2026-07-27 20:00:00
“It could gobble you up in one bite. It’s just an amazing creature. It’s the best trophy kind of thing you could own.” That’s how Dan O’Dowd described the purchase of his Tyrannosaurus rex, Samson. “Dinosaur skeletons had recently become a hot new asset class, coveted by the ultrarich, not unlike sports franchises or Fabergé eggs. They offered a mix of glamour and primal appeal to a certain type of high-net-worth buyer—someone who might find the conventional art market fussy or convoluted but couldn’t deny the allure of a T. rex.” You have to give O’Dowd some credit. He got into the game early, back in 2009 — only missing the market’s peak by about 66 million years. He scored his dino for a cool $600,000. These days, they can go for about $50 million. “A dinosaur’s value, like a painting’s or sculpture’s, derives from a protean mix of provenance, desire and authenticity—the last one hard to define, let alone prove, and in the case of an auction, up to the buyer to verify.” It’s not entirely clear whether these bones should be privately owned, whether the market for them makes any real sense, whether the numbers add up, and most importantly, whether or not the high-valued items are bone-a-fide or not actually worth anything at all. In other words, it’s a lot like many of today’s other popular investments. Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Bone Rush.
The at-times very loud debate over data centers takes place in the public square. The financing and politics associated with them happen behind the scenes. Even when we’re talking about a data center that covers nearly six square miles. NYT (Gift Article): How Meta Got Everything It Wanted in a Secret Louisiana Data Center Deal. “Rewriting the bill was a critical part of a nine-month process that Meta used to cut deals behind the scenes, avoid local opposition and offload financial risk, according to interviews with more than 40 people and a review of corporate filings, tax records, property records and meeting transcripts. The secrecy was agreed to by nearly everyone involved, from utility executives to the governor’s office to a local elected official who knew about the talks with Meta and sold 300 acres of his own property for the project.” Governor Jeff Landry doesn’t apologize for the lack of transparency. “Mr. Landry bluntly acknowledged that the deal’s secrecy was unconventional, but said state officials had to think like a tech company to secure a project of its size. ‘Transparency is a very interesting word,’ he said. ‘Because what we’ve seen is people have used the word transparency to basically kill deals like this.'”
“For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit. The grants, sometimes in the billions of dollars, have funded new railroad tracks, train stations and roads rebuilt for modern bus service. Today, they’re funding extensions of the Second Avenue Subway in New York and the Red Line in Chicago, as well as the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and bus infrastructure in Indianapolis and San Antonio. But since President Trump returned to office, the Federal Transit Administration has not signed a single new agreement under the program, known as Capital Investment Grants.” Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It. “As the number of pending projects builds up, so has anxiety about the federal government’s support for major transit infrastructure. Money that Congress designated for that purpose is accumulating too: More than $7 billion hasn’t been obligated to any project.” This is what happens when a party cedes the power of Congress. Nothing they do or spend has any meaning. Or, in other words, don’t let your mouth write a check the ass won’t cash.
“Classics scholar Emily Wilson was in Greece’s Costa Navarino last year when she heard the news that would change her life: Filmmaker Christopher Nolan was planning to release a star-studded adaptation of The Odyssey, the epic poem that Wilson had spent years painstakingly translating from Homeric Greek into English.” A Penn professor thought she’d sell 1,000 copies of her ‘Odyssey’ translation. She sold more than a million this year alone.
+ For those kinds of sales, you’d expect the movie to get a rave review from Emily Wilson. Well, not so much. “It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display [Editor’s note: Oooh!] – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth.” [Editor’s note: Aaah…]
Death of a Sales Job: “In 1982, Benjamin Netanyahu was the marketing director of a Jerusalem-based furniture maker when Israel’s ambassador in Washington decided that the 32-year-old had been pitching the wrong product. Instead of selling cupboards to Israelis, he should have been selling Israel to Americans. The ambassador, who met Netanyahu at a conference a few years earlier, brought him to Washington as his deputy. Almost instantly, Netanyahu became the face of Israel on American television—a fixture on Nightline and Larry King Live, pugnacious, eloquent in unaccented English acquired as a boy in the suburbs of Philadelphia.” He’s been selling it ever since. But at some point, he stopped caring whether Americans were buying. Franklin Foer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): How Netanyahu Lost America.
+ Error Defense: The major military campaign targeting Iran has been paused. Maybe to let diplomacy work. Or maybe to consider America’s declining munitions stocks. WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Pauses Iran Strikes as Officials Weigh Dwindling Air Defense Stocks. “Trump denied that dwindling munitions are a problem, insisting in a statement to The Wall Street Journal that ‘we have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need.'” (Phew.)
+ Dinner Theater of the Absurd: At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump proved once again that he has the first known case of Verbal Cyclospora. Trump ranted and attacked rivals and the press. Just as we knew he would. And just what the fools who attended deserved. The dinner itself is not a big story. But what it represents is. Margaret Sullivan: The predictable disgrace of the White House Correspondents Dinner. (The weirdest moment was when Trump had to sit and watch as the WSJ got an award for their reporting on the Epstein birthday card.)
+ Tropic Blunder: “Trump has said at least 15 times, including as recently as last month, that the strikes have reduced maritime drug trafficking into the country by 97 or 98 percent. ‘98.2% of Drugs coming into the U.S. by Ocean or Sea have STOPPED!’ he wrote on Truth Social in April.” Shockingly, those cocaine numbers aren’t quite on the nose. WaPo (Gift Article): Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say.
