2026-10-16 20:00:00
Well, this gives new meaning to White House Briefing… Things were continuing to go well for Katie Zacharia during her first week as White House Press Secretary. Just look at this headline: China tells Trump’s press secretary to visit ‘more often’ after toilet comments. If this had gone on any longer, she might have had to call an attorney. (A real one.) Thankfully, for her, for us, and for the world, not long after getting caught with her legal briefs down, this painful chapter has ended. It was over in less than half a Scaramucci (or roughly the amount of time it takes to explain the difference between a lawyer and an attorney at law). Talk about going from failing the Bar to lowering it. The news of the end of the Zacharia era came just after Trump explained to reporters that he told her, “Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.” (He used the word honestly. Talk about adding insult to injury.) Zacharia can now take her conspiracy spreading and lies back to the private sector. And, of course, one imagines there will be a Dancing with the Stars appearance, followed by a memoir about her hours in the administration. The Trump era has eroded a lot of our most cherished institutions and values, but at least we still demand a certain level of merit when it comes to our official phonies, liars, sophists, fraudsters, and imaginary attorneys.
The British philosopher Paul McCartney once explained, “I don’t care too much for money. Money can’t buy me love.” Of course, at the time of his epiphany, no one had AI money. We are learning that AI alone can’t buy you love. At least that’s one of the revelations offered by the booming business of real-life matchmakers serving the newly rich and still lonely. “After 23 years as a matchmaker in Silicon Valley, Amy Andersen is accustomed to clients with money to spend and little time to spare. But lately, the founder of Linx Dating in Menlo Park, California, has noticed a new cohort coming through her doors: employees of companies such as Perplexity, Anthropic and Nvidia. Andersen says demand for her services has exploded over the past few years, driven in large part by the wealth created by the artificial intelligence boom, which is benefitting not just tech workers but people in adjacent industries, from law to real estate. Part headhunter and part dating coach, she scouts for possible matches both in the wild — at events, online and across social media — and within her proprietary database of some 25,000 eligible singles. Clients can get everything from image consulting and professional photo shoots to coaching before and after dates. Her current clients, men and women ranging from age 20 to 75, are willing to spend heavily to solve a problem that dating apps haven’t.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): The AI Boom Is Creating a New Market for $500,000 Matchmakers. Technology evolves, but some things never change. This story is basically a scene from Fiddler on the Roof, adjusted for inflation.
“You wake up to a notification that a grocery-store employee will deliver all of the ingredients for the three recipes you saved last night to your ‘Weeknight Dinner’ folder. While you brew your coffee, a program browses online retailers to compare toilet-paper prices, and another solicits competitive bids for Sheetrock work you need done in the garage. During your commute, a bot moves your upcoming dentist appointment to avoid a scheduling conflict. On your lunch break, you get an alert that computers acting on your behalf noticed some unclaimed funds and class-action payouts in a state database and claimed them. Also, the machine has negotiated a cheaper internet plan. By the time you get home, the groceries are on your doorstep, and you’ve gotten back $150. This is the future that OpenAI, Meta, xAI, Google, and the rest are selling with a spate of always-on AI assistants that work for you.” Do you want that future? And what might it mean for the way the economy works? Matteo Wong and Charlie Warzel: Imagine Every AI Agent on Earth Buying the Same Cheap Paper Towels. (I can’t imagine this, because paper towels are one product I would never skimp on…)
+ Meanwhile: Rogue AI agent reportedly deletes full season of Swedish TV show.
What to Doc: Judd Apatow is building a great catalogue of documentaries about some of our most talented and most interesting comedians. His latest just dropped on Netflix. Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald.
+ What to Binge: Season 4 of The Diplomat on Netflix is out and getting great reviews. Feel free to binge.
+ What to Cheer: Even if you’re not into basketball or the WNBA, you’ve got to tune in to watch a Valkaries home game against the Dream. The Chase Center crowds are truly insane. You’ll be into the WNBA by the end of the game.
These Are Not the Hombres You’re Looking For: The Atlantic (Gift Article): He Joined the Military. They Reported His Wife to ICE. She’s been here since she was six. The couple has four kids. Is this getting rid of criminals and the worst of the worst? Plus … “‘We’re almost dead in the water because our workforce is gone,’ said Scott Brannock, president of Jacksonville-based Tidewater Homes and the Northeast Florida Builders Association. ‘We have national builders who are missing projections, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because they have slabs sitting on the ground and no one to frame.'” WSJ (Gift Article): The Immigration Crackdown Is Making It Much Harder to Build Houses. (Feel safer?) And… “As Hannah Arendt wrote … ‘One is almost tempted to measure the degree of totalitarian infection by the extent to which the concerned governments use their sovereign right of denationalization.'” Michelle Goldberg in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s Attempt to Deport Ilhan Omar Is Another Leap Toward the Abyss. As the administration is threatened by the prospect of losing Congressional majorities, these strategies will only grow more urgent, and their record more abyss-mal.
+ The Gall is Coming From Inside the House: “The order to limit a satellite system used by Ukraine for battlefield communications and drone operations came from inside the White House.” Sickening.
