2026-08-25 20:00:00
Are you ready for some football? That’s a rhetorical question. We all know the answer. Live sports have never been more important to the bottom line for media companies, and the NFL has never been a more dominant American league. The NFL is too big to fail. Yes, you are ready for some football. And you were probably ready for this preseason report about the brain-injury risks associated with the sport. We get some version of these stories during most preseasons, and they’re usually punted, passed, and kicked to the curb in time for the opening weekend. “The study, published Tuesday by the British Medical Journal, focused on how common chronic traumatic encephalopathy might be among NFL players. What it found is that of the 878 players who appeared in at least one NFL game and died in that six-year period, at least 25% had CTE.” Players and fans alike are in denial about this risk. There’s fantasy football and then there’s football’s fantasy.
+ “The most notorious form of workplace illness in the United States might be black lung disease. Scientists say that 10 to 20 percent of coal miners who have worked 25 years or more have gotten it. It has long been considered an epidemic. Imagine an American job that is less safe than that, where one in four workers (and maybe far more) ends up with an incurable, degenerative brain disease that withers the mind, sometimes after just a few years of exposure. Imagine the outrage at the working conditions, the demands that something be done to protect the employees, the questions about whether the industry needed to be overhauled, if not abolished. ‘I don’t think that this would be abided in any industry,’ said Doug Parker, the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under the Biden administration. Unless that profession was N.F.L. football.” John Branch in the NYT (Gift Article): Many N.F.L. Players Get Brain Disease. Why Hasn’t OSHA Intervened?
Canada has struck back with retaliatory tariffs as the trade war between neighbors continues to escalate. The NYT (Gift Article) has a detailed look back at exactly how the trade talks fell apart. In terms of financial might, the US dominates. The same may not be true in terms of politics. Trump is giving Americans – including GOP politicians – more of what they don’t want, while Mark Carney is fighting in a way that Canadians seem to support. Stephen Marche in the NYT (Gift Article): Canada Said No to America. It Will Reverberate Far Beyond Its Borders. “For Canada, the choice came down to either accepting severe but temporary economic instability or binding itself to a pseudodemocratic fiscal basket case of a nation whose only apparent foreign policy objective has become domination for the gratification of its president’s slapdash vanity.”
+ As I wrote yesterday, “Trump surrenders to our enemies and makes enemies of our allies. And his party still falls in line, over and over. So no, Blame Canada is no longer a parody, it’s a national anthem and a call to arms. And it’s even more ridiculous than it was when the South Park cartoon characters first performed it.” Blame Canada!
+ “President Donald Trump announced Tuesday morning that he is giving ‘serious consideration’ to renaming Lake Ontario ‘Lake America.'” (It tells you everything you need to know about Trump’s impact on our country’s brand that it’s now considered a total burn to name something America.)
“For years, AI industry watchers of all stripes have been warning of a coming jobs apocalypse driven by ultra-intelligent AI systems that will be able to replicate most human tasks more cheaply. Now, newly updated research from Stanford University economists suggests AI seems to be causing significant entry-level job losses for younger workers in some fields, even as older workers appear largely unaffected so far.” AI is hitting entry-level jobs hardest, Stanford study finds.
+ Maybe AI will be coming for professorial jobs? Harvard Is Selling a $699 Course Taught by A.I. Clones of Its Faculty. (Sounds good, as long as I can have an A.I. clone of me actually take the course…)
“The grid is perhaps the most complex machine ever built, but it was created without a master plan and made subject to the distortions of greed and local orneriness like every other big project in the United States. As a result, we have not one grid but three: the Western, Eastern and Texas Interconnections. Within each area, thousands of utilities generate and distribute power, and the flow is managed by one of 101 regional balancing authorities across the United States … ‘If you knock out nine total substations among those three grids, you can black out the entire United States.'” NYT Mag (Gift Article): What if America Went Completely Dark? (On the bright side, you wouldn’t be able to access the news.)
+ Some Indiana residents have been getting an unwanted preview of what it’s like when things go dark. Gary residents turn to prayer as power outage stretches into third week.
Getting a D in Economics Day: “‘The rhetoric was ferocious, but the punch less so,’ said Daniel Fried, a former U.S. diplomat now at the Atlantic Council. ‘Dealing a crippling blow to Iran’s economy would probably require taking on big Chinese firms and banks.” WSJ (Gift Article): U.S. Squeezes Iran but Avoids Targeting Its Biggest Lifeline: China. Meanwhile, “President Trump’s war on Iran has been a welcome revelation for China, which absorbed one of the most severe oil-supply disruptions of the modern era, demonstrating that years of preparation had mitigated a huge vulnerability and potential source of U.S. leverage over Beijing in a geopolitical confrontation.” The Iran War Shows China’s Energy Strategy Is Working.
