2025-10-31 20:00:00
We’re not even a year into the second Pumpkinhead presidency and you already want to Scream. You Saw it coming and you’ve considered whether you should Get Out of the country (or at least root for the Canadian team in the World Series) as you witness Frankenstein’s re-animated political Psycho—along with the nonstop Creepshow from the Right of the Living Dead—orchestrate The Vanishing of our democratic norms. Are we as Hellbound as we feel? Will the constant Howling that has turned the news cycle into a Nightmare on Overwhelm Street from Dusk to Dawn ever offer us the respite of a Quiet Place? Or is that quiet we hear coming from the Silence of the Lambs who have long ignored The Omen and think this will all pass without a political Exorcism? It turns out you’re not the only who’s noticed an American Werewolf trying to turn our democracy into the Don of the Dead. The NYT Editorial Board (Gift Article) has a handy, if scary, horror-card. Are We Losing Our Democracy? “Countries that slide from democracy toward autocracy tend to follow similar patterns. To measure what is happening in the United States, the Times editorial board has compiled a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion, with help from scholars who have studied this phenomenon. The sobering reality is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.” (This Halloween, I thought about dressing up as the Constitution, but I was afraid no one would recognize me…)
+ Maybe I’ll just wear my NextDraft Pro Democracy hoodie. It’s a pretty unique look these days.
“There is no doubt that the six billion dollars in contingency funds are appropriated funds that are without a doubt necessary to carry out the program’s operation. The shutdown of the government through funding doesn’t do away with SNAP. It just does away with the funding of it. There could be no greater necessity than the prohibition across the board of funds for the program’s operations.” Federal judge orders Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits out of contingency fund. Now, we’ll have to see if the administration actually pays out the money authorized by one branch of government and ordered released by another. After all, they’re the ones who came up with the idea of starving the poorest Americans to score political points. It took a federal judge to say families should still be fed.
I keep writing about the AI tech boom (and potential bust) for a few reasons. One, like many other people, my stock portfolio has long been filled with tech heavy stocks (which makes me feel like a genius). Two, it’s a boom that is powering a remarkable portion of the American economy. And three, a lot about it worries me. “America appears to be, at the moment, in a sort of benevolent hostage situation. AI-related spending now contributes more to the nation’s GDP growth than all consumer spending combined, and by another calculation, those AI expenditures accounted for 92 percent of GDP growth during the first half of 2025. Since the launch of ChatGPT, in late 2022, the tech industry has gone from making up 22 percent of the value in the S&P 500 to roughly one-third.” Matteo Wong and Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Here’s How the AI Crash Happens. “Listen to the AI crowd talk enough, and you’ll get a sense that we may be on the cusp of an infrastructure boom. And yet, something strange is happening to the economy. Even as tech stocks have skyrocketed since 2022, the companies’ share of net profits from S&P 500 companies has hardly budged. Job openings have fallen despite a roaring stock market, 22 states are in or near a recession, and despite data centers propping up the construction industry, U.S. manufacturing is in decline. It’s clear that AI is both drowning out and obscuring other stories about the wobbling American economy. That’s a concern. But even worse: What if AI’s promise for American business proves to be a mirage? What happens then?” (For one thing, I’ll feel like less like a genius and more like a crash test dummy.)
+ WaPo: One force is propping up the economy. Now it’s getting stronger.
+ NYT: How OpenAI Uses Complex and Circular Deals to Fuel Its Multibillion-Dollar Rise.
+ I covered these deals in more detail last week: The Circular File.
What to Binge: Dark Winds (with three seasons now on Netflix) “follows Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee, and Bernadette Manuelito of the Navajo Tribal Police solving mysteries and serving justice as their reservation is besieged by a series of increasingly violent crimes in the 1970s.” Even though the crimes are violent, the pace and vibe of the show is calmingly chill.
+ What to Book: The Buckeye by Patrick Ryan is a sweeping story of two families in a small town during a big war.
+ What to Watch: Stephen Colbert has an excellent sit-down interview with Anthony Hopkins. Maybe this is what Colbert will do post Late Show.
Just a Matter of Ven: “The Trump Administration has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald, as the U.S. prepares to initiate the next stage of its campaign against the Soles drug cartel.” And from WaPo: As U.S. ramps up the pressure, Venezuela pleads with Moscow, Beijing for help.