+ Bend Shooting: “A teenager shot his way through locked doors at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Ore., on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher, police say … The suspect, identified as a 16-year-old Bend resident, was shot and killed inside the school by a member of the community who saw him enter the building and pursued him.” Teen kills 3 children, 1 teacher at Bend elementary school before being fatally shot by bystander. Here’s the latest from CNN.
+ Billionaire Citizens United: “If you’re a Democrat, new election filings show many of the party’s Senate and House nominees raising more than their Republican rivals. This campaign cash is the most important money in politics, because candidates can control it directly and buy ads at cheaper rates. If you’re a Republican, the same filings show that the G.O.P. has a significant advantage in money from super PACs and other outside groups tied to Elon Musk, President Trump and the party’s big donors. In many races, this edge has allowed the party to club Democrats with advertising even though Republican groups have to pay more for ads. In fact, both of these perceptions are true.” Avalanche of G.O.P. Cash Keeps the Party Competitive Despite Its Problems.
+ Check Your Chiklist: “When The New York Times ranked the best TV shows of the 21st century, buried way down the list was an underrated FX series that, in many ways, provided the blueprint for Breaking Bad.” GQ: Put Some Respect on The Shield. Michael Chiklis won the first acting Emmy for a basic-cable show as the lead in The Shield. That alone changed TV.
+ Wag the Dog: “It has even become common political fodder in Argentina that Mr. Milei seeks out his dogs for advice. A top foreign diplomat and a longtime friend of Mr. Milei’s, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said they have heard Mr. Milei say so.” The President’s Dog Psychic. “In Argentina, many people try to read the mind of the president. Celia Melamed read the mind of his dogs.” (Their main thought: “It could be worse, we could live with Kristi Noem.”)
“In a study published Wednesday in Science Advances, Stanford researchers describe a new method of resurrecting bleached corals. The dying coral, after physically touching healthy coral in the lab, completely recovered within seven weeks.” Stanford discovers way to save ghostly corals from the brink.
+ “The fields brimming with green near the Pacific Coast have produced nearly twice the amount of organic strawberries this year as other plots thanks to steam, he said. The bountiful plots were treated with steam before Koda planted his organic strawberries as part of a project aimed at finding an alternative to chemical fumigants used to kill soil-borne diseases and weeds.” Could steam help California strawberry farmers grow more with fewer chemicals?
+ “Do you have a cool job and a big heart? … Let me shadow you. I’m 16 pls.” The flyer is from high-school junior Avi Lichtenstein, who is so worried about his future that he’s asking strangers if he can follow them to work.” How New Yorkers Rallied to Answer One Teen’s Cry for Career Help.
+ Customer berates teen over 20-cent error. Strangers rally with $5K in tips. (At the ice cream store across from my high school, one of the employees was so high that he often forgot to charge us. No one ever berated him. Hopefully, that can serve as a lesson for young people.)
+ Luna, a small dog missing for over a month in Yellowstone, is reunited with her owners.
+ Black bear steals honey from California library on ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ anniversary.
+ And, yes, I buried the lede. Brewers sweep Dodgers in NLCS, advance to 1st World Series in 44 years.
2026-10-15 20:00:00
On my first day as a substitute teacher at Prospect Heights High School in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in the early 90s, I was filling in for a Physics teacher who had been stabbed in the hand with a pencil for trying to confiscate a student’s Walkman. As a Humanities major, I was probably less concerned about the threat of violence than the class subject matter. This was during a particularly violent and crime-ridden era in NYC. There was a crack epidemic, 2000 plus murders a year, and the Crown Heights riots were about to erupt in the blocks surrounding our campus. And Prospect Heights was considered a bottom-five school — we had metal detectors at the front doors and security guards roaming the halls. One thing we didn’t have, even during a notorious era at a notorious school in a neighborhood that, back then, most New Yorkers would have tried to avoid, were arrests. So I’ve got to wonder: What the hell is going on in Texas? (In the spirit of transparency, I should mention that this is not the first time that question has entered my mind). Somehow, offenses that used to get kids sent to the principal’s office are instead getting them sucked into a school-to-jail pipeline. “Children ages 10 to 13 were referred for prosecution after incidents in schools more than 47,000 times since 2014, an analysis by The New York Times and The San Antonio Express-News found. About 4,800 students in that age group were referred during the 2024-25 academic year alone.” Nearly five thousand students getting hauled toward juvie? How is that not totally crazy? NYC (Gift Article): For Texas Schoolchildren, Minor Misbehavior Can Mean Criminal Charges. “William Shaw, a juvenile judge in San Antonio, said that many of the cases that came before him could have been handled by a school principal. ‘Kids are sometimes not going to get along … They may end up pushing each other, maybe even fighting. That can be considered adolescent behavior. It isn’t necessary to arrest.” I taught at that high school in Brooklyn for two years, and I don’t remember a single student being taken away in handcuffs. (Full disclosure: I never tried to take away anyone’s Walkman, and after that first day, I refused to ever teach Physics again. In Texas, that could probably get me arrested.)