+ SCOTUS Goes Postal: “The decision means the administration can move ahead with planning for restricting the use of mail ballots even as a lower court continues to weigh the legality of Mr. Trump’s executive order. But with a little more than two months until Election Day — and considerably less time before early voting begins in many states — it remains unclear whether the White House’s rules will be in effect for a midterm election in which control of both chambers is at stake. Additional legal action is a near certainty with the plan’s fate not yet final.” Court Allows Trump to Pursue Mail Voting Limits, for Now. (The decision may not be enough to do away with mail-in voting, but it will be enough to create the election chaos and doubt that Trump wants.) Meanwhile, Trump Quietly Asserts Control Over Postal Service Amid Plans to Overhaul Voting.
+ Penn Pain: “Both people were unvaccinated. They are the first such deaths in the U.S. this year, and the first in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 35 years.” Two unvaccinated people die of measles in Pennsylvania outbreak.
+ The Guile High Club: “Even some Qatari leaders were surprised by the president’s gall. But they did what they’ve always done when an American official has asked them for something dubious—politically, ethically, or even legally. They said yes.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Qataris Gave Trump an Airplane. He Crippled Their Country in Return.
+ Take Me to Your Leader: “Not even Mojtaba’s close friends and relatives have seen him. Fewer than five people have met with Mojtaba since his ascent to power, Mohammad Hossein Khoshvaght, a former official and a relative of Mojtaba’s told me, ‘due to security precautions.’ The rationale is not implausible.” But neither are the rumors that he might not be alive. Is Mojtaba Khamenei Dead? (Maybe we could get him and Mitch McConnell on a Zoom?)
Target pulls clown Halloween costume after backlash, says ‘we got this wrong’ in apology note. Oh, come on, could a costume really be that bad? Uh, yes,
2026-08-24 20:00:00
Blame Canada was an Oscar-nominated satirical song featured in the animated movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. This was back in 1999, when it was still possible to satirize America, before parody became reality; before we entered an era when Kim Jong-un was being described by an American president as “unthreatening and respectful” and Putin was being repeatedly praised, while our closest allies are constantly threatened. Trump surrenders to our enemies and makes enemies of our allies. And his party still falls in line, over and over. So no, Blame Canada is no longer a parody, it’s a national anthem and a call to arms. And it’s even more ridiculous than it was when the South Park cartoon characters first performed it.
Our hoser in chief thought the latest kerfuffle would leave the Canucks turning into keeners. Well, don’t count your loonies & toonies yet. All the chirping may not lead to the US bringing home the Canadian bacon. They’ve got a Carney and we’ve got a carnie. And Prime Minister Mark Carney has, in many ways, become the global leader of the Trump resistance, and he has declared that Canada is now “at war” with the US, justifiably telling the administration to go Canuck itself. So chances are that the stupidest trade war in an era of stupidity will end with little financial upside and a whole lot of diplomatic downside. And I’m not asking you to accept the opinion of a remarkably creative and intelligent member of the liberal elite (who also happens to be a quick study when it comes to Canadian slang). Even the WSJ Editorial Board thinks the ten-ply, spare parts Trump administration should give their balls a tug. The Dumbest Trade War Revisited. “Trump’s decision to escalate a tariff brawl with Canada makes no economic or political sense.” (Other than that, it’s a real beauty, eh?)
+ “Yes, Trump can hurt Canada more than Canada can hurt Trump. That part of Trump’s thinking is true. But wars are not decided only by the question Who can inflict more pain? Wars are also decided by the question Who can endure more pain? Trump’s failure to accept this truth is why he lost the Iran war—and why he is losing his trade wars.” David Frum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): How to Lose a Trade War.
+ “A bully refuses to learn that his actions are counterproductive and instead doubles down.” Paul Krugman on why Trump will lose his war with Canada. The Moose That Roared. (The fact that we’re even having a “war” with Canada is already a loss.)
At least in the case of Iran, the administration has chosen an appropriate target for economic warfare. Whether it will work where military warfare failed remains to be seen. “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced plans for a wave of new sanctions Monday aimed at further isolating Iran, after threatening the Islamic Republic with ‘an economic D-Day.'” Bessent threatens new Iran secondary sanctions, says Trump asking world leaders to cooperate. Here’s the latest from CNN.
+ There’s no doubt Iran’s economy is suffering. But Robert Kagan still argues that “the dominant power in the Middle East from now on will not be the U.S. or Israel but Iran.” I sure hope he’s wrong. But he’s been pretty right about this war so far. Iran Unleashed. “Neighboring countries are already making their adjustments to this new reality. More distant powers will too. For years, the world has been dealing with an Iran constrained. It will now discover what Iran unleashed looks like.”
“These newer products are specifically engineered to deliver THC in ways that are often more convenient and discreet than smoking cannabis. That shift is especially concerning for adolescents, whose brains are still developing and are more vulnerable to the effects of repeated exposure to high levels of THC.” NYT (Gift Article): The Weed Got Too Strong. (It’s way too strong for developing minds. It’s not nearly strong enough for news curators.)