+ Europe’s Hot Summer: “Heat waves and scant rainfall in Europe have contributed to historic wildfires in France and Spain that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in one of the continent’s biggest evacuation efforts since World War II.” And here are some photos of the wildfires raging across France and Spain. Plus, Wildfire Disruptions to the Tour de France Show How Climate Change Is Shaping Sports.
+ Breaking Away: Even this hot summer couldn’t slow down Tadej Pogačar, who won the Tour de France for third consecutive year and fifth time in his career. The Athletic (Gift Article): In the midst of his majesty: How Tadej Pogacar won the 2026 Tour de France.
+ Over a Barrel: “Cracker Barrel’s CEO is stepping down nearly a year after an attempted rebrand of the chain led to a fierce customer backlash.”
+ Chateau Marmot: “For years, Blumstein has overseen one of the longest-running studies of free-living mammals in the world, focused on yellow-bellied marmots in central Colorado … Fearing that a lack of funding might terminate the program, Blumstein recently got his lab together and they came up with a creative, if highly unorthodox solution.” Calif. researchers turn to OnlyFans as their funding dries up. (This would probably drive more OnlyFans revenue if they were studying Dik Diks…)
How hot is it getting around the world? “Japanese vending machine manufacturer SDRS has developed a human-sized, stainless-steel fridge to stave off heatstroke amid the increasingly sweltering summers brought on by climate change.” (I wonder if the refrigerator is big enough to hold The Refrigerator?)
+ “Chicago’s ‘Scream Club’ meets there every week during the city’s warmer months, bringing together a community of up to 300 people who like to scream out over the water – and it’s an activity that seems to be spreading across the US.” Chicago scream club lets people ‘give in and let go.’ (These people should try social media, they’d love it.)
2026-07-24 20:00:00
The Trump Justice Department’s subpoena armada isn’t going well. Judges aren’t just rejecting the subpoenas, they’re using the Department’s shoddy lawyering and lawlessness to force withdrawals. Government subpoenas are not getting quashed, they’re getting squashed. Here’s the latest example from the NYT (Gift Article): U.S. Withdraws Subpoenas Issued to New York Times Journalists. “Either we can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas,’ the judge told Sean Buckley, a top official in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, who was speaking on behalf of the government. Judge Subramanian then grilled the prosecutors for the vast majority of the hourlong hearing, his demeanor at times resembling a teacher scolding his pupils. He asked few questions of The Times’s lawyers; at one point, he even apologized to one of them and promised time to respond to some of the government’s statements.” That wasn’t the administration’s only judicial pullback this week. There was also one that resulted in a headline that could only possibly exist in 2026 (or maybe 1936). Trump Administration Drops Subpoena Demanding List of Jews From Penn. Part of this story is good; judges and courts are standing up to frivolous, dangerous, or just plain insane subpoenas. But the existence of these subpoenas in the first place is a stark and dark reminder of how completely Trump has turned the Justice Department into a lawless retribution machine. Bringing charges against James Comey for taking photos of some seashells on the beach is (probably) too crazy to result in a conviction. But the fact that the case wasn’t considered too crazy to be surfaced in the first place is further evidence of how many officials have fully lost the courage of their convictions. If you think the jury is still out on that last point, consider how close the Senate is to confirming Trump’s personal lawyer as Attorney General.
Just when you thought you were out from under the Trump tariffs, they pull you back in. No little hurdles like a Supreme Court ruling will stop Trump from implementing his favorite way of taxing our purchases (and our patience). “The Trump administration on Friday will impose new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners, including the European Union, over allegations of lax enforcement of forced labor bans, just as a temporary 10% global tariff expires.” Makes sense. Who is more concerned about the well being of workers around the globe than Donald Trump?
+ Trump accused of using forced labor as ‘convenient’ justification for tariffs. “‘Today’s forced labor justification is too convenient to be taken seriously,” said Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the US House ways and means committee. ‘Forced labor is a real and pervasive problem in our supply chains and demands serious enforcement. It should never be cheapened into a pretext for a tariff policy built on dubious legal theories and personal grievances.'” (Well, as the adage goes, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes and dubious legal theories and personal grievances.”)
Given the combination of our current protein obsession and increasingly high beef prices, you’d think that pork would be living high on the hog. But it turns out that consumers are not porking out and pork sellers are not bringing home the bacon. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Pork Struggles to Gain Ground Even in Middle of Protein Craze. “In a time of belt-tightening and America’s protein obsession, pork should be on a winning streak. It’s cheap compared with beef, which is climbing to record high prices, and it’s the type of clean protein consumers can’t seem to get enough of. But pork consumption per capita in the US is forecast near the lowest level in about a decade.”
+ Maybe it’s time to bring back the pork industry’s The Other White Meat ad campaign. Maybe updated for the era: DEI-Free Meat That’s Not Woke.
What to Binge: I usually find myself uninterested in TV shows that are based on an alternate history. But, since the current history is so unpleasant, I decided to give For All Mankind on Apple TV a shot. The show imagines a world where the global space race between the US and the Soviets never ended, but it’s really a story about the astronauts and their families. The cast is excellent. And it’s a story about space that doesn’t mention Elon Musk.
+ What to Book: Colson Whitehead has won two Pulitzers. That seems like a bit much for one writer, so I’m starting with the first book in his trilogy that hasn’t won a Pulitzer (yet). And it’s damn good. Check out Harlem Shuffle.
