their interests. “We have a president who has directly attacked the finances and the intellectual freedom of colleges and universities, is building the technology for a surveillance state, undermines free and fair elections and took the nation into an unjustified war with no explanation while causing domestic economic havoc. But one ingredient is missing: a substantial anti-Trump youth movement.” NYT (Gift Article): Why Aren’t the Kids Out Protesting Against Trump? “‘At No Kings 1 (June 14, 2025) the median age was 36, at No Kings 2 (Oct. 18, 2025) the median age was 44, and at No Kings 3 (March 28, 2026) it was 48. Clearly, it’s getting older’ … So what’s going on? I asked a wide range of experts for their thoughts. Some pointed to such structural developments as the explosion in social media usage and public access to artificial intelligence, both of which weaken users’ sense of efficacy and agency.” The irony is that it’s precisely in-person gatherings like concerts and protests that can renew our shared sense of efficacy and agency. Yes, my back was a little sore when I woke up this morning, but, thankfully, I still have the sound of freedom ringing in my ears (at least until I pop one more Motrin)
+ Photos of young Hungarian voters who helped end Prime Minister Orbán’s grip on power. (Yesterday, I covered the big loss for Orban, and MAGA: Fallen Idol.)
+ Of course, young people have plenty of things to worry about these days, from AI shifts in the job market to the political mess we’ve left them. And they’re coming of age in the age of age. “Although political gerontocracy has operated overtly, the rising economic power of the elderly has escaped much notice. Over the past 40 or so years, American wealth has grown ever more concentrated among the oldest generations. In 1989, Americans over age 55 held 56 percent of it; today they hold 74 percent. During that same period, the share of wealth held by Americans under 40 has shrunk by nearly half, from 12 to 6.6 percent. The color of money is now gray.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): An Oligarchy of Old People.
“The government’s own records complicate that picture. Only about 5 percent of people booked into ICE custody in the last year have been convicted of a violent crime. The number of arrests of people with violent convictions has increased by 37 percent under Trump, while the number of arrests of those with no conviction of any kind has risen by 770 percent, according to ICE data. Many agents and officials we spoke to say the relentless pursuit of deportations is unsustainable and has compromised the department.” NYT Magazine (Gift Article): The View From Inside Trump’s D.H.S.
+ “Under Joe Biden, D.H.S. had designated ‘protected areas,’ where ICE and Customs and Border Protection were discouraged from conducting operations; these included places ‘where children gather.’ Trump’s D.H.S. rescinded that designation, freeing agents to target children, parents, and caregivers at playgrounds, child-care centers, and schools.” The New Yorker: The Return of Family Detention.
+ Not worried about the ethical price? There’s a financial cost, too. Immigrants Are Scared to File Taxes. It Could Cost the U.S. Billions.
“Wellness gurus, Make America Healthy Again influencers and no shortage of startups are urging us to eat healthier. Sure, one could follow Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s revised food pyramid, one purported guide to healthier eating, but there’s an even easier fix these groups are also pushing: supplements. Swallow a capsule, mix a powder in some water or pop a nutrient-packed candy. The fast growing US supplement market was valued at $69 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $87 billion by 2028.” Can we gummy ourselves to good health? We’re sure as hell gonna try. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Unilever Bets Big on Gummies as Next Frontier in Wellness.
There’s no shortage of stories about the great and growing economic divide, and the many categories and companies shifting toward serving the luxury market. But you still might not have expected to see this on the list. Gone are the days of the $1 buffet in Las Vegas. Now $175 buffets offer luxury dining. (I’m still confident I can turn an all-you-can-eat buffet visit into a net loss for these restaurants. But, it’s not as easy as it used to be.)
A Great Deal Left to Be Desired: According to sources, the US has proposed a 20-year minimum suspension on Iranian uranium enrichment (reminder that we had a nuclear deal with Iran that a certain someone tore up). It looks like there could be more peace talks in the next few days. And, “Lebanon and Israel are holding their first direct diplomatic talks in more than 30 years.” Xi Jinping said the world must not be allowed to “revert to the law of the jungle.” Here’s the latest from The Guardian, BBC, and NBC.
+ Brothers in Arms: “The war in Gaza has hardened positions in the Middle East and around the globe. But two men, an Israeli and a Palestinian, say that after that war began in 2023, they became like brothers. It is a brotherhood born out of trauma.” After losing loved ones, an Israeli and a Palestinian work together for Middle East peace.