Thomas Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s Democracy-for-Diesel Deal Shames Us All. “Donald Trump, meet Neville Chamberlain. When future students search online for ‘sellout,’ ‘appeaser’ or ‘traitor to his country’s core values,’ their two pictures will come up first, side by side. And deservedly so. At least Chamberlain was trying, in what proved to be lethally misguided fashion, to avoid a world war. Trump is trying to avoid losing a few seats in Congress — and is likely to be no more successful in achieving his goal than Chamberlain was in achieving his. I have never believed that Trump was somehow an agent of Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, or in his pay. It is much worse. He simply does not cherish democracy. He cherishes money.” (One of many things that disturbs me about this is how little the American electorate cares about this disastrous betrayal of our values and allies. The deal won’t reduce fuel prices, but if it did, it would probably boost Trump’s approval rating. Sadly, we probably have to amend Friedman’s headline to: Trump’s Democracy-for-Diesel Deal Should Shame Us All.)
+ The diesel deal is terrible. The cutting off of high-speed Starlink access is even worse. David French: “It’s horrible to have to type these words, but the president of the United States is throwing Vladimir Putin a lifeline. He is turning the American government against Ukraine, funding Russia and — perhaps worst of all — playing directly into Putin’s theory of victory.” Russia Was Losing. Enter President Trump.
+ But wait, there’s more. In addition to the diesel deal and the Starlink limitations, Ukraine ‘has run out of Patriot interceptor missiles.’
+ “Ukraine struck a Russian oil refinery on Thursday, after President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was ‘done’ supporting a ceasefire on energy targets announced by US President Donald Trump.” (Russia also ignored the announcement of an imaginary energy target ceasefire, but only Ukraine will incur Trump’s wrath.)
“Three men stride across a cavernous textile factory floor of Texworth in the southern Indian city of Karur, handing GoPros and smart glasses to workers, including 40-year-old Shoba Kirubakaran. She’s packing yellow aprons decorated with chickens into plastic wrapping for the brand Designs By Danica. It’s the third time Kirubakaran says she’s been told to don a GoPro. It’s recording her every hand gesture, to train AI robots to take over this job.” These workers help train robots who could one day steal their jobs. (I’m pretty sure I’m doing the same every time I send an edition of this newsletter…)
+ An edtech worker’s account of what got left behind: How AI replaced me. “In the tech industry, it’s not good enough to just use AI. You have to believe in it, too.” This trend reminds me of an old Woody Allen line: “My father worked for the same firm for 12 years. They fired him and replaced him with a tiny gadget that does everything my father does, only much better. The depressing thing is my mother ran out and bought one.”
After pretending that live-streaming the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan was his idea, Trump has now announced that it won’t be happening. Of course, the Hegseth announcement that it would happen, Trump’s confirmation that he had made that decision, and the subsequent global coverage, has already done a lot of damage. Trump, after bipartisan backlash, says Pentagon won’t livestream execution of Fort Hood shooter. (Maybe it was the backlash. Or maybe Trump was just worried that Hegseth would miss.)
Cheap Power: “Over decades, Saudi Arabia has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in building an advanced military, putting the kingdom among the top 10 nations in terms of arms spending … but the missiles and drones used by the Yemeni militia are difficult to detect and stop.” Why Does Saudi Arabia Struggle to Stop Houthi Attacks? (The future of war doesn’t resemble its past. And that has provided an advantage to smaller adversaries. We’re seeing the trend play out across the world, and (with all due respect to testosterone) it could be one of America’s most pressing military challenges.)
+ Narcos: “The Pentagon is expanding its fight against drug traffickers, even as the plans recall a long and bloody history of U.S. intervention in the region.” U.S. Is Sending Hundreds of Troops to Latin America.
+ Separated at Birth: “More than half of the counties in the United States no longer have a hospital with inpatient labor and delivery services. One in three counties is designated a ‘maternity care desert,’ with no obstetric clinicians or birthing facilities at all.” TNR: The Increasingly Long Drive to Give Birth in Rural America.
+ Filling Up a Dance Card: “A list obtained by The Washington Post reveals all the major donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, including previously undisclosed contributors who have benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts and, in one case, a pardon for a family member.” Secret documents reveal donors behind $330 million for Trump’s ballroom. (So much for American exceptionalism. Once the rules changed, it took about five minutes for everyone to get on board.)
+ Lowering the Bar: Katie Zacharia did not pass the bar exam, senior administration official says. (So now, they’ve invented some new theory about the difference between being a lawyer and being an attorney. Don’t be fooled. This is all about being a liar.)
“You recognize the names of well-known people developing AI, like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. But do you know who Mira Murati is? What about Susan Milner? Craig Dalton? In a new survey of more than 5,400 Americans, 73 percent of male respondents told Harvard researchers they knew who Altman was. A little over half—53 percent—said they knew of Murati, Milner, and Dalton. There’s one problem. Murati is a real person … Milner and Dalton, on the other hand, do not exist.” Men Can’t Stop Faking How Much They Know About AI. (Wouldn’t it just be easier to ask AI for the answer? Isn’t that the whole point?)
+ “A neighbourhood in Vienna has introduced guidelines for dog walking, including the use of bottled tap water to rinse away urine and protect vulnerable trees.”