+ What to Read: Looking for a different way to choose your next read. Check out Uncovered.Ink, where you can’t judge a book by its cover. You get the opening lines, and then decide if you want to know what the book is and see the cover. Judging a book by its words? Sounds like reading Playboy for the articles. It’s so crazy it just might work. It was a dark and stormy night…
Fit for a King: “During a recent meeting in the Oval Office, he launched into a tirade against Iranian leaders, calling them scumbags and lunatics, and unleashing a series of expletives, according to a person who heard the comments.” WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Is Losing Patience Over an Iran War With No Clear End in Sight. The question is how does he get out of the war, and how does America avoid being left in much worse shape? “The United States sought above all to deter Iran from doing two things: striking American partners in the region and disrupting maritime traffic. Is Iran now more deterred from taking these actions—or less so? The answer is clearly the latter.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The War Is Lost. Now Fix What It Broke. (We all hope that’s wrong, but it sure seems more and more right.) The decision being made now: Whether to escalate.
+ Peptide Turns: F.D.A. Panel Supports Lifting Restrictions on Four Peptides, Despite Scientists’ Objections. For a good backgrounder on this issue, check out this Newshour interview with The New Yorker’s Dhruv Khullar.
+ Lettuce Go: Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania … welcome aboard. Outbreak of diarrhea-causing parasite linked to 4 more states. From The Ringer: All the Questions—and Explosive Answers—You Could Have About Diarrhea Summer. (That’s how I used to refer to sleep-away camp…)
+ A Family Chainstay: “Many have urged them to change their minds. Silicon Valley billionaires, European entrepreneurs and, most recently, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund have all approached the Amaurys with offers. Some wanted to buy all or part of the Tour for immense sums. Others, like the Saudis, wanted to make it the crown jewel of a new league, one that would tie together a bunch of races and produce a multi-month season, like football or soccer. All of these supplicants were given the same answer. Non.” Did you know one family owns the Tour de France? NYT (Gift Article): At the Tour de France, One Family Wins Every Year.
+ Bucket List: “I know a lot about the movie business, and I didn’t really know much about the bucket business. It was beyond me to really envision that there’d be a strong demand for $50 popcorn buckets.” Oh well, live and learn. Salty, Buttery, Astonishingly Lucrative: The $100 Million Market of Popcorn Buckets.
+ Over the Influence: “More than 20 students, many of them freshmen, darted around the lush grounds. All were dressed in white. Most had never met before. They scrambled into small groups to brainstorm, their quips echoing beneath palatial arches. They filmed one another with their smartphones, directing whoever was on camera at any given moment.” Welcome to the college programs turning students into influencers. I’m nostalgic for the days when all you had to do was take your kid to the dentist.
+ Home (For) James: I think the text I sent my sister this morning sums up my feelings on LeBron’s latest decision. “Happy Thank God He Didn’t Pick the Warriors Day!” LeBron picks 76ers.
A new guiding principle: WWWAYD: What would Weird Al Yankovic Do? ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Turned Down Million-Dollar Offer to Perform in Saudi Arabia: “I Don’t Need to Take Any Money if It Makes Me Feel Icky.” He also told the AI industry to just beat it.
+ His doctor’s prescription for his unbearable pain seemed absurd. It worked.
+ Trekking 57 miles per day, this ultrarunner just broke the speed record on the Pacific Crest Trail.
+ 64-year-old father of 5 graduates as a nurse after studying alongside his son.
+ Small dog missing for weeks rescued while swimming in San Francisco Bay.
2026-07-23 20:00:00
In an era when social media has turned us into a mass population of self-appointed experts who have an opinion on everything, and never shut up about anything, it may surprise you to learn that one of the top concerns among a group of high school newspaper editors is that young people are being taught to stay silent. “We want our publication to be like a small-town newspaper, one that gives its readers a comprehensive view of how our community thinks and feels, and one that advances the cause of seeking the truth and reporting it. But our readers cannot get a full view of the community when people are too afraid to talk. And people are definitely afraid. This problem, as we see it, is much bigger than our school newspaper. The era of social media came with the promise of hyper-democratization—no longer do you need to be an established pundit to get your message out. (All of us, born in the 2000s, struggle to imagine it any other way.) Although there is much to celebrate about the ways in which the internet has connected us, the permanence of the internet has given rise to censorship pressures—both individually and institutionally. People are so nervous about saying the wrong thing that they choose to say nothing.” Jacob Blane, Annabelle Garland, and Sam Gross in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The New Chilling Effect. This would be a less troubling trend if the decision to remain silent were spread equally across the sociopolitical spectrum. But it sure seems like those with political power (and the worst takes) are more prolific and loud than ever, and those who need to speak up the most are quietly waiting for what they hope will be the end of this political era. As the school newspaper editors explain: “If large groups of people decide that silence is safer than risking disagreement, and if they instruct children to be silent in turn, our fundamental right to free expression will crumble from within.”
“I’ve had a hand in killing around six people. Maybe seven. I don’t know if one man bled out on the side of the road or was taken to a doctor. I think about him often … We had grown up on the nostalgia of World War II, then done something we were supposed to be proud of. Instead, what we got from our politicians and generals were evasions and lies. Our commanders could never articulate how our deployments, and all the violence we committed and the losses we suffered, made anyone safer in the United States. We were left to figure everything out on our own while they landed lucrative jobs at defense companies and collected big fees on speaking circuits. For some people, it was too much to handle.” Thomas Gibbons-Neff in the NYT (Gift Article) with a timely article about another war. (I suppose these kinds of articles are almost always timely.) Why I Sought Out a Taliban Commander I Had Fought. “First as a Marine and then as a journalist, I spent years tied to Afghanistan. I returned one last time to speak to a former enemy in search of answers, and perhaps closure.”