+ Quit Pro Quo: “Two members of Congress facing sexual misconduct allegations from former staffers have announced they will resign from the House amid a push to expel them from Congress. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who represents California’s 14th Congressional District, and Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents Texas’s 23rd Congressional District, both said Monday they plan to resign.” (This brings up an interesting philosophical question: Can you step down from Congress when Congress no longer exists?) Maybe resigning in shame isn’t enough. Swalwell sounds like a serial monster. No one seemed all that surprised at this story breaking. Makes you wonder why so many backed him until it did. Woman says Eric Swalwell drugged, raped and choked her.
+ Rosé Colored Glasses: “Only 10% of Americans said they were more excited than concerned about the increased use of AI in daily life. Meanwhile, 56% of AI experts said they believed AI would have a positive impact on the U.S. over the next 20 years.” Stanford report highlights growing disconnect between AI insiders and everyone else. (In short, the people poised to make billions off the technology are more psyched than the people who are poised to lose their jobs.) If you’re interested in the state of AI, the whole report is available here. The 2026 AI Index Report.
+ Saudi With a Chance of Meatballs: The Hollywood Reporter: Inside Saudi Arabia’s Billion-Dollar Bet on Hollywood. “The Saudis are pouring billions into the Ellisons’ Warner Bros. megamerger — and that’s just the latest move in a Hollywood takeover that’s really about courting Trump, buying Washington influence and giving a restless young population bread and circuses instead of human rights.”
+ Jesus Saves (And Emails): “Generally, people who are working for the government understand that their job is to work on behalf of all Americans … And this is something very different. This is very explicitly Christian, and even within the realm of Christianity, a very narrow representation of that.” Wired: Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated With Religion. Meanwhile, JD Vance defends Trump amid spat with Pope Leo: “Stick to matters of morality.” (A member of this administration wants to shift the topic to morality? Now, I’ve heard everything.)
+ Hippocrisy: “Colombia is the only country outside of Africa with a wild hippo population. The hippos are the descendants of four brought to the country in the 1980s by Escobar as he built a private zoo in Hacienda Nápoles, a gigantic ranch in the Magdalena River valley with a private landing strip that served as his rural abode.” Colombia to kill dozens of ‘cocaine hippos’ linked to Pablo Escobar. (Cocaine Hippo was my nickname in the eighties.)
“Thirteen thousand miles. Infinite contenders. One beautiful loaf.” Caity Weaver in The Atlantic (Gift Article): I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. (My glucose alarm bell kept going off, so I couldn’t make it to the end. But give me sourdough or give me death.)
2026-04-13 20:00:00
Viktor Orbán attacked and controlled the media. He diminished academia and universities. He acted as a thorn in Europe’s side and a puppet for Putin. He spread falsehoods, attempted to rig elections, limited support to Ukraine, undermined democratic institutions, basked in corruption, weakened checks and balances, described migrants as poison, erected barriers to bar asylum seekers, removed LGBTQ rights, and enriched his friends while ruining the broader economy. Is it any wonder that he was idolized and emulated by the MAGA movement? Yes, it’s a shame that a US administration sent our vice president to campaign for Orbán while our president dangled economic incentives to Hungarians if they kept his fellow autocrat in power. But it’s also a joyful relief that Hungarians said no to all of it, producing a landslide election that will reverberate throughout Europe, and possibly all the way to Mar-a-Lago. “The prime minister’s loss is a crushing defeat for Donald Trump and his vice president, J. D. Vance, who modeled their agenda in part on Orbán’s governance and staffed their movement with activists trained at his think tanks. As Trump alienated traditional U.S. partners, Washington looked to the like-minded leader in Budapest to represent its interests inside the European Union. The bond was so meaningful to Vance personally that he traveled to Budapest last week to campaign alongside Orbán as if they were running mates.” Isaac Stanley-Becker in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Hungary Just Ousted the Unoustable. (It’s worth noting that Orbán accepted the election results, conceded defeat, and appears to be leaving office without violence. Maybe his American admirers should think about emulating that behavior as well.)
+ “Orbán’s loss brings to an end the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement, as well as the belief—also present in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric—that illiberal parties are somehow destined not just to win but to hold power forever, because they have the support of the “real” people. As it turns out, history doesn’t work like that. “Real” people grow tired of their rulers. Old ideas become stale. Younger people question orthodoxy. Illiberalism leads to corruption. And if Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too.” Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Illiberalism Is Not Inevitable.
+ Meet Peter Magyar, the Man Who Ended Trump Ally Viktor Orbán’s 16-Year Rule.