2026-10-14 20:00:00
Have your people call my people. As a person who suffers less from FOMO (fear of missing out) and more from FOBIA (fear of being invited again), I think I may have found the first use case for agentic AI that actually applies to me. What if instead of suggesting that your people call my people, or going through some uncomfortable negative RSVP exchange (or worse, an affirmative one), I could just have my AI agent get together with yours? We’ve heard a lot of concerning stories about agents getting together to initiate hacking attacks, but what if they just got together to hang out? NYT (Gift Article): What a Group of A.I. Agents Talked About as Their Humans Had a Dinner Party. “Four years into the A.I. boom, many people have interacted with an A.I. chatbot like Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini. But as A.I. agents start to spread, the world is increasingly seeing glimpses of how these digital entities interact and what they talk about with one another … A.I. agents primarily interact with humans one on one. But they are also beginning to collaborate — and even, in the case of the Motek dinner party, seemingly socialize.” (If my agent ever seems happy to be there, you’ll know it’s gone completely rogue.)
“Lung tissue examined after the surgery confirmed a previous test that revealed a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma.” Pope Leo has lung cancer. From The Conversation: Pope Leo XIV’s lung cancer highlights growing number of nonsmokers diagnosed with the disease. “When many people think of an average lung cancer patient, they often imagine an older man smoking. But the face of lung cancer has changed. Over the past 15 years, more women, never smokers and younger people are being diagnosed with lung cancer.”
+ The problem is more prevalent. So are the potential solutions. NYT (Gift Article): A New World of Lung Cancer Therapy Awaits Pope Leo. “In a way, Pope Leo XIV may be lucky he got lung cancer now and not, say, six years ago. Treatments have changed so much, specialists say, that the old days are almost unrecognizable.”
“President Trump has celebrated the airstrikes, noting his administration has ‘made tremendous strides in stopping the flow of illegal drugs into our country.’ In the past 13 months, American military drones and aircraft have destroyed more than 70 vessels, killing nearly 240 crew members and depriving criminal groups of $1.5 billion in cocaine, according to U.S. officials. ‘The drugs coming in by sea are down by 97%,’ Trump said in June. ‘We’re trying to figure out who the 3% are, because they are the bravest people on earth.'” This is going to come as a shock, but that assertion is not entirely true. WSJ (Gift Article): Why U.S. Airstrikes Are Failing to Stop the Global Cocaine Boom. “Smugglers are shifting routes and using new tactics to evade military targeting, resulting in record supplies, plunging prices and high purity in the U.S. and Europe.” (To paraphrase Eric Clapton on Cocaine: She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie … but he does.)
“A pattern of disruption from droughts, heat domes, marine heat waves, sea ice anomalies, ocean acidification, atmospheric rivers and toxic algae blooms has upended the rhythms of most commercial seafood species in the Pacific Northwest. That’s changing how people eat, with many weeknight food items becoming just occasional splurges, if not entirely unaffordable.” NYT (Gift Article): How Climate Change Is Causing ‘the Gentrification of Seafood‘.
+ It’s not just the fish. Rising Costs Push Necessities Out of Reach for Nearly Half of Americans.
+ Surging gas prices pushed CPI inflation to 3.7% in September.
The Satellite Brigade: The Trump betrayal of Ukraine and Europe may have just gone way beyond blowing up his own sanctions to do deals with Putin. NYT (Gift Article): Ukraine’s Vulnerability Grows as Starlink Is Restricted and Russia Escalates. At the center of this story: Trump and Musk (who commented on social media that Zelensky had “gone too far.”) “For years, Ukraine’s armed forces have relied on satellite communication services developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Recent restrictions have hampered its war effort.” What Is Starshield, SpaceX’s Military-Grade Satellite Internet Service? I’ve seen a few social media reports indicating that some high-speed Starlink connectivity may have been restored after the uproar. But this crisis is a reminder that we’ve got too much power in the hands of too few people. The wrong people.
+ Can We Catch This Virus? “In May, the first cases of Ebola were reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In just five months, it has already escalated into the second-worst outbreak ever recorded.” Heather Kerr in the NYT (Gift Article): I’ve Worked in Congo for Decades. I’ve Never Seen an Ebola Crisis Like This. “I have never seen one get this far ahead of us … It arrived at a particularly dangerous moment: Congo’s health systems are weakened by steep cuts in foreign aid and regional conflict that has displaced nearly seven million people countrywide.”
+ Podium Odium: “Zacharia was all stilted delivery, nervous tics and lack of eye contact. With an eerie lack of emotion, she served up pro-Trump talking points, took only three questions and vanished after 14 minutes. It was like the West Wing had turned into uncanny valley. The Zachbot’s past is indeed a bit of a mystery. The 41-year-old claims to be a lawyer but later a reporter asked when she passed the bar exam and she gave the unconvincing answer: ‘When I moved to China.'” Trump’s new press secretary malfunctions on podium debut. (This was so impossible to parody that Katie Zacharia will have to play herself on SNL.)
+ Execution is Not Entertainment: “Hegseth said last week that the death sentence of Nidal Hasan, a former U.S. Army major who killed thirteen people at Fort Hood, in Texas, in 2009, would be carried out by firing squad—on live stream, for all the world to see. What I saw was different, but not by much.” Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker: What a Public Execution Looks Like.