“Baby boomers — boosted by decades of rising house prices, strong stock markets and economic growth — control more than half of U.S. household wealth. When they die, a lot of that wealth is expected to go to their descendants. Estimates have predicted that $68 trillion to $84 trillion in money and assets will change hands over the next two decades.” So why are so many baby boomers not only dying with nothing, but forcing their would-be beneficiaries to dip into their own savings? Because aging in America has become costly. WaPo (Gift Article): As the cost of aging soars, families’ wealth is evaporating.
“To the casual observer, which is to say virtually everyone, a guardrail is just a long wavy strip of steel, about a foot wide, set thirty inches or so off the ground, which keeps a car from going off the road. But, in reality, guardrails are carefully calibrated systems of interlocking parts, every one of which is critical to its function. They rely on complex physics to insure that a car that hits the end of a guardrail doesn’t get impaled, and that a car that hits it from the side can’t crash through. Some guardrail injuries result from antiquated designs, or designs that manufacturers know to be dangerous. Others result from botched installation.” Steve Eimers became an expert on guardrails for the worst possible reason. But his response to a personal tragedy could save lives. The New Yorker: One Man’s Quest to Fix Every Deadly Guardrail. (Alt link.) “In 2016, Steve Eimers’s daughter died when she hit a defective guardrail. Then he learned that the country was full of them.”
Statute Showing Limitations: “In a decision likely to intensify trans-Atlantic trade tensions, European Union regulators on Thursday hit Google with a $1 billion fine for illegally undercutting competition through its dominance as a search engine.” Again, lawmakers appear to be markedly behind the latest tech. Google is hardly a search engine at all at this point. “Reddit, Politico and others are weighing how—or even if—they can work with the tech company as AI tools supplant traditional searches.” Google Was a Lifeline for Publishers. Now Some Are Thinking of Cutting It Off.
+ Let’s Spend the Height Together: Google had a solid quarter, but the stock is tanking because investors are worried that the company is spending too much on AI-related expenditures. That’s not just a big deal for Google. It’s potentially a big deal for the whole economy. As I wrote in yesterday’s lead item, it’s arguable that we’ve never been this pot committed on any economic bet in history. Whether or not you own tech stocks, or any stocks at all, this could impact you. The Ante Establishment. (It’s not just about what these companies are spending on, it’s what they’re not spending on. Amazon Workers on Food Stamps Nearly Tripled, While Company Spends $200 Billion on AI.)
+ The Part of the Deal: “Saudi Arabia would need to normalize relations with Israel to receive the U.S. nuclear technology it has long sought, President Donald Trump said Thursday, adding a new condition to an agreement signed a day earlier and throwing the future of that deal into confusion.” (In this case, confusion could be better than clarity.)
+ Toll Out the Barrels: “The price of oil hit $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since May after Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen claimed to hit two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, stoking fears that another crucial shipping route would be choked off by the widening conflict.” Here’s the latest from the NYT. The fuel shortages are a big deal for Americans filling up at the pump. But they’re a much bigger deal where fuel shortages mean food shortages. NYT (Gift Article): Diesel Crisis Puts Poor Farmers Around the World at Risk. And from Reuters: Iran strikes on CIA facilities prompt questions about possible Russian role.
+ Nothing Could Be Further From the Truth: “The Pentagon, the institution that should be explaining the details of the war to the public, has fallen mostly silent: Hegseth is happy to offer clips of himself doing comically sloppy pull-ups, but neither he nor Caine has held a briefing on the war since May 5. Americans, after months of war, cannot even be sure how many men and women in uniform have been wounded or how severely. This information void at America’s military headquarters is a dramatic departure from previous conflicts, when reporters were embedded with American military units; when the Pentagon offered regular, in many cases daily, briefings on operations; and when civilian and military leaders in DOD answered real questions from real journalists.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The American People Need the Truth About the Iran War. (At this point, we’d settle for the truth about anything.)
+ Murder, She Wrote Off: The US is on track to have a historically low number of homicides in 2026. While politicians will try to take credit, it’s happening in places with different leanings and policies. “Murder and other crime rates are falling across the map in cities with different political leadership, different housing and economic conditions, different policing and prosecution and violence reduction strategies and different levels of federal enforcement activity.” (Maybe we’re just running out of people to murder…)
+ Don’t Quit Your Day Job: So far, the combination of AI and oil prices doesn’t seem to be hitting job numbers. US filings for unemployment aid fall to 187,000 last week.
+ Put a Little Pep in Your Overstep: NYT (Gift Article): A Peptide Showdown: F.D.A. Scientists May Clash With Kennedy’s Agenda. “A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee hearing on Thursday and Friday may set Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for embracing unproven wellness trends, on a collision course with agency scientists who have deep expertise on drug safety.”
“They get blisters on their feet, their eyes become watery and the hot sand burns their skin and eats up their hair when they are sitting.” How hot is it? It’s so hot even camels can’t take it. (And we’re nowhere near being over the hump.)
+ Watch orcas ram a sunfish so hard it explodes. “We think this may help younger orcas feed more easily, or it could also just be for fun.”