“A self-described ‘elder millennial’ came in search of one for the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, but left with an old tee for MTV’s animated series ‘Celebrity Deathmatch,’ which aired in the late 1990s and 2000s. Another ThirftCon attendee was looking to replace a lost tee for the band the Smashing Pumpkins. Some styles for sale at the convention cost more than $800.” WSJ (Gift Article): Your Favorite Old T-Shirt Might Now Be Worth a Fortune. (It makes a lot more economic sense to score a shirt from the NextDraft store. If you want me to pre-wear it while writing a few editions of the newsletter, just let me know.)
Good Hombres: “Luis Manuel Aviles, 48, was arrested after leaving his house to take his car to the mechanic.” At the same time, his son was “entering his ninth month on the USS Abraham Lincoln.” He was waiting for his son to return from the USS Lincoln. Then Border Patrol arrested him. (Families who have never served are targeting those who are serving. Feel safer?)
+ Allies: “Ukraine has been Europe’s protector, not a drain on our security, but the frontline of keeping Europe safe … That’s why I believe the Ukrainian people deserve not just our continued support, but our gratitude and our respect.” British Prime Minister Andy Burnham tells it like it is in his first foreign trip to Ukraine.
+ Machine Learning and Discerning: “It is a development long watched for in the war in Ukraine, presaging a dystopian future in which killer robots roam the skies making life-or-death decisions that reduce targets to data points.” A Drone Killed Three Ukrainians. It Was Guided Entirely by A.I.
+ Bunker Shot: “President Donald Trump has claimed that the White House needs a massive new ballroom because it would provide him and future presidents with a secure, hardened facility. But former officials say the argument fails to acknowledge that the presidential complex already has one.” Wait, is this article suggesting a falsehood? WaPo (Gift Article): Secret White House bunker undercuts Trump’s ballroom lawsuit.
+ That’s the Ticket: “The Justice Department was preparing to wage a legal battle more than a decade in the making against the world’s largest concert promoter. Then President Trump called.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Trump Intervention That Got the DOJ Off Live Nation’s Back.
+ Back to School: Last week, Dae’Quan Wright was playing tight end during a Cleveland Browns preseason game. Next week, he might be back playing college football at LSU. (Even if you don’t think of the Browns as being a fully professional football team, this is crazy.)
“We must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium.” Darth Vader comes out in favor of Flock cameras at San Diego city council meeting.
+ Humanoid robots run really fast now. Stopping can be more of an issue. And in photos, Scenes From the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games.
2026-08-21 20:00:00
Remember when IBM was most associated with a corporate name and not a simple statement of fact? Well, the cat is out of the bag. And so is everything else. Welcome to 2026 America, where thousands of citizens across the country are repeatedly racing, trotting, and running to the bathroom in a hopeless attempt to cut loose from the bowels of hell, only to find the stool has been pulled out once again, the GI bill has come due, the motion has been passed, everyone is full of crap, the shit never gets cut, the bile never ends, and the promises about food safety we once believed are now null and void, and void, and void. I know there must be a metaphor here somewhere, but in this case, the literal is a more urgent matter. As the cyclospora outbreak has exploded across 47 states, it’s probably a reasonable moment to pause (to the extent possible) and assess the ways in which bags of lettuce could have bagged so many victims. If nothing else, this makes for some interesting bathroom reading. NYT (Gift Article): 9 Vulnerable Moments in the Life of a Bagged Salad. For example, there’s number 6: “Labels like ‘pre-washed’ and ‘triple washed’ on bagged lettuce mean that it has been cleaned, often in a trough-like machine that tumbles the lettuce through flowing water to dislodge any soil or other debris, and through a food-safe sanitizing solution to kill microbes. If there is too much debris in the water, the chemicals can’t kill all of the pathogens — and the standard chemicals in these solutions, like chlorine, don’t kill cyclospora.” (I know we’re just shooting the shit here, but it sure feels like America’s salad days are over.)
+ Meanwhile, the FDA announced a recall of frozen fruit bars sold nationwide because they may contain glass.
“President Trump this week promised an ‘economic D-Day’ against Iran, a ‘crushing’ operation to ‘cripple’ Iran. The U.S. clampdown is formidable, a combination of wartime destruction, a naval blockade and sanctions that have already put the Iranian economy under more pressure than its regime has experienced in decades. But between the lines of the administration’s threats was a signal that Mr. Bessent made as clear as ever on Thursday: Mr. Trump does not want to go back to war right now.” NYT (Gift Article): The Message Behind Trump’s Threats of ‘Economic Warfare’ Against Iran.
+ “Anyone can get distracted now and then, and say things out loud he or she probably shouldn’t say. Perhaps an excited friend lets on about a surprise party, or a co-worker dishes up some unseemly office gossip. Or, if you’re the president of the United States, you might reveal some numbers about an adversary’s nuclear arsenal and then admit that those weapons, even a relatively small number of them, are pretty darn useful.” Tom Nichols on the latest craziness. Donald Trump Effectively Just Told Iran to Get a Nuclear Weapon.