+ Bad to Worse: Hundreds killed in Darfur hospital massacre, ‘hero’ doctors abducted.
+ Brotherly Shove: “King Charles III on Thursday stripped his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after weeks of pressure to act over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.” (If real kings punish people for their Epstein involvement, shouldn’t fake kings do the same?)
+ AI Means Never Having to Say Your Sorry: “Confronted with allegations that they had cheated in an introductory data science course and fudged their attendance, dozens of undergraduates at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recently sent two professors a mea culpa via email. But there was one problem, a glaring one: They had not written the emails. Artificial intelligence had.” (Even AI is like, sorry kids, you’re on your own from here on out…)
+ Remote Controlled: If I come knocking on your door around the time of the Cal football game on Saturday, this will be why. “YouTube TV viewers can no longer see Disney channels including ABC and ESPN after the two sides failed to agree on a new content distribution deal.”
+ Meatheads: “It was only with the advent of modern factory farming that meat became so reliable and ubiquitous that Americans can now eat it three times a day.” Vox (Gift Article) on The myth of the carnivore caveman.
+ Primetime Number: Dictionary.com says 6-7 is the word of the year. No one even knows what it means. (I’ve always assumed it was like 69 for slightly uncoordinated people.)
The world is experiencing a solar boom that has vastly outperformed expectations and tempered pessimism around climate change.
+ WaPo (Gift Article): She hiked the entire Appalachian Trail at 80, unaware she’d just made history.
+ Triplets, 18, are aiming to represent Jamaica in the Winter Olympics: ‘We do everything together.’
+ Messages in a bottle from WWI soldiers found on Australian coast.
+ NYT: Study Finds Evidence That Text-Based Therapy Eases Depression.
+ One for the Bay Area crowd. She’s one of the Bay Area’s favorite TV hosts. 5 years of hell won’t stop her.
2025-10-30 20:00:00
Maybe the best way to describe the much-anticipated, high-stakes meeting between Trump and Xi in South Korea is to borrow a phrase often attributed to the famous economist Yogi Berra: “It’s like deja vu all over again.” Because, after a year of bluster, threats, and market moving social media posts, it sure looks like we’re back where we started; although, now, China is more certain that it can exert its leverage to fend off Trumpian tactics, and even leave Trump thinking (or at least saying) he won. Trump pumped his fist as he boarded Air Force One to depart the meeting and channeled an adjusted for inflation Nigel Tufnel, explaining that, “On the scale from zero to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12.” The moment reminded me of an old TikTok clip of a boxer who got hit so hard that he thought he won the fight. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Trump got nothing. It’s just that a lot of what he got, we already had. I’m no bean counter, but even an old Humanties major can do the math on this part of the agreement: “The Chinese promise to buy at least 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually for next three years will bring their purchases back in line with where they were at before President Donald Trump launched his trade war.” Soy vey…
+ “Mr. Xi also seemed to grasp what Mr. Trump needed, a deal that he could sell as a victory at home. The outcome allowed Mr. Trump to claim a win for American farmers and companies, even though China had largely restored the status quo by agreeing to buy soybeans and to hold off on further restricting the export of rare earths.” NYT (Gift Article): The Art of Letting Trump Claim a Win, While Walking Away Stronger.
+ “The agreement is likely to only stabilize relations between the two countries rather than resolve fundamental differences, with both sides buying time to further reduce dependence on each other in strategic areas.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Trump-Xi Truce Buys Time in Broader Fight for Dominance and Leverage. (The 2025 news cycle might make it the first year in human history where having more time seems like a negative.)
+ Defcon Don: The meeting and its aftermath were somewhat overshadowed by a Trump social media post (that was riddled with misinformation) in which he stated that he has instructed the Pentagon to re-start nuclear testing. Tom Nichols in The Atlantic: Trump Is Very Confused About Nuclear Weapons. “Resuming nuclear testing is a terrible idea, not only because it would undermine America’s long-standing commitment to restraining a global arms race, but because detonating warheads to see if they actually work hasn’t been necessary in a very long time.” Was Trump trying to distract from his Xi meeting? Was he reacting to Putin’s claim to have tested a long range weapon? Was he just riffing? Whatever the motivation, the world’s most dangerous person is posting orders about the world’s most dangerous weapons in an era when there’s been zero indication that anyone in his administration or party plans to stand up to him about anything. It’s like a mushroom cloud on mushrooms.