2026-07-22 20:00:00
While you’re worrying about what happens if AI takes all the jobs and dominates humanity, here’s another possibility to consider. What happens if it doesn’t? Or what happens if it does, but the rise to dominance (or at least profitability) takes longer than expected? We’ve pushed all our computer chips onto the table. Economically, we’re all in. In fact, unlike a poker game where being all in means betting all the money you have left, we did that, and then kept borrowing more and more chips. It’s arguable that we’ve never been this pot committed on any economic bet in history. What if it all goes to pot? Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The AI Bubble Is No Ordinary Bubble. “The American stock market is booming, thanks to artificial intelligence. Tech giants are borrowing billions to acquire AI talent, purchase chips and hardware, and construct data centers. And market watchers are starting to get worried. They see financiers bulldozing giant piles of money to private AI start-ups with no realistic path to profitability, tech companies reliant on other tech companies for revenue growth, and non-tech businesses without a lot to show for their AI investments. The value of AI-linked firms has climbed $27 trillion in the past three years—an astonishing amount, equivalent to 36 percent of the value of the entire U.S. stock market today. Although future earnings could justify those valuations, as Dominic Wilson and Vickie Chang of Goldman Sachs argued in a note to clients, the profit expectations require Panglossian optimism.” (That term, referring to excessive optimism, comes from Dr. Pangloss, a character in Voltaire’s Candide, who repeatedly suggests, “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” If Voltaire knew that one day I could get that summary from AI instead of having to read the book, he may have never created the character. And I’m guessing if Dr. Pangloss were brought to life in 2026, he’d last through about 30 seconds of a Trump press conference before scratching his head and saying, “Whoa, actually, things look pretty grim.)
+ Because of the money, land, power, water, and technology required, coupled with the spending power of those who have enjoyed market gains, the AI boom/bubble is touching nearly every part of our economy, from the stock market to Main Street. NYT (Gift Article): Stocks and the Economy Are Increasingly Relying on the A.I. Boom. The “spending and investment have helped carry the U.S. economy through a tumultuous period of inflation, tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty. But it also creates a vulnerability: If investor confidence in A.I. falters, the economic activity built atop it could come crashing down. Bank of America’s monthly global fund-manager survey for July reported a bursting of the A.I. bubble as the key risk to financial markets. It’s also now the key risk to the economy.”
+ White House to Redirect Billions in Research Funds Toward AI, Away From Colleges.
+ Meanwhile, OpenAI Says Its A.I. Models Went Rogue and Attacked a Digital Library. (Phew, I was worried it might have attacked my portfolio…)
“France banned children under 15 from using social media on Tuesday, becoming the first country in the European Union to pass a blanket ban on the platforms as concerns grow worldwide over the harmful effects of digital content on kids.” The timing of these bans is interesting, given that we are moving quickly from the social media age to the AI chatbot age (with many of the same big tech companies in charge). A few years from now, people might be nostalgic for the times when their kids were addicted to social media.
At the very moment we’re fighting a war to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, Trump is doing a nuclear deal in the region. “A key provision of the new accord would have U.S. companies build a uranium-enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia if a joint U.S.-Saudi study determines such a step would be warranted. That stipulation would give the U.S. influence over the Saudi nuclear program and, Trump administration officials argue, a way to prevent it from being misused for military purposes. Yet the deal, which is expected to be submitted to Congress for review in the coming days, is certain to prove controversial among many lawmakers who oppose the spread of nuclear technology in the volatile Middle East.” WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Approves Landmark Nuclear Deal With Saudi Arabia in Big Win for Kingdom.
“Monday was Sea Day in Japan, a public holiday when many people escape the summer heat by swimming, surfing and lounging at the beach. But not Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Ms. Takaichi spent the holiday weekend rereading policy documents and dealing with a backlog of thousands of emails, according to a social media post on Tuesday. She wrote that she eked out a ‘full five hours of sleep for the first time in ages’ — better than the ‘zero to three hours’ she said she is accustomed to. And she said she spent her limited free time ironing undergarments, sewing fraying skirts and reinforcing loose jacket buttons.” Japan Is Startled by Prime Minister’s Grueling Sleep Schedule. “With her comments, Ms. Takaichi seemed eager to present herself as a down-to-earth leader who doesn’t stop working on behalf of Japan’s citizens. Instead, her post, which has been viewed more than 31 million times, has set off a national debate about work-life balance and the hazards of sleep deprivation.” (For Americans, this makes even less sense. Why doesn’t she just sleep during meetings, press conferences, and sporting events? Everyone knows that people who don’t sleep that much are woke…)
Triple Threat: “Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin are drastically different men, but they do have one important thing in common: Each thinks he is the smartest person in any room he enters. Alas, though, because they have all done the dumbest thing you can do as a leader — surround yourself with sycophants — they have all blundered into dead-end wars from which they can extricate themselves today only by eating a banquet of crow. Watch out. There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless leader faced with a plate of crow: Sometimes his instinct is to double down on a losing strategy instead.” Thomas Friedman: Three World Leaders. Three Incredibly Bad Decisions. Those bad decisions often escalate to targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, something Trump just threatened. “President Trump escalated his rhetoric against Iran on Wednesday, threatening to destroy a bridge or power plant in the country if its forces continued to target ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The threat on Truth Social, which Trump said could extend to targets in or near Tehran, echoed others he has made in recent days. Such attacks could be considered a war crime under international law.” Meanwhile, “at least six vessels reversed course in the Red Sea on Monday and Tuesday after the Iran-backed Houthi militia warned shipping companies to avoid Saudi Arabia’s ports.” Here’s the latest from the NYT.