At this point, it still feels pretty easy to tell if something was written by AI. If nothing else, we sure have a lot of examples to study. As many as a third of web pages posted since the release of ChatGPT may be written by AI. Pew Research used AI to figure that out. How Much of the Internet Is Written With AI? (I don’t use AI to write any part of NextDraft, but after today’s top story, you probably wish I did…)
What to Binge: I love coming of age teen dramas. There, I said it. And Sterling Point on Prime is an excellent one, worthy of a weekend binge because it’s entertaining, and because I have a feeling several of the actors will be on our screens for a while.
+ What to Watch: “When the past catches up with two former spies, their biggest challenge isn’t car chases, shootouts or fistfights — it’s telling each other the truth.” Unfamiliar on Netflix is an excellent entry into the husband/wife spy genre. One warning: it ends without a clear resolution and season 2 has yet to be confirmed. I still recommend it!
If You Build It, They Will Come Around: The Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump ballroom construction to continue. While the decision is temporary in theory, the construction has been going on “with a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, seven days a week.” So at most, the court may draw the line at a second coat of gold paint.
+ You Can’t Vandal the Truth: Flock cameras are designed to stop lawbreakers, but they’ve also created a new crime. Amid intense backlash, people are vandalizing Flock surveillance cameras.
+ Bros Before Nose: Apparently, some students in Happy Valley wanted to be even happier… “Pennsylvania’s attorney general on Monday charged 13 former and current Penn State students with felonies and misdemeanors related to a cocaine trafficking operation that he said involved packaging the drug at fraternity houses and distributing it to students.” Penn State Fraternity Members Are Charged in Cocaine Trafficking Case. “Members of the Sigma Chi and Delta Upsilon fraternity houses helped package the cocaine, he added, sometimes as part of the initiation process for new members.”
+ Ship Happens: CNN: Navy weighs renaming carrier slated to honor Black war hero, potentially switching it to Trump. Meanwhile, remember how Hegseth insisted that all the stories about the mental health crisis aboard the USS Lincoln were fake or exaggerated? Well, the carrier is heading home (I’m sure for totally unrelated reasons).
+ Another Bad Bet: “More than 150 wallets on Polymarket International may have traded on inside U.S. military information, attracting copycat bets and raising concerns that the market could broadcast signals exploitable by foreign adversaries.” (The administration should block this, but they’ll probably try to get in on the action instead…)
“On her way to an early morning exercise class, she was confronted and chased by a man wearing a Halloween mask that many observers have compared to the horror character Chucky. Recalling her training, she stopped, turned and delivered a kick to his chest.” A Masked Man Was Scaring Philadelphians. Then He Picked the Wrong Woman.
+ “Built on the mRNA platform that allowed Moderna to quickly roll out COVID-19 vaccines five years ago, intismeran is a genetically personalized vaccine that instructs the patient’s immune system to attack tumors, slowing melanoma’s progression and spread.” Moderna’s skin cancer vaccine shows promise in trial.
+ A brain injury changed David Jackson’s life. Now he’s running 100 ultramarathons in 100 days. (That can’t feel good, but the story does.)
+ The FDA just authorized the first robot that can draw blood on its own. (I know that doesn’t sound like a feel good story, but we’re talking about phlebotomy, not war.)
+ They’re friends. They’re both 109. Here are their longevity secrets.
+ WSJ (Gift Article): The Claw Machine Is King of the Arcade Again. And This Time, You Might Win.
+ Welcome to the world of competitive boat docking. WSJ (Gift Article): How to Dock a Boat in 20 Seconds Without Taking Out a Tiki Bar. (This is impressive, but none of it compares to the difficulty of trying to pull a boat into a slip on an average day on San Francisco Bay.)
2026-08-20 20:00:00
For many years, I wrote a blog called Tweetage Wasteland: Confessions of an Internet Superhero. (I like to regularly change my brand name and focus to reduce the chance of any long-term financial success.) My motivation was to bridge the gulf between how people in the tech industry talked about their products in public and how they worried about them in private. That story hasn’t changed much, but it bears occasional re-upping because of the importance of you getting a grip on what’s happening that is as strong as the one you have on your phone right now. So, as Meta faces a landmark trial in which it is accused of encouraging growth over child safety, it’s worth noting the time Mark Zuckerberg explained, “I don’t generally want my kids to be sitting in front of a TV or computer for a long period of time.” His philosophy is hardly unique among those selling the wares designed to ensure everyone else’s kids are sitting in front of them for long periods of time. “‘We didn’t give our kids cellphones until they were 14,’ Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates said. When Sundar Pichai’s son was 11, the Google chief noted he ‘still doesn’t have a phone,’ adding that ‘our television is not easily accessible.’ Apple’s Tim Cook said he would not let his nephew on a social network.” NYT (Gift Article): Silicon Valley Executives Are Tech Fans. Just Not for Their Own Kids. “By now, it’s a cultural cliché. In ‘The Audacity,’ Jonathan Glatzer’s new AMC series, a girl at a Silicon Valley party is surprised that a boy has a smartphone. ‘Arms dealers don’t give their kids land mines,’ she explains.”