“The desperate desire of Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden to avoid any appearance of partisanship led the department to put off looking into evidence of a potential crime and gave Mr. Trump an advantage that few appreciated at the time. Mr. Garland’s delays softened the ground and would eventually help Mr. Trump remake the Justice Department into his own cudgel.” The always excellent Carol Leonnig with a not so excellent reality check from inside the Justice Department. NYT (Gift Article): All It Took for Trump to Dismantle the Justice Dept. “The cumulative damage done to the once-respected Justice Department is so profound that it may not regain any semblance of its former self in our lifetimes, warn career law enforcement officials with whom we have spoken. It’s impossible to discount as hyperbole the alarm that these longtime civil servants are sounding from inside the house.”
“The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.” US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans.
“The edits were easy to miss: The description on the front of the Mr. Goodbar wrapper changed from ‘milk chocolate with peanuts’ to ‘chocolate candy with peanuts.’ Almond Joy is now marketed as a “coconut and almond chocolate candy bar.’ Rolos are now wrapped in ‘rich chocolate candy’ instead of ‘milk chocolate.'” What’s Missing From Your Favorite Chocolate Bar? It May Be Chocolate. “As a reporter who covers the climate, I’d read about global warming contributing to drought in West Africa and sending cocoa prices through the roof, and I knew candy companies had raised prices and shrunk portions. But could it be that they were also tinkering with the makeup of the candy itself? Yes, it turns out.” (Everyone is choc full of it these days…)
Ask for Da Moon: “Changpeng Zhao, crypto’s richest man, flew home from a California jail a year ago to recuperate in a secluded neighborhood of $30 million villas on a white-sand island here. He worked on his kite-surfing, caught up with friends in beachside clubs and kept his 100-foot yacht, Da Moon, moored nearby.” It was there that he plotted a comeback for his company (that would require a presidential pardon). And it worked. And it serves as an example for how things are done in today’s America. WSJ (Gift Article): How a Billionaire Felon Boosted Trump’s Crypto Company en Route to a Pardon.
+ Sick Joke: “A number of viral infections, including flu, Covid-19 and shingles, are linked to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, a new study affirmed.” Covid and Flu Can Triple Your Risk of Heart Attack. (If only humanity had come up with an effective method to reduce the chances of you getting those infections…)
+ Operation Desert Norm: “The Pentagon has ordered thousands of specialized National Guard personnel to complete civil unrest mission training over the next several months, an indication that the Trump administration’s effort to send uniformed military forces into urban centers – once reserved for extraordinary emergencies – could become the norm.”
+ The Other Chips Business: Chipotle just had a really bad quarter. The reasons why might tell us about more than the just the fake burrito business. Gen Z and millennials burdened by student debt and unemployment stay away.
+ All Your Base Are Belong to Us: “It is an ominous marker of the nation’s polarization, to which the Trump administration has itself contributed, that some of those top public servants have felt a need to separate themselves from the public. These civilian officials can now depend on the U.S. military to augment their personal security.” Top Trump Officials Are Moving Onto Military Bases.
+ Single A for Effort: The 2025 World Series continues to feature some unthinkable performances. Consider Toronto’s Game 5 pitcher Trey Yesavage. He started the year playing in the lowest level of the minors and his salary is so low (he made about 60K this season) that he will see a meaningful upside from his playoff bonus. And he completely dominated one of the best lineups ever assembled. “This playoff paycheck is going to be nice.”
“When someone asks if you’re a good parallel parker, there should be no hesitation, because you already know. You’re either a Parallel Parking Wu-Tang Master, sliding into that spot with silent swagger, or you’re a member of the Curb Kisser Club, whispering a prayer and hoping no one’s watching. There’s no in-between, just legends and white-knucklers.” Car and Driver: Yes, There’s a Parallel Parking Championship, and I Was a Contender.
2025-10-29 20:00:00
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The opposite is also true. That’s particularly bad news for frontline firefighters who can spend hundreds if not thousands of hours sucking in poisonous particles, which adds a potentially deadly long term risk to the short term risk they’re taking in the line of fire. And believe it or not, until recently, many of these firefighters weren’t even allowed to wear face masks. In the NYT (Gift Article) Hannah Dreier and Eli Murray cut through the smokescreen to investigate something the Forest Service hasn’t, by measuring just how hazardous the air near fires can get. The answer won’t surprise anyone in the La Grande Hotshots firefighting crew. “One longtime member died last year after being diagnosed at 40 with brain cancer. A former crew leader is being treated for both leukemia and lymphoma diagnosed in his 40s. Another colleague was recently told that he has the lungs of a lifelong chain-smoker.” Inside the Poisonous Smoke Killing Wildfire Fighters at Young Ages.