+ The Orbán outcome marks another in a string of bad outcomes for JD Vance. As Ron Filipkowski notes: “He campaigns for AfD in Germany – they lose. Invited the Pope to come to U.S. for Trump’s big event – Pope refuses. Leads peace negotiations with Iran – fails miserably. Campaigns in Hungary for Orbán – who gets smoked.” (Now if only I could convince JD Vance to root for the Dodgers.)
“Speaking at the White House, the US president says Iran wants a deal ‘very badly’ and he was called this morning ‘by the appropriate people’ seeking an agreement.” Meanwhile, the US has imposed its own naval blockade on maritime traffic near the Strait. (Maybe a blockade times a blockade equals a positive.) So far, allies have rejected Trump’s call to join the blockade effort. Here’s the latest on the ceasefire and the ongoing negotiations from The Guardian, BBC, and the NYT.
+ Fareed Zakaria with an excellent overview of how Trump’s suggestion that the US can profit from Hormuz tolls flies in the face of our core values. “These are revealing remarks, not because they are outrageous. Trump has said many outrageous things, but because they distill a worldview. They suggest a shift in how the United States might see its role not as the guarantor of a system, but as the participant in a deal.”
+ While U.S. negotiators shattered peace talks with Iran, Donald Trump was at a UFC event in Miami, fawning over the body of a Brazilian mixed martial artist. (The only war Trump won was the one on parody.)
“Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself to Truth Social on Sunday depicting him as a Jesus Christ-like figure, with divine light emanating from his hands as he heals a stricken man in a hospital bed with a demon from hell floating in the background.” It proved to be a troll too far, even for Trump supporters, and he removed the post. While he deleted the post, he didn’t take back ridiculous attacks on the Pope about being “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and having only been elected because of him. “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” The Pope was undeterred: “I have no fear of the Trump administration, nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel. That’s what I believe in. I am called to do what the church is called to do.” (You think Trump’s comments are gonna bum out the Pope? The guy is a friggin White Sox fan.)
+ NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate. (What’s the debate; whether he qualifies for a chapter in the DSM or deserves to be on the cover?)
“Here are some things that have been found in donation bins: A live puppy. Live Japanese grenades. An 1854 tombstone for Rebecca Jane Nye. Old skulls. A stolen Frederic Remington sculpture. Customized Air Jordans made for Spike Lee. Three pounds of marijuana. Five pounds of marijuana. A five-hundred-pound US Navy practice bomb. A mastodon tooth. An inert mortar shell. A live mortar shell. A Rolex worth three thousand dollars. A World War I machine gun. The first stamp issued in the US. More than five thousand used blood vials. A Bible signed by the 1953 Pittsburgh Pirates. People.” Paul Collins on a problem you almost certainly didn’t know about. Donation containers that are killing people. The Believer: The Death of a Superman.
Moon Shine: Artemis II’s moon-traveling astronauts return home to cheers after a record-breaking trip. “Hansen said the four of them embodied love ‘and extracting joy out of that’ as the four joined together to stand in a row, embracing one another. ‘When you look up here, you’re not looking at us. We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper. This is you.'” (We had to go to the far side of the moon to get a reminder of the decency, diversity, and joyful endeavors of humans here on Earth.)
+ The Fall of Swalwell: “Multiple House Democrats have called for the resignation of California Representative Eric Swalwell following serious sexual assault allegations against him. Swalwell dropped out of the California gubernatorial election Sunday, but remains in the House.” (The stories came out. The end was swift. It sure didn’t seem like many insiders were surprised to learn of Swalwell’s behavior.)
+ Car-cass: “What happened? How did a basic necessity of American life become a luxury good? We have to start with a transformation of the economy itself beginning in the late 1970s … Today, there are so many wealthy people who can afford luxury cars that it simply isn’t that profitable for companies to produce cars for the bottom 40 percent of Americans by income.” NYT (Gift Article): The Death of the Basic American Car.
+ Do Not Merge: “Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Stiller, Kristen Stewart and 1,000-Plus Hollywood Names Oppose Paramount-Warner Deal in Open Letter: Block the Merger.”
+ Jacket Racket: “Even after a heart-pounding moment on 18, when McIlroy drove his tee shot deep into the woods on the right, there was still no catching him, not even from world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who trailed McIlroy by a dozen strokes entering the weekend only to finish one shot back.” Rory McIlroy collects second straight green jacket at the Masters. And from The Ringer: Rory McIlroy Does It the Hard Way (Again).