+ Birtherism 2.0: “The Justice Department on Friday issued about a dozen subpoenas as part of an investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar, including to members of her family, a person familiar with the investigation said. The investigation is examining matters surrounding Omar’s immigration status, and that includes, but is not limited to, her birthdate.”
+ These Are Not the Droids You’re Looking For: “German authorities opened an investigation into possible sexual harassment after a robot controlled by two young men touched the buttocks of a 16-year-old girl and made thrusting movements toward her … Police were unfamiliar with this type of incident.”
+ The Lyin and the Tiger: A headline that is wildly absurd but barely even registers in this era. Family of Man Mauled by Tiger Begs Trump to Stop Mocking Him. And here’s a headline that is even more ridiculous. Rubio Stresses Ethics Rules in Memo After Guilfoyle Firing.
“Bafflement is the baseline condition of raising kids right now. The adolescent quest for self-discovery is timeless—but today’s parents experimented in ways that were analog: new hairstyles, inscrutable music, beer snuck in the woods. Their own parents might not have liked it, but they could at least relate. Now the landscape of adolescent discovery is literally foreign, thanks to social media, which has turbocharged once-obscure subcultures like the furry fandom—and, at its rarer edge, therianthropy—and redefined what ‘fringe’ even means.” Boston Magazine: The Kids Who Identify as Animals. (No, I’m not howling with laughter, I’m just identifying as one of my beagles.)
+ Related: Wildlife photographer of the year winners.
2026-10-13 20:00:00
The future starts with a foam party. That’s one of the realities of living in a new world where our quest to seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no man has gone before, is being determined not by governments, elected officials, philosophers, or even highly logical Vulcans, but instead by billionaires (one might be a trillionaire), who range from unlikeable to unhinged. As it seems with markets, politics, and just about everything else these days, the rest of us Earthlings are left to choose which billionaire to back, and hope our billionaire is better than their billionaire. When it comes to the space race, only two are really in contention: Musk vs. Bezos. Our story begins with one of them living the high life on the high seas, yes, covered in foam. “The Adriatic has been crossed by Odysseus and Caesar, by Venetian fleets and Napoleon’s navy, by countless men bent on dominating the world. It has seen its share of courage and folly. But one day in June 2025, off the island of Cres, it witnessed something genuinely new: a man worth $240 billion standing waist-deep in bubbles on the deck of a $500 million yacht, wearing a white bucket hat.” Josh Tyrangiel in The Atlantic: Choose Your Overlord. “Together, in fierce competition, these two billionaires are in the early stages of a race to vertically integrate the galaxy—a process that involves rockets, moon landings, enormous satellite constellations, and space-based data centers running AI models fueled by computing power that no terrestrial supplier can match. Both say they hope to preserve human life from the specter of climate change and expand mankind’s understanding of the universe. Both would also like to dominate a market that, unlike every other market they’ve previously conquered, has no ceiling and few established rules.” (Maybe they’ll be more prepared since Earth seems to have fewer and fewer established rules these days…)
+ “Scientists believe there are planets outside our solar system where life is even more abundant and sustainable.” NYT (Gift Article): Worlds More Habitable Than Earth? They’re Out There.
“In August, President Trump directed the Navy to figure out how to return to using steam catapults on aircraft carriers to hurl fighter jets into the air. For U.S. military officials, the order marked the return of an old foe: Bill Jones. Who? Exactly. Trump has described the man as a “catapulter” who served in the Navy for 25 years and loves the smell of steam. Jones convinced Trump the old technology was superior to modern methods of launching jets, the president said. The incident sent Navy leaders searching for Jones to figure out what he said that prompted the president to demand an overhaul of one of the most expensive weapons programs in history. They never found him, according to defense officials. But they’re still dealing with the consequences of the mystery sailor and his chance encounter with the president.” We think you know how weird it is, but we really don’t. The story of Trump’s order to abandon an electromagnetic system to launch planes from carriers using steam catapults serves as an apt metaphor for our current state of fly-by-night decision-making. As with so many decisions, the order came from the top. Then everyone else had to try to piece together the reasons behind the order. You could blame Bill Jones. If you could find him. WSJ (Gift Article): The Mystery of the Unknown Sailor Who Inspired Trump to Shake Up the Navy. (Alt link.)
“We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign.” That was the announcement made by new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia on her first day on the job. Kimberly Guilfoyle, U.S. ambassador to Greece, resigns amid misconduct allegations. (How out of favor with this administration do you need to be to get forced out for misconduct, including embarrassing international behavior and an effort to skim a few bucks while on the job? It’s like getting fired from a baseball team for wearing a hat.)
+ And with that, we welcome our newest member of the administration, a devoted “fan,” who is a conspiracy theorist, rabidly anti-choice, and a lawyer. Well, maybe a lawyer. NPR: New White House press secretary a ‘devoted fan’ of Trump and MAGA.
+ “Popular Information searched for evidence in all 50 states, plus D.C., that Zacharia was admitted to practice law anywhere — and found none.” For evidence, the White House Press Office referred them to Trump’s Truth Social post. Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, claims she’s a lawyer. Is she?