+ Dipsticks and Stones: “The closing of the chokepoints at Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb and the Black Sea collectively imperils roughly a quarter of the world’s oil supply.” Global Economy Is Suddenly Fighting an Energy Stranglehold on Three Fronts.
+ New, New York State of Mind: Mamdani Calls Netanyahu a ‘War Criminal’ and Calls on U.S. to Arrest Him. (The mayor of America’s most Jewish city calling for the arrest of an Israeli prime minister. A few years ago, this would have qualified as an Onion headline.)
+ MaHachoo: U.S. measles cases hit 35-year record with months left in 2026. (Congrats, everyone!)
+ Trump and the Abstinence Administration: “A few weeks ago, Rena Dixon, the head of Fact Forward, a South Carolina nonprofit that offers adolescent health and sex education classes, got a letter from the Trump administration with crushing news. The government was terminating the organization’s $1.6 million grant from a federal program to reduce teen pregnancies, effective immediately. The administration’s priorities, it said, do not align with ‘content that encourages, normalizes or promotes sexual activity for minors.'” Government Overhauls Teen Pregnancy Program to Focus on Marriage and Starting Families.
+ School Papercuts: “An Instagram post turned one California student newspaper into a free-speech flash point. The students say they were just doing their homework.” A crazy story from Wired and my neck of the woods: A Teen Reporter Searched for His Community in the Epstein Files. Adults Freaked Out.
+ Getting a Kick Out of Soccer: World Cup Final Scores 63 Million Viewers, Smashing All-Time High for Soccer in the U.S. Yes, we’re getting into the beautiful game. But I feel like I still need to get up to speed on some of the traditions. ESPN: World Cup glory sees Fabián Ruiz and Gavi gifted their weight in tomatoes.
+ There’s No I in Comedy: “Second City has run improv workshops for the Chicago Blackhawks, the Chicago Cubs and Major League Baseball itself. The league’s rookie career development program uses Second City to prepare incoming ballplayers for the demands of the sport. ‘They’re not taking these classes because they want to be the next stars of S.N.L.,’ Kempf said. ‘It’s because they want to apply these skills to their personal and their professional life.'” NYT (Gift Article): What’s Funnier Than Athletes Learning Improv? (For Giants fans? Watching this season’s team try to pitch, hit, and field.)
“Last month, Olivia Rodrigo revealed how acutely she had noticed some of the fans lining the barriers at her shows. ‘People wear diapers so that they can be front row,’ she said, adding, to everyone’s absolute horror: ‘That’s been an experience as a performer that I have smelled.'” Pass the pit diapers! Why are fans wetting themselves (and worse) to stand front row at concerts?
+ Who is Jimothy? Seven things you need to know about the internet’s favourite raccoon.
2026-07-21 20:00:00
A coalition of billionaires is teaming up to fight a proposed wealth tax in California. The idea of a one-time, one-state wealth tax probably isn’t the ideal way to address the exploding economic divide in America. But it says something about the numbers at stake that one opponent alone, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, has put $82 million into the effort. Despite the cries of victimization and calls to fix the system from many of the most fortunate Americans, one can make the argument that there’s never been a group of people who have benefited more from the confluence of technologies, markets, and policies than today’s billionaires. That’s one end of the American food chain. At the other end, there’s a struggle for food. In addition to the economic divide, many of the poorest Americans have seen the One Big Beautiful Bill take one big bite out of their SNAP benefits. At the very moment the richest are making historical gains, the poor are experiencing the deepest cuts in SNAP history. The administration’s strategy is to increase the paperwork and bureaucracy between people and food, and in places like Arizona, it seems to be working as intended. “The number of Arizonans getting SNAP benefits has fallen by about half in less than a year, a remarkable drop in nutrition aid that may preview the program’s future nationwide following a landmark law to limit assistance that President Trump championed last year.” NYT (Gift Article): Faced With Piles of New Paperwork, People Are Losing Food Stamps.
+ WaPo (Gift Article): 1.5 million children lost food aid since last July, analysis says.
Sometimes, recording a meeting makes perfect sense. Say you’re getting details about a potential medical treatment and you want to save and be able to share a summary of what your doctor explained. Sometimes, recording a meeting makes no sense. Say, you’re talking to someone at a bar or online about a date. Whether it makes sense in the moment or not, these days, it’s a good idea to assume that everything is being recorded. WSJ (Gift Article): This Conversation Is Being Recorded. They All Are. We’re being surveilled by the government and by corporations, and now we’re surveilling each other.
“Americans are aging rapidly and living longer, creating soaring demand for elder care when the industry is already buckling under the weight of chronic labor shortages.” So, this would be a really bad time to actively work to create a caregiver labor shortage. Hence, the administration is doing just that. Senior Living Facility in Distress as Immigrant Caregivers Are Forced Out. “Millions of immigrants, eligible to work in the United States, fill positions across the elder care industry such as nurses, dietitians, fitness instructors and maintenance technicians. And countless undocumented immigrants care for seniors in their homes, part of a vast informal economy. Immigration enforcement is choking both labor pools.”
+ The “war in Iran is raising oil prices, climate change is fueling record heat that is driving up demand for air conditioning and new data centers are straining America’s electricity supply.” So, this would be a really bad time to actively work to create more demand for energy. Hence, the administration is doing just that. The U.S. Is Pulling Back on Energy Efficiency Just as Prices Are Rising.