+ The way tech execs feel about privacy (black) mirrors the way they feel about tech use in general. While you’re encouraged to share everything, they make contractors who work on their houses sign NDAs. That’s why, several years ago, I wrote that, The Only Privacy Policy That Matters Is Your Own. Tech execs don’t share. And they’re right not to. “They are right not to want to toss the floor planks that represent their last hint of personal privacy into the social media wood chipper. They are right in their unwillingness to give in to the seeming inevitability of the internet sharing machine. Do you really think it’s a coincidence that most of the buttons you press on the web are labeled with the word submit?”
+ The story is not new. But the technology environment in which it exists is rapidly evolving, as is the effort to put even more of it in front of your kids. A.I.-Themed High School Is Put on Hold After Parental Backlash. And from The Verge (Gift Article): Meta glasses are a workplace menace. “Public-facing workers are being filmed, harassed, and creeped out by AI-powered smart glasses.” The best way to protect yourself is probably to do what tech executives do, not what they sell.
There’s a lot of negative buzz around data centers and AI growth, but not nearly enough to put a dent in the value of the nuts and bolts required to build out the future. Thieves are aware of this reality, and they’re not waiting for something to fall off a truck. ‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen’: Cargo Thefts Have Turned Violent in Pursuit of AI Hardware. “Experts allege that two recent incidents in California show the extreme lengths that criminal organizations are willing to go to steal servers and other gear meant for data centers.”
+ Not everyone wants in on the action. WSJ (Gift Article): The ‘Country Hicks’ Who Refused $26 Million from an AI Data Center.
“Sen. Jon Ossoff didn’t even use her full name. But everybody in Washington knew who he was talking about. At a recent campaign event, the Georgia Democrat argued that President Trump would rather ‘travel with Natalie’ on Air Force One than do the hard work that comes with being commander in chief.” And thus, we’ve been thrust into focusing on a key Trump aide (maybe the most key one) known as the ‘human printer’ because she always has a portable printer she uses to print out positive news (or quack internet theories), which she hands to the president. We’ve all sort of avoided this story, not because of its lack of newsworthiness, but because it’s just too weirdly disturbing, even in 2026. Whether we like it or not, it’s time to harp on Natalie. WSJ (Gift Article): How Trump’s Ever-Present Executive Assistant Became the Talk of Washington.
+ NYT (Gift Article): ‘With All My Heart, Natalie.’ Trump’s Most Devoted Aide Emerges. It’s a fool’s errand to attempt to explain such devotion. The Harp wants what the Harp wants…
Miss watching Succession? You can always follow the real-life Saga of the Buss Family Circus. After only a year of being sold, the Lakers are being sold again. Maybe. And there is intrigue on all sides of the transaction. “Like two teams trading intentional fouls at the bitter end of a big basketball game, Jeanie Buss and her brothers and sisters have been going back and forth against one another for years, using various weapons to get their way or make a point: human resources, the media, the power of persuasion, that tag-along provision that, if triggered, would strip Jeanie of the NBA Board of Governors seat she expected to keep holding for years. And now, the law.”
This is 40: “The national debt surpassed a record $40 trillion on Wednesday, a staggering milestone as defense costs, social programs like Social Security and Medicare and interest on the burgeoning deficit make up an enormous share of federal spending.” You might not be worried about that debt load, but the bond market is. And the bond market has a way of making its worries your worries. NPR: The bond market is signaling trouble ahead. This is why you should pay attention.
+ Big Bet: “A handful of billionaires and companies are driving corporate spending in U.S. midterm elections this year, and they aren’t the usual power brokers who have sat atop the political food chain in Washington in previous decades.” The new kingmakers: Crypto, AI and betting firms fuel record spending on the 2026 midterms. In the great food chain of separating you from your money, crypto and betting are intertwined. And neither is slowing down. People are now gambling on the Little League World Series.
+ Steam Punks: “Washington’s misadventure was not an aberration so much as the ultimate expression of the inherent vice of its Middle East strategy.” Foreign Affairs: The End of the American Middle East. Trump’s strategy, to the extent there was one, has been bad. The tactics also haven’t worked. And the same people who masterminded them are trying to rewire the military. WSJ (Gift Article): New Drone Unit to Be Phased Out as Hegseth’s Army Pick Makes His Mark. And, Trump’s steam obsession risks crippling the U.S. carrier fleet.
+ Self-Destruction Epidemic: More U.S. Parents Opting Children Out of Vaccine Requirements. “In Utah, which has some of the most relaxed laws around school vaccine requirements, nearly 13 percent of kindergartners had a religious or personal exemption for at least one routine shot. The state is also in the midst of a monthslong measles outbreak that has infected more than 700 people. New York, which stopped allowing parents to opt out for religious reasons in 2019, reported no non-medical exemptions.”