+ Making a More Human Zuck? “Meta creating AI version of Mark Zuckerberg so staff can talk to the boss.”
+ Swan Song? “A study found that traffic fatalities increased in the United States by nearly 15 percent on the same days as the biggest album releases.” Is a Big Album Dropping? You Might Want to Watch the Road.
“Ms. Peiker said she often comes across women who are alone on mountain paths because their partners are hiking ahead. So she wasn’t surprised when, during the past weeks, women on Reddit, Instagram and TikTok began sharing stories of being left behind by their partners while hiking, biking and climbing in nature, calling it ‘Alpine divorce.'” NYT (Gift Article): If He Leaves You on a Mountain, End Your Relationship.
+ Ichiro Suzuki honorary statue unveiled by Mariners, but with broken bat.
2026-04-10 20:00:00
What if the 25th Amendment came with a trophy… If that doesn’t work, maybe we should enact a similar amendment for citizens made crazy by the relentless craziness coming out of the Oval Office. I’d say it was ironic that a guy so vehemently against granting asylum has made the whole country feel like it’s one big one, but irony is long gone, having emigrated from America and cut off all internet access about two minutes into Kid Rock’s alternative halftime show. If I were on the Artemis II, which is scheduled to splash down on Friday, I think I’d suggest we do another loop. Why come back to this? In the course of about an hour on Thursday, we experienced the latest maniacal spinning about the Iran negotiations, a shock Epstein-related press conference from the First Lady, and a 482-word presidential post that attacked former allies like Tucker Carlson and MTG (he gave more details about what is wrong with them than he did about why he went to war with Iran). Maybe this is all a secret plot to get us to look at our devices less often. Sorry, I’m out of the office messages have escalated to Sorry, I’m out of my mind. Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner explain how the craziness has spread, if not all the way to you and me, definitely throughout the administration. “What the past few months and especially the past few weeks have brought into focus is how the president’s pathologies have cascaded downward and outward through his administration. They have become institutionalized. The reason the administration so often does not act coherently is because it cannot. The world faces something new and baffling and frightening in Mr. Trump’s second term: a psychotic state. This does not mean that every individual in the government is emotionally or psychologically unstable. Nor is it a clinical diagnosis of the president himself. The issue is that the administration as a whole lacks a consistent attachment to reality and the ability to organize its thinking coherently. Mr. Trump’s grandiosity, his impulsivity, inconsistency and his outright breaks with reality have become state policy.” NYT (Gift Article): The Trump Administration Is in a Psychotic State. (I’m pretty sure that headline applies to news curators as well.)
+ While it might be driving the rest of us crazy, it’s not clear Trump feels uncomfortable in the psychotic state (so long as it’s not a blue state). Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker: The Costs of Trump’s Iran-War Folly. “Defeat will not temper his mania. There is no strategic setback so big as to embarrass him … He’ll handle this like all the rest by moving on and getting over it even before the cleanup crews have finished in Tel Aviv and Tehran.”
Negotiations over the next days and weeks will determine what we have or haven’t achieved through the Iran “excursion.” But some parts of the scoreboard are already coming into focus. Fareed Zakaria talked to Ezra Klein about what Iran has gained: “What it has gained is a far more usable weapon than nuclear weapons. It has realized — and shown the world — that it can destroy the global economy, that it can block the Strait of Hormuz — and that it would have a cataclysmic follow-on effect.” And what America has lost: “That whole idea that the United States saw itself as different, saw itself not as one more in the train of great imperial powers — which, when it was their turn, decided to act rapaciously, to extract tribute, to enforce a brutal vision of dominance — all that was, in a sense, thrown away. I realize it was just one tweet, but it was the culmination of something Trump has been doing for a long time.”
+ For some, the war losses have been far more tangible. Iran’s Schools and Hospitals in Ruins, Times Analysis Shows.
+ None of the discussions of recent mistakes made by the administration should be seen as excusing a deadly Iranian regime that has been terrible for its own people, the region, and the world. Nadav Eyal in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Forgotten War That Iran Already Won. “The most important war that Iran has fought was largely undeclared and is almost entirely forgotten. It was a war against regional peace and the agreements that might have secured it.”
+ In the latest round of negotiations, the team of Witkoff and Kushner will be led by a new participant. Vice President JD Vance is leading negotiations this weekend toward an end to a war that he had opposed starting. Here’s the latest from NBC, The Guardian, and BBC.