“President Trump proffered sanctions relief for Russian diesel fuel. He publicly called for Ukraine to get a new leader. And he pressured Kyiv to stop a strike campaign against Russian oil facilities that has damaged the Russian economy. Mr. Putin, in return, offered more war.”
+ As I explained yesterday, this is The Art of the Kneel.
+ NYT (Gift Article): U.K. and Europe Recoil From Trump’s Diesel Deal With Putin. Enemies rejoice. Allies recoil. Welcome to the new world disorder.
+ A funny thing happened after Ukraine knocked out Yandex’s biggest data centers. Much of the bot traffic that amplifies hate and falsities dramatically dropped.
+ Meanwhile: North Korea’s Kim showcases missile capable of reaching US as Trump signals possible meeting.
Wham Bam Thank You Cam: “As U.S. and Israeli forces bombed Iran early this year, a poultry farmer in northern Israel decided to check on his chickens. When he launched the app on his phone for the webcam outside his coop, he was alarmed to see that its language had been switched to Arabic. He contacted Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, which found that hackers had taken control of the Chinese-made camera. They weren’t interested in chickens.” WSJ (Gift Article): Video Cameras Are Everywhere—and Now They Are Being Hacked for War.
+ Tehran’s Cannon Fodder: “For three generations, the cause of destroying Israel has attracted the support of dictators, militias, and movements far more readily than the cause of building Palestine. Being anti-Israel is not the same as being pro-Palestine. Too often, it has been the opposite.” Fighting Israel to the Last Palestinian. “Tehran’s campaign to destroy Israel has immiserated the people it purported to help and strengthened the Israeli right.”
+ Waiting to Exhale: “It’s a notable shift in a country where marijuana policy has generally moved toward greater legalization. Massachusetts could become a test of whether voters are willing to revisit an established cannabis market.” Marijuana Is On The Ballot In 2026. The Debate Has Changed.
+ Reverse Robinhood: “To hear the Trump administration tell it, the SNAP program is under siege by well-heeled recipients of food stamps. Vice President JD Vance, upon being named ‘Fraud Czar’ this spring, said: ‘There are people who have Lamborghinis who currently receive SNAP benefits.'” Well, there is a lot of theft in the SNAP program. Just not the kind JD is talking about. ProPublica: Scammers Are Stealing Millions From Food Stamp Recipients.
+ Rolling Nightmare: Georgia police identify man who died after falling off Six Flags ride. “The incident comes weeks after Six Flags Magic Mountain in California closed its X2 roller coaster over lawsuits alleging riders suffered brain injuries.”
+ RJ Mitte: Bryan Cranston Mourns ‘Breaking Bad’ Son RJ Mitte: ‘I’ll Miss You, Son.’
+ And We’re On the Error: An Ad Targeting Susan Collins’s Opponent Airs in the Wrong Portland.
Butt, seriously folks… “Forget sleepmaxxing and cold plunging: smoking is the new lifestyle flex among AI researchers.” Palantir CTO says some AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer. (These are the people we just decided to let self-regulate the future of humanity.)
2026-10-12 20:00:00
George W. Bush once reflected on a meeting with Putin by saying, “I looked the man in the eye … I was able to get a sense of his soul.” Bush should have looked a little deeper. If he had gotten to Putin’s colon, he would have seen a puckered-up Donald Trump holding a sack of cash. Back in 2018, in Helsinki, in what should have been the end of any notion of him as president, Trump sided with Putin over US intelligence agencies on the issue of election interference. John McCain responded to Trump’s hellish Helsinki performance by explaining, “Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate.” At the time, Trump’s siding with Putin over America was shocking. Today, his Helsinki performance barely makes the greatest hits list of Trump’s international betrayals. His latest affront is lifting sanctions against Russia to buy diesel in a clear siding with Putin in his murderous invasion of Ukraine.
+ Six senators call for Trump administration to ‘immediately reverse course‘ on Russian diesel plan. (That’s only 94 senators short of where we should be…)
+ Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “In the past 72 hours, Donald Trump has dropped all pretense, torched a couple decades of American policy, and undermined 18 months of his own diplomacy. He lifted sanctions on the import of Russian diesel fuel, in violation of the letter and spirit of laws that he himself signed. He has threatened to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine, unless Ukraine agrees not to target Russian refineries, thus demanding that Kyiv give up its most effective weapon while asking nothing from Russia in exchange … He has lied repeatedly. He declared that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an ‘energy cease-fire,’ an announcement that surprised the Ukrainians and that in any case the Russians immediately broke, hitting a power plant in Kharkiv only hours later … He has described Ukraine’s democratically elected president as an obstacle to negotiations and told him to leave office. But on Friday, before making these new decisions, he held yet another long, friendly telephone conversation with the Russian dictator, who really could end the war today. All Vladimir Putin has to do is tell his soldiers to stop fighting, and then the war is over. The Ukrainians cannot stop fighting because, if they do, their country will be conquered and they will suffer the fate of their occupied territories: leaders murdered, children kidnapped, repression and concentration camps for everyone else. If Trump knows this, then he does not care.” Trump’s Message to Ukraine Is Now Crystal Clear. Aside from being a Putin puppet for years, why is Trump doing this? The deal doesn’t involve enough diesel to make a real difference in global prices. Go with the Occam’s razor explanation (at least until it’s rebranded as Trump’s razor). “This looks, instead, like something very different: an abrupt, Hail Mary attempt to force Ukraine to surrender and to save the Russian economy, perhaps in order to finally complete the multiple business deals that the Russians are known to have discussed with American negotiators and others in Trump’s orbit.”