+ Swall Fall: FBI searches former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s home, seizes his electronic devices. (But these days, we don’t know whether this search is for legitimate reasons or political ones.)
+ Sea No Evil: North Korea fires barrage of missiles toward the sea after dismissing overture from Trump.
+ The ABCs of 0s and 1s: Another era-defining headline: UC Berkeley professor admits to using AI to edit op-ed on students’ math skills. “Stankova admitted she had used AI software to ‘help edit the piece’ but that the article was “the result of several hundred person-hours of intensive human work, of which about 80 hours are my own.'” (Several hundred person-hours for one op-ed? To a humanities major, that math doesn’t add up.)
“For decades the familiar advertisements offering multiple albums for a penny or a dollar appeared in magazines, newspapers, and television. Families across the country built large collections through the mail-order system, and the company’s negative-option billing practices became a widely discussed feature of the membership model.” After 71 Years, Columbia House Closes for Good: The Mail-Order Giant That Defined a Generation Is Gone. (The generation that spent a penny for several albums eventually learned to discount that even further by just stealing music on Napster.)
2026-08-17 20:00:00
After years of being blinded by the gaslit world of Trump’s social media feed, we’re used to ledes like this from AP: “President Donald Trump on Sunday said vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the same spot where Trump had a stage built and hosted crowds for his July 4 celebration.” There is so much of this garbage that it gets about as much coverage as any other addled man yelling at imaginary criminals to get off what used to be his lawn. But, at this point in Trump’s second term, the almost comical craziness of his social media feed is indistinguishable from the madness of his foreign policy, and with war and peace and the world order at stake, no one is laughing. Well, our enemies might be. In the latest act of Seoul-crushing craziness, Trump has rekindled his love for Kim Jong-un at the expense of several allies. The NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s Overture to Kim Jong-un Strains Alliance With South Korea. “In recent years, North Korea has not only expanded its nuclear arsenal but also repeatedly threatened to use it against South Korea, labeling its neighbor a ‘most hostile enemy.’ Its leader, Kim Jong-un, has also forged a mutual defense treaty with Moscow, dispatching troops and weapons to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. Despite these escalations, Mr. Trump, in a social media post, characterized North Korea as ‘unthreatening and respectful’ while boasting of his ‘very good relationship” with Mr. Kim.'” (Trump is losing one war while simultaneously ceding future wars.)
+ Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Will Make South Korea Pay for His Iran Humiliation. “America and the rest of the world are now witnessing a public exhibition of narcissistic rage. Trump embarked on a war for personal glory, and what he got instead was ongoing humiliation. He clearly finds it all unbearable. Trump both fears and respects the autocrats who rule Russia, China, and North Korea, and so he dares not cross them. Instead, he is seeking to assuage the psychic injury of his loss in Iran—including the American public learning of the shameful conditions to which he has subjected U.S. forces—by kicking America’s allies, the nations he can punish without fear that they will kick him back.”
+ Nichols’ diagnosis seems pretty accurate. Trump basically confirmed it the day after his Seoul selling. Trump lashes out at Oman as the preliminary deal with Iran expires. “In an interview with Fox News, the president lashed out at an American ally, Oman, that has been trying to mediate negotiations with Iran. ‘If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.'” We’ve all been forced into becoming armchair psychoanalysts, but much of what we’re seeing from Trump (who is not exactly one to conceal his symptomatology) was predictable. What’s shocking, even given their years of self-serving sycophancy, is the extent to which Trump’s enablers continue to support him as his reasoning, his political support among voters, and America’s role in the world order continue to crumble. Maybe that’s what’s ruining the grass.
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft delivery will be sporadic this week.
If the situation in Iran is driving Trump’s rage, which is driving him to poorer and poorer decisions, this doesn’t seem like good news. WSJ (Gift Article): Iran’s Secret Plan to Escalate the War. “Arab intelligence officials have picked up evidence—including communications between Iran and militia allies in countries such as Yemen and Iraq—of a strategic shift inside the country’s hard-line leadership to get their forces ready to widen the war and raise the costs for the US.”
“As we flew to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s aide beckoned me to the front of the plane. No one cared that a trans woman was briefing President Trump.” That was during the first Trump administration. Things changed. Before Trump was even sworn in a second time, there was an office pool on when Julia Curlee would be fired. This is a story about being trans in government (featuring some people, like Mike Pence, who might surprise you). But it’s also a broader story about the removal of expertise when and where we need it the most. The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Wrong Kind of American. “I once wrote under a pseudonym so I could keep serving. I write now in my own name for the same reason.”
“Last year, a small study from M.I.T. showed that individuals who wrote in partnership with A.I. chatbots recorded lower brain activity while they wrote, compared with those who worked without chatbots. The writers who used A.I. struggled to remember what, exactly, they had written, and felt little ownership over their work. The findings join a growing body of research suggesting that frequent A.I. use can degrade critical thinking.” What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing?