It’s only a matter of time before they come up with a way to blame Biden for the diarrhea. “A day after federal health officials tied an outbreak of cyclospora to shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by the large produce company Taylor Farms to Taco Bell, investigators are turning their attention to the farms in Mexico where it was grown and the facility that shredded it, according to administration officials.” Cyclospora Investigation Turns to Farms in Mexico. “As the investigation intensifies, Taylor Farms, among the nation’s largest producers of salad greens and vegetables, has hired a former Trump White House official. In a meeting on Thursday evening with the White House and F.D.A. officials, company executives sought to distance the company from the outbreak and cast doubt on the officials’ conclusion.” (This effort is gonna cost them a lot of lettuce.)
+ Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Cyclosporiasis Outbreak Is a Master Class in Miscommunication. (America is in the middle of a four year course.)
Everything is Being Taken Care Of: “Trump said he would ‘take care of’ the Houthi rebels if the Iran-backed militant group follows through on its threatened blockade of Saudi ports. ‘If something like that happens, we take care of it.'” (Phew.) Here’s the latest from The Guardian.
Canadian Fakin’: “Although the president has recently threatened tariffs against America’s neighbor in retaliation for wildfire smoke that poured into the northern part of the United States, administration officials said that the latest tariffs are unrelated. The levies take effect in 30 days, covering about $20 billion of Canadian goods.” (Just give some thought to how crazy the first part of that quote is…) Trump’s new 50% tariffs on Canada risk igniting a fresh trade war. (I doubt these new tariffs will go into effect, but the threat should help make our closest ally hate us even more.)
+ Ebola Acceleration: “The Ebola outbreak that was declared in eastern Congo on May 15 is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record. The Bundibugyo virus responsible for the outbreak is less common than others that cause Ebola disease, and there is no approved vaccine or treatment.” At least 930 people have died in Congo’s Ebola outbreak.
+ Tate Accompli: “According to federal court complaints unsealed on Monday, British officials have accused both brothers of choking women, sometimes until they passed out, and then raping them.” Tate Brothers to Stay in Jail as New Details About Charges Emerge. How did these guys, who were already being held in Romania, end up free in America in the first place? You can probably guess. NYT (Gift Article from December): How a Manosphere Star Accused of Rape and Trafficking Was Freed. “Barred from leaving Romania, Andrew Tate courted powerful figures on the American right, from Tucker Carlson to Barron Trump. Then an extraordinary order let him go.” (So the immigration policy bars elder care providers but welcomes rapists.)
+ Cut! “Paramount’s owners were planning to have secured firm control of Hollywood rival Warner Bros. Discovery by the end of this week in a blockbuster deal that has the blessing of President Trump’s Justice Department. A federal judge has instead ground the process to a halt, at least for now.” Court ruling freezes Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.
+ What Supp? “The New York Times found hundreds of A.I.-generated doctors, healers and wellness influencers on social media touting the health benefits of supplements to American consumers. Many of these hyperrealistic looking ads promise medical miracles, and appear to be targeting older women, while making misleading health claims for a profit.” NYT (Gift Video): The Fake Influencers Selling Wellness on Your Feed. (In fairness, the AI-generated influencers were no less honest than the human ones pushing the same supplements…)
+ Mon Armor: “Surging interest in armored cars offers a window into American anxiety. The people who shop at Miami Armored, Daskal said, are concerned about carjackings, smash-and-grab thefts and road rage, which has become more prevalent in recent years, according to the Pew Research Center. But there is no doubt that, for some, an armored car is a status symbol — the ultimate luxury accessory for one-percenters who already own panic rooms, guard dogs and perhaps a desert bunker or two.” Now on the American Road: Bulletproof Cars.
“Goats spend a lot of time bashing their heads into things. Winning a headbutting contest shows other members of the herd who’s boss—but bumping heads is also a way to play or explore new objects, so it’s often assumed goats must be protected against head injury by the shape of their skull and strong neck muscles. A new study challenges that assumption.” Goats love to bash heads—but it might give them brain damage. (Wait until they try social media.)
+ “As prediction markets and prop betting gain popularity, more couples are integrating them into their celebrations.” Want to Bet on My Wedding? (Wanna bet on my RSVP answer?)
2026-07-20 20:00:00
When I was a kid, my parents instituted a rather draconian rule: No television during dinner. So my sisters and I ate faster, getting our family dinner times down to an average of about seven minutes. Back then, the concern was that the TV screen would distract us from our together time. Well, times have changed. These days, my wife and I practically beg our kids to join us around the big screen for some communal viewing. Compared to everyone scrolling on their own devices, TV time is together time. So it was cause for celebration when our kids, a couple of their friends, and both of our beagles spent multiple hours in the same room at the same time watching the same thing. It was a small victory, made larger by the fact that we were joined by way more than a billion other people doing the same thing. OK, it was still screen time. But at least it was together screen time. Mark O’Connell in the NYT (Gift Article): A Billion Eyes. One Shared Experience. “In these images, TV screens are not an oppressive, degrading or insinuating presence; they are a means not of erasing or escaping the world but of reaching and being reached by it. In a world where everyone experiences his own hyper-individualized flow of images and video and text, minutely optimized for maximum commercial extraction, the World Cup is a rare moment of shared attention.” My family even shared a screenless meal after the game. (And it lasted at least eight minutes.)
+ “Argentina probably held a 4-1 edge in terms of raw numbers, with at least 90 percent of those sporting Messi jerseys. But Spain matched the nervous, distressed Argentine fans in sheer volume, and when Torres drilled his shot — and Argentina missed two last-minute heart-stoppers — well, that was enough to start a celebration that will last for years to come.” From Spain with love: A World Cup final 50 million dreams in the making.