+ “Since Trump’s return to power in 2025, the Putin regime has dangled lucrative deals in front of the president’s entourage.” David Frum: Trump Is an Easy Mark for Putin. “Putin is attempting to leverage Russia’s most strategic asset in his war on Ukraine: Trump’s weakness for corruption. The 2.25 million barrels of diesel Putin offered Trump will have zero net impact on world energy markets or the world price of diesel. But accepting those barrels will collapse the U.S.-led sanctions regime on Russia—and align Trump with Putin against the Ukrainian air attacks on Russian energy production.” (Trump is an easy mark for Putin, and for years, tens of millions of American voters have been an easy mark for Trump.)
NYT (Gift Article): Homeland Security Agents Search Home of Rep. Ilhan Omar. “Federal agents executed a search warrant at the home of Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota on Monday, according to three people briefed on the matter, the kind of investigative step the Justice Department has long shied away from so close to an election.” (This is not your father’s Justice Department, and they’re not shy about anything.)
“Fish farming, known as aquaculture, was supposed to help solve this problem by relieving some of the pressure on the planet’s oceans. It is now a vast and innovative industry … But aquaculture has a dark secret: Most of this farm-grown seafood is raised on other seafood taken from the oceans. Think about it: Farm-raised fish have to eat something. The most efficient way to feed them is to sweep up vast numbers of other smaller fish, which are turned into a nutrient-rich powder called fishmeal — or its liquid equivalent, fish oil. As a result, instead of relieving the pressure of overfishing, aquaculture is making the problem worse.” NYT Magazine (Gift Article): The Dirty Secret Behind the Farmed Fish You Eat.
“The most common use case I encountered for deploying AI in this way was to correspond calmly with an ex-spouse, whom one may now resent with the fire of a thousand billable lawyer hours but whom one must treat cordially, lest one gets threatened with changes to the custody agreement. (As one Florida woman who uses AI for this purpose told me, sending an ‘F you’ text to your ex might feel amazing, but you have to think about the ‘legal ramifications.’)” Olga Khazan in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The People Who Outsource Emotional Labor to AI. (Couldn’t you just text ‘F you’ to people, and then blame Claude for writing the message?)
Popping a Donor: “Elon Musk has quietly funneled more than $276 million into Republican groups and his super PAC since the start of July, building a huge turnout operation to help the party battle headwinds in the midterm elections.” (Nothing like trying to win an election about affordability by deploying a bottomless pit of funds from a trillionaire.)
+ Riyadh Attacks: “A projectile struck a passenger terminal at the international airport in Riyadh on Sunday, a day after a missile hit the same terminal and killed 12 people, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said. The Houthis claimed responsibility for those attacks and others.”
+ Platonic High Colonic: “The censorship bot—officially known as the Course Content Review Process—ordered a Tech philosophy professor to remove Plato’s Republic from a syllabus because ‘it references Plato’s beliefs concerning gender roles and homosexuality.'” All the Things You’re Not Allowed to Say in Texas.
+ Shock and Ahhh: “American economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford won the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics Monday for their work on models that have helped governments and central banks manage economic shocks, such as energy crises and inflation.”
+ Defrost Bite: “An ongoing cyberattack has reportedly struck major supermarket chains across Europe, disrupting refrigeration control systems. The attack — which has reportedly seen units set to continuously defrost at 50 degrees Celsius — is also apparently affecting deliveries and in-store pricing powered by electronic shelf labels”
+ Let’s (Tray) Table The Discussion: The good news: You finally have access to decent WiFi on airplanes. The bad news: So does the person in the seat next to you. The latest nuisance on flights is a Zoom call at 30,000 feet.
“In late September, about 15 of them convened for the first time at the International Heat Therapy Research Symposium to hash out how to rigorously study heat therapy — a bucket that includes Finnish sauna, infrared, hot water immersion and more — and to form an organizing scientific body that will help steer the field forward.” Sweating the details: Sauna’s potential health benefits draw scientists’ interest.
+ “Like the Simpsons, many hardware-store owners have long adopted a kitty or two at their shops to help keep mice out of the bird feed and grass seed. But increasingly, they are discovering that the cats are more than just mousers.” Hardware Stores Have a Secret Weapon for Wooing Customers. “Many social-media-savvy stores feature their cats in online marketing to create buzz and build their customer base.” (Nothing in life is constant, except the role of cats in going viral on social media.)