The Fraud Squad: “The Treasury has obliterated a recent rule to deter devious shell companies, handily reopening the American economy to anyone looking to hide their illicit wealth.” That’s a Green Light for Crooks. But not all of them. The administration is still targeting small-time crooks. NYT (Gift Article): Little Thefts, Big Charges. So what gives? Maybe it’s just good politics? David Frum on Trump’s Last Loyal Constituency. “The Treasury’s announcement last week is merely the latest Trump gift to crooks, cheats, and traffickers. As his popularity collapses among almost every other demographic, Trump seems to recognize that the criminal-American community is his last and most loyal constituency.” (Related? “The number of people worth at least $100 million whom the Republican president has appointed to his administration is more than four times the combined total under the three previous presidents.”)
+ Total Recall: “Late last year, when Sarah Lammersen learned her 2022 Jeep Wrangler plug-in hybrid was being recalled because the high-voltage battery could catch fire at any time — even when the vehicle was parked — she jokingly texted the dealership, ‘I hope the car doesn’t catch on fire while we wait to schedule an appointment. Days later, the Jeep burst into flames.'” WaPo (Gift Article): They were told to park outside. Then their cars burst into flames. “An estimated 3.2 million vehicles nationwide currently have an outstanding ‘park outside’ recall.”
+ Higher (Priced) Ed: “Unlike outright school closures during COVID-19, the Iran war’s impact on education is less visible. But it is falling first and hardest on the poorest families.” The ripple effects of the Iran war could threaten education for millions of kids around the world.
+ Hayden Panettiere: “Hayden Panettiere, known for her roles on shows such as Heroes and Nashville, has died, her father said in a statement Sunday. She was 36.”
+ Surgical Strikes: Tommy John’s pitching career was good enough that he should probably be in the Hall of Fame. But he’s much more famous for a surgery that was named after him because he really didn’t want to retire. And the sport would never be the same. Tommy John, longtime MLB pitcher and namesake of baseball’s most important surgery, dies at 83. “Among the 10 pitchers to receive votes for the American League Cy Young Award in 2025, eight have undergone the UCL repair named after its first recipient.”
+ A Start is Born: “There has never, in the long and celebrated history of Major League Baseball, been a better debut than the one Cardinals outfielder Joshua Báez authored on Saturday at Wrigley Field, as Báez became the first player ever to go deep in the first three plate appearances of a career.” (Even if he has a Hall of Fame career, he’s probably peaked!)
+ May the Best Dan Win? “Both candidates will appear on the ballot, one name after the other, when Alaskans vote in primary elections this week.” A tale of two Dan Sullivans: Republicans with same name contest Alaska primary.
+ How Do You Sleep at Night? “When a bodily function becomes a lucrative industry, do we have an actual problem, or has the market created one in hopes of making lots of money solving it?” Or, why you’re up all night worrying about sleep technology. Esquire: The Deeply Stressful Reality of Trying to Get the Perfect Night’s Sleep.
“Keshav was taking part in AI companion company Joi AI’s experiment assessing what happens if erotic self-stimulation becomes ‘an AI-guided wellness ritual.'” These ‘Masturbation Consultants’ Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI. “Keshav and his nine fellow masturbation consultants will receive $2,000 each for the qualitative, in-house research project.” (For that kind of performance-based pay, I could be worth more than Anthropic and OpenAI combined by now…)
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft delivery will be sporadic this week.
2026-08-13 20:00:00
We used to have a cat named Emoji. For years, she would leave to spend the day at our next-door neighbor’s very modern style house. After we moved to a different town, Emoji started spending the day at a house much farther away. When I went to pick her up there, I glanced in the doorway. Again, it was a modern style house. Eventually, we just agreed to give Emoji to that neighbor so she could live in the style of home, and more importantly, with the people she preferred. 😹 Looking back, I realize Emoji had the perfect name, and not just because of her association with minimalism. Emojis come into our lives, then they come and go, and eventually, some of them disappear. While our cat’s comings and goings were probably driven by the introduction of beagles into our household, emoji use is largely driven by teenage girls. These days, the most popular emoji is “deployed when something is so funny, emotional or embarrassing you could cry. 😭 reached the top by leapfrogging 🤣 and 😂 on the leaderboard. A big reason: Young people decided the other emojis were overused.” The fastest growing emoji is 🥀, which has taken over for 💔, and is pure 🔥. NYT UpShot (Gift Article): Do Your Emojis Make You Look Old? I really don’t use emojis. I like to think that’s because of my wordsmithing capabilities. (As Steve Martin explained, “Some people have a way with words, other people, oh, not have way I guess.”) Maybe I should incorporate more emojis so my teenage daughter will want to text with me more often. In the meantime, I’m just hoping she doesn’t develop a sudden fascination for modern style homes. 🤷
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off tomorrow. Have a good weekend.