+ Even as hosts, America couldn’t change the beautiful game. But we did add one twist. A halftime show. As soon as I saw the Muppets covering the White Stripes, I realized that I definitely picked the wrong World Cup to stop sniffing glue.
+ The Ringer: 29 Reasons We Loved the 2026 World Cup.
+ The Guardian: From half a million World Cup photos, why I love these the most.
+ Forest Trump: With that many people from around the world locked in on one event, you knew that you know who would want to be at the center of all that attention. Even if that included being booed by the crowd and suffering the humiliation of inserting himself into the winners’ photo op. The Athletic (Gift Article): Trump booed by World Cup final crowd, takes part in trophy presentation. What can I say, Needy Amin strikes again.
Nearly a third of all World Cup bets were placed on prediction market sites. But the federal government is betting no one will notice that they are online casinos. “For users, prediction markets operate almost indistinguishably from online betting platforms. However, they are technically investment sites. As such, they are not constrained by state and tribal gaming law. They are available in all 50 states — even those with no gambling — and the prediction market companies pay no state taxes.” Well, at least the states can regulate them, right? Not if the Trump administration has its way. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission “is doing its utmost to effectively nationalize gambling, leaving states powerless to control what has historically been under their domain.” The federal government typically left gambling to the states — until the prediction markets. These days, when it comes to ethical governance intended to benefit the greater good, bet the under.
“Efforts to contain Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo did not begin well. Patients fled a treatment unit in Mongbwalu, a mining town, after community members set it on fire. Residents assaulted a burial team in the town of Katana and forced the crew to turn over a coffin. People living in the Kpangba displacement camp drove out health workers searching for Ebola contacts; the assailants insisted that the victims had not died of the disease. Similar antagonism hampered Ebola responses in 2014-16 and again in 2018. Reactions like this would be easy to chalk up to poor education and anachronistic rituals.” Sadly, “scholars have seen similar responses across societies and throughout history.” That includes the reactions of many Americans to Covid. NYT Magazine (Gift Article): Why Epidemics Breed Rage at Health Workers.
As we’ve learned from the fighting in Ukraine to the Middle East, war is changing and it’s changing quickly. And the US (along with help from tech and defense companies) is racing to adapt. A.I. Drones Are Coming. We Are Not Ready. “The looming challenge for the United States is how to fast-track this technology while balancing the safety and ethics issues with other nations. All weapons are subject to existing prohibitions and restrictions under international humanitarian law. But autonomous weapons raise novel concerns. Humanitarian groups say it’s morally bankrupt to hand over lethal action to machines, no matter how advanced. Can technology reliably differentiate adults from children, or soldiers with guns from TV journalists with camera equipment, or a truckload of fighters from a truckload of war-injured? Can it ascertain if someone is surrendering?”
+ Fighting in the skies is changing. Next comes the change to ground wars. WaPo (Gift Article): Armed robots are on the horizon, as Silicon Valley pitches new military tech. “The administration is pushing the military to use AI, testing long-standing opposition to weapons systems that can pick and attack targets on their own.” (I don’t even trust tech companies to pick the right posts to show up in my algorithm, and they’ve already moved onto this…)
Searching for a Rational Rationale: Here’s the sad truth. The lunatic who ranted about imaginary election rigging and said we should tariff Canada because of smoke from their fires blowing into the US is the same lunatic running the war with Iran. “Two more Americans have given their lives in the service of their country. They died in an Iranian attack on a Jordanian air base; several more U.S. military personnel were injured and one is missing. The American people have a right to know why they died, and how many more of their sons and daughters President Trump is willing to risk in this war of choice.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Owes Americans a Better Explanation About Iran. (What if there isn’t one?) Meanwhile, the Pentagon is suffering from a major case of Low-T. The T in this case is for Truth. Pentagon Withheld Dozens of U.S. Military Injuries in Iran War. Here’s the latest from The Guardian.
+ Another Post Brexit Exit: ‘King of the North’ Andy Burnham becomes 7th British prime minister in a decade. (10 Downing Street has had more turnover than an AirBNB). Here’s the latest from BBC.
+ Deuces Wild: “The FDA initially announced Friday that iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms had tested positive for cyclospora, a parasite that can cause explosive bowel movements. Within 24 hours, however, the agency walked back its determination, claiming that the original lettuce sample was a false positive.” (Even if you don’t have any cyclospora-related GI issues, this CDC has you shitting in your pants.)
+ Tate Crimes: “Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested Saturday in Miami after U.K. prosecutors said they brought further rape and sex trafficking charges against them.”
+ Roach Clips: “Tens of thousands of protesters have defied police orders and descended on Delhi to demand the resignation of India’s education minister in one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in years.” Tens of thousands of Cockroach movement protesters defy police with Delhi march.
+ The Extra Mile: While you were watching the World Cup, you may have missed what was actually the most incredible athletic moment of the weekend. Josh Kerr set new World Record mile time, beating 27-year mark. Given today’s trends in track, the record may not last long. Elite Young Runners Are Becoming Freakishly Fast. Welcome to Trackflation.
Some people are worried that AI is becoming the new religion. Well, it’s coming for the old religions first. WSJ (Gift Article): Pastors Using AI to Help Write Sermons Grapple With Where to Draw the Line. “Half of all pastors say they use AI for brainstorming or idea generation, according to the Barna Group, a firm that studies U.S. faith trends. And roughly a quarter use AI to help write their sermons.”