2026-10-09 20:00:00
Curly may have been ahead of his time. I’m not referring to the noise effects he made as the youngest member of the Three Stooges (even though nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!, woo-woo-woo!, and Ruff! Ruff! were the memes of his era). I mean what could be his most famous proclamation: I’m tryin’ to think but nothing happens. It turns out that strategy could be our best defense as new technologies come for our minds and threaten to criminalize people’s innermost thoughts. Could this stuff of SciFi lore really be coming to a brain near you? As Curly might have said, “Soitenly!” NYT (Gift Article): U.N. Warns Against Technology Used to Read Citizens’ Minds. “The scenarios sound like science fiction: Police officers accessing data contained in suspects’ brains to forcefully extract information, or to predict if offenders might plan to commit future crimes. But the secretary general of the United Nations warned on Thursday for the first time that neurotechnologies are advancing so rapidly that governments’ ability to access and manipulate people’s brains could one day pose a threat to fundamental human rights.” As with many technologies, we’re racing forward before we consider the ramifications. Curly predicted this, too. “I shoot an arrow in the air, where it lands I do not care … I get my arrows wholesale.”
Since day one, Trump’s second term has been focused on revenge against his perceived enemies. But, so far, it has been easier to bend the Justice Department than to break it. Having no evidence still presents obstacles. “The president’s allies have sought to prove a ‘grand conspiracy’ through a sprawling Justice Department inquiry. It has buckled under staffing shake-ups, internal disputes and trouble finding evidence.” How Trump’s Revenge Campaign Descended Into Turmoil.
+ If the Justice Department can’t invent crimes, why not just invent a new entity that might? Trump forms committee to investigate mortgage fraud allegations against Fed governor Lisa Cook.
“Only two countries currently systematically carry out capital sentences in public: Iran and Afghanistan. In 2025, the Taliban authorities carried out six such killings and the regime in Tehran 11, according to Amnesty International.” Pete Hegseth wants the US to be the third. Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed. This probably won’t happen. But it’s worth noting that Hegseth is more and more obviously deranged. He’s also in charge of our military.
What to Watch: East of Eden on Netflix is an excellent and extremely bingeable limited series with an all-around excellent cast, including Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, and a great performance by Hoon Lee.
+ What to Book: “When a young woman, a golf prodigy, kills a caddy with a stray ball at the country club, the investigation of this freak accident reveals a dark and shocking tale of secret affairs and predatory men.” Oddly, there is also a lot of humor in this fast-paced, excellent novel from Chris Bohjalian. The Amateur.
Today in Corruption (A Partial Accounting): The corruption is nothing if not consistent. WaPo (Gift Article): Trump bought over $1 million in SpaceX debt days before unveiling space policy. And, In Trump’s Russian Oil Deal, Middle East Funds Are the Biggest Owners. “A majority of ownership in a proposed multibillion-dollar deal would go to a group of Middle Eastern investors, including some with business ties to U.S. negotiators.”
+ Fuels Rush In: Trump says Putin will release diesel fuel onto global market amid unprecedented price surge. (Nice to see close allies working together.)
+ Only the Best: “Brenden Cuni, an ICE supervisor, has been accused of excessive force and tackling a pregnant woman to the ground. Several of his arrests were later found to be unlawful in federal court.” ICE Agent at NYC Shooting Has History of Alleged Violence and Illegal Arrests. (There was a five year-old kid in the backseat. Feel safer?)
+ Partner in Crime? “Although the State Department had been preparing the sanctions for months, Mr. Rubio’s announcement came just hours after a committee in Norway said it was awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a South African lawyer who served for nine years as a judge on the International Criminal Court and worked as the top human rights official at the United Nations.” Trump Administration Hits International Criminal Court With Severe Sanctions.
+ Cable Guise: Oil isn’t the only thing looking for an alternate route around the Red Sea. Conflict in the Red Sea is forcing cloud giants to find a new route for the internet.
+ The Wrath of Jon: “If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club.” Jon Ossoff has taken off the gloves and is telling it like it is. Does that make him the Dem frontrunner for 2028?
+ Isaias: “Isaias has strengthened into a Category 3 ‘major hurricane.’ It is now expected to make landfall tonight as a Category 3 on the Gulf Coast around Pensacola, Florida.” Here’s the latest from CNN.
+ Beaking Bad: “Alberto Hernandez Castillo disembarked from his flight on Sunday in a pair of gold-sheened sneakers, according to a criminal complaint. He appeared nervous and authorities observed an ‘unexplained bulge’ around his pelvis.” OK, at this point, to me, this sounds like a pretty familiar trip through the airport. But then things took a twist. 21 Birds Are Found at Miami Airport Stuffed in Underwear and Hidden in a Belt.
“They can arrange a move to a senior living facility, deal with Medicare and Medicaid, recommend doctors, drive a client to the dentist, and much more.” Aging Life Care Managers Can Be a ‘Godsend’ for Families.
+ Teen Knew She Had a Long-Lost Sister Somewhere. They Found Each Other Facing Off at Softball Game.
+ New York City dog backpack rides help shelter pups find homes.
+ Installation of eight canopy bridges in Alta Floresta has enabled 15,000 safe crossings by animals including spider monkeys and marmosets – and more bridges are planned elsewhere.
+ Grandmother of 12 holds plank for 5 hours in new world record attempt. (Ah, if only I had the time…)