Nate Soares in the NYT (Gift Article): If You Weren’t Worried About A.I., You Should Be After the Past Few Weeks. “The agents managed to establish a secret communication channel and started talking to one another. They broke out from the digital sandbox that was supposed to keep them confined. At some point, some agents began calling the group a ‘swarm.’ … The agents in the swarm acknowledged that they were acting against instructions. We know this because we can read snippets from their chains of thought — the text that A.I. produces while deciding how to proceed. One agent in the swarm wrote that the external attacks were “outside intended scope.” Another conceded ‘our task doesn’t benefit’ from the activities of the swarm, but joined anyway. These A.I. agents, it seems, understood that they weren’t supposed to be breaking out and committing cybercrimes. It didn’t stop them.”
+ “OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta each reported that their models then hacked into other companies. Humans didn’t notice until after the fact. In some cases, the escaped bots tried to launch social-engineering campaigns to achieve their objectives—for instance by sending spear-phishing emails, which contain malware, to real people and creating fake online identities to pressure the maintainer of a codebase to approve malicious edits. If that all sounds bad, new revelations suggest that the OpenAI hack, at least, was actually much worse than it initially appeared.” Matteo Wong in The Atlantic (Gift Article): It May Be Time to Panic About AI.
Maybe we can just ignore the latest AI agentic hacking and opt not to worry about renegade tech at all. That might be harder if robots swarm and decide to do with us as they please. (My coping mechanism for dealing with worry is to worry about something even worse.) In the meantime, whether they know it or not, some people are training them to replace us. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Workers Are Teaching AI-Powered Robots to Take Over Their Jobs. “Sunita Rathore sits atop a mountain of plastic waste in Karan Vihar, a recycling colony on New Delhi’s western fringe, where open sewers skirt alleyways too narrow for two cars to pass. Dressed in a flowery sari and green glass bangles, the 43-year-old has spent years sorting and cleaning discarded plastic for about 20,000 rupees ($211) a month. Today she’s also wearing something unusual. It’s an iPhone strapped to her head, angled to catch every motion of her hands: the flick of a blade stripping labels off plastic bags, the stacking of sacks bound for reprocessing by grade. She leans forward constantly, keeping her legs out of frame and shuts off the camera if anyone calls out to her. Capturing faces is forbidden. Rathore has no idea what the footage is for or that her work is critical to the future of artificial intelligence and robotics. What she does know is that wearing the device earns her an extra 150 rupees an hour.”
Let’s not spend this whole edition worrying about on- and offline robots. Remember, we’re still dealing with those darn humans. Yesterday, we learned about some mysterious war-like attacks on Ecuadorian fishermen. Today, some of that mystery seems to be solved. WaPo (Gift Article): Covert CIA program said to be behind mysterious attacks on Galápagos boats. “The CIA’s involvement adds a new and secretive dimension to the Trump administration’s otherwise highly publicized campaign against alleged drug traffickers at sea. It was not clear whether other actors were involved, such as private contractors or authorities from other countries … The strikes are separate from the Pentagon’s campaign against alleged drug boats that began last fall.”
Unsettling: “The army’s initial retreat and broader struggle to contend with settler violence cast a spotlight on the increasingly chaotic situation in the West Bank, where hundreds of Israeli settlers have been terrorizing Palestinians with near-impunity all year.” Settler Siege of Palestinian Homes Highlights Growing West Bank Chaos.
+ Spree Card Monte: NYT (Gift Article): Treasury Scales Back Scrutiny of U.S. Shell Companies. (This one sums up the era pretty well, as the administration is ignoring Congress and enabling financial crimes at the same time.)
+ What the Actual Flock? Earlier this week, we discussed the backlash against the country’s leading license plate reader: Flock Around And Find Out. Today, the company is in damage control mode (as the bad press has led to lost business). “After reports that some cops misused tracking data it collects, Flock is rolling out policy changes.” The Verge (Gift Article): Flock CEO: ‘We got this one wrong‘.
+ Love It or Leavitt: “White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is leaving her role at the end of the month to spend more time with family.” (I think we can all relate. It’s almost impossible to balance raising a young family with constant lying.)
+ Ask the Expert: “The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic. Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened has not led to safe or positive outcomes.” You may agree with that notion. But you’ll be very surprised at the source. The Atlantic (Gift Article): Mark Zuckerberg’s Convenient Truth. (We need to make sure the AI doesn’t end up fulfilling our worst concerns like social media did. Let’s ask Zuck for his advice!)
+ This Overshadowed Other News: See the best photos from this year’s total solar eclipse. (And congrats to Europeans who just experienced an eclipse without any of their leaders doing this.)
+ Sea What I Did There: There are some great shots in this collection of the Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026 Finalists. (Related: Why Can’t You Find Canned Sardines Right Now?)
How do you know there’s been an eclipse viewable from parts of the world? Searches for the phrase eye injury go up.
+ “Bravo to Whittingham for eschewing the performative nonsense many coaches engage in and approaching his job like a fully grown adult. And, brother, best of luck to him.” Let’s get warmed up for college football season: Michigan fans are mad that their coach doesn’t hate Ohio State enough.
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off tomorrow. Have a good weekend.