“According to Anthropic, the bot has been able to find thousands of software bugs that had gone undetected, sometimes for decades, a sophistication and speed of attack previously thought by many to be impossible. The model has found a nearly 30-year-old vulnerability in one of the world’s most secure operating systems. The Anthropic researcher Sam Bowman posted on X that he was eating a sandwich in the park when he got an email from Mythos Preview: The bot had broken out of the company’s internal sandbox and gained access to the internet.” Claude Mythos Is Everyone’s Problem.
+ It’s not just tech journalists that are worried about the Mythos threat. “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell summoned bank CEOs to an urgent meeting this week to warn about the cybersecurity risks associated with Anthropic’s powerful Mythos AI model.”
What to Doc: Chess Mates on Netflix tracks the biggest controversy in the chess world (and, as it turns out, in the anal bead world). You might not know who to believe and you don’t have to be into chess, or beads, to be into this documentary.
+ What to Book: Matthew Pearl’s novel The Award is about writers, and award, and the crimes it inspires.
+ What to Couchella: Music festivals are always best enjoyed from the comfort of one’s couch. And, given the possible weather issues, that’s more true for this year’s Coachella. Catch your favorite bands on YouTube.
Political Pawnshops: In large part due to the Iran war, Inflation is way up and consumer sentiment is way down. Don’t want to listen to the economists? Then listen the pawn shop owners. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Pawn Shop Loans Spike as High Gas Prices Weigh on Americans.
+ First Lady Doth Protest Too Much: You can dissect Trump’s motivations for any move in two seconds. Melania stumped us on the first try. Why did she give that Epstein press conference? A lot of people seem to think it has something to do with a former friend who was recently removed from the country and has been threatening the first lady on social media. I have no idea if that’s right and this is just social media theorizing for now. But here’s the backstory, which is real, and disturbing. Trump Friend Asked ICE to Detain the Mother of His Child.
+ Fear Factor: Trump posts graphic video of deadly hammer attack, blames Democratic immigration policies. (Don’t let in outsiders because they’re too dangerous, says a guy who threatens to destroy an entire civilization…)
+ Adding Fuel Prices to the Fire: “The Irish government said it had called in the army to help clear blockades of crucial roads, after days of protests over the surging price of fuel, driven by the war in the Middle East, brought highways and streets to a standstill.” Fuel Protests Cause Transport Chaos in Ireland as Iran War Spikes Prices.
+ Token Gesture: “There was another detail from that afternoon that struck the worker: On the platform at Broad Street was a throng of maybe 20 teenagers avidly filming the orphaned train.” NYT (Gift Article): Who Is Keeping These Trains Moving? Teenagers, Illegally.
+ Chimps and Chumps: NYT (Gift Article): These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. “Two factions split about a decade ago and have been engaged in a highly lethal conflict ever since. Scientists have never seen such widespread, long-running bloodshed among chimpanzees. Further studies may shed light on the roots of warfare in our own species.” But here’s the kicker. “The Trump administration’s proposed budget, released on Friday, has cast doubt on whether the research will continue.” (I’m sure Trump can bring peace among Ugandan chimps in one day.)
“‘It wasn’t real until we got here,’ said Steve Gildner, a friend in the insurance business. ‘When he was stretching this morning, he was between [Dustin Johnson] and Rory [McIlroy]. It’s crazy.” Meet the realtor who earned a tee time at Augusta National.
+ Britain breaks solar energy record twice as UK’s biggest solar farm gets approval. In some places, energy advances are still moving ahead. BYD and KFC will pair fast EV charging with drive-thru dining in China. “Central to the agreement is a concept the two companies are calling ‘9-minute one-stop human and vehicle refueling,’ a nod to BYD’s second-generation Blade battery — introduced in March — which BYD says can bring a vehicle from 10% battery to 97% in nine minutes.”
+ Chicago Turns All Public School IDs Into Library Cards To Boost Student Access.
+ “A woman who had three different autoimmune conditions has not required treatments for almost a year after her immune cells were genetically modified and used to kill off the rogue cells attacking her body.”
+ “New groundbreaking research by Stanford researchers has shown to do something that was previously believed not possible: reverse age-related cartilage loss in joints.”
+ Cambodia unveils statue to honor famous landmine-sniffing rat.
+ Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog’s chip reunites with him after 11 years.
+ Three-week-old mountain lion cub rescued by California biologists. (Oh, I’m definitely getting one of these!)
+ Reminder to longtime readers who have followed along with Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson and their excellent Busload of Books program. The couples’ latest book is about to launch, and it’s getting remarkably good reviews! Like out of this world. Get your copy of Life on the Moon now.