“To glimpse the future of homelessness policy in the age of President Trump, consider 16 acres of scrubby pasture on the outskirts of Salt Lake City where the state plans to place as many as 1,300 homeless people in what supporters call a services campus and critics deem a detention camp … While the Utah effort began before Mr. Trump’s return to office, it mirrors his pledge to move the homeless from urban cores to ‘tent cities’ with services.” NYT (Gift Article): In Utah, Trump’s Vision for Homelessness Begins to Take Shape.
“The building, a large warehouse, was surrounded by a thick fence and dotted at regular intervals with security cameras. I went through a turnstile, where I was greeted by a security guard wearing a bulletproof vest and a holstered Taser. After surrendering my phone, I took two lime-green earplugs from a dispenser and entered the facility.” The New Yorker’s Stephen Witt enters one of the buildings that is driving a massive part of the American economy. Inside the Data Centers That Train A.I. and Drain the Electrical Grid. “A data center, which can use as much electricity as Philadelphia, is the new American factory, creating the future and propping up the economy. How long can this last?” (And will this form of computing, like many before it, shrink in size. Will you eventually be able to fit a data center in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me…)
+ You’ve gotta give Witt some credit for actually getting inside a couple data centers. Most people only see them from the outside, and often can’t even find out who’s running them. How NDAs keep AI data center details hidden from Americans. (Big tech demands you share everything about yourself but shares very little in return.)
+ How big is this business? Nvidia becomes first $5 trillion company in history.
WSJ (Gift Article): Why Tech Bros Are Getting Face-Lifts Now. “Factors at play: Ozempic, the pandemic and the pressure to remain youthful-looking in a competitive job market.” (One other factor: Working remotely, we all got a good look at ourselves on Zoom. That’s when I confirmed that I have a face for newsletters.)
Islands in the Stream: “Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica as a catastrophic Category 5 storm with top winds of 185 mph, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, before moving onto Cuba. But even countries outside the direct path of the massive storm, like Haiti and the Dominican Republic, felt its devastating impact.” The strongest storm ever to hit Jamaica is moving onto to other places, with deadly results. Here’s the latest from AP, BBC, and NBC. And here are some photos from Jamaica.
+ Volunteer Jerker: Considering all the science-related cuts and the government shutdown, how is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeping tabs on Melissa? Answer: Volunteers. Volunteers Step In to Help Understaffed NOAA Track Hurricane Melissa. Meanwhile, the government shutdown could cost U.S. economy up to $14 billion.
+ Arc de Triumph the Comic Insult Dog: Trump fires federal arts board in charge of reviewing White House ballroom and ‘Arc de Trump.’ (The arc of history is bends toward just plain ugly.)
+ This Might Be of Interest: “The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved its second straight interest rate cut, a widely expected move that came despite little recent visibility on the economy due to the government shutdown.”
+ Grok of Shit: “Grokipedia is the brainchild of Elon Musk and his startup xAI, and the billionaire is promoting it as a supposedly less woke and less biased version of Wikipedia. Musk’s goal? ‘The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.'” Grokipedia is racist, transphobic, and loves Elon Musk.
+ Virtual and Valor: “A new kind of star is being created in South Korea, the cradle of global K-pop sensations such as BTS and Blackpink. Virtual idols — once niche subcultures of chronically online teenagers and twentysomethings steeped in anime and video games — are surging into the mainstream.” The metaverse is rewriting the rules of who can be a K-pop star. (Or put another way: I’ve been doing pilates three times a week for nothing.)
+ We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Backend: “‘I cannot be flawless and perfect like an AI model that is created to be [that way],’ says performer Victoria Peaks.” OpenAI’s embrace of ‘erotica’ is causing ripples in the p-rn world. (And you think we need a lot of data centers now?)
+ In Other News… Sometimes headlines that would have shocked us in other eras just seem ho hum in 2025. Examples: Japan to Send Troops to Help Stop Bear Attacks. And… Monkeys escape from overturned truck on Mississippi highway.
“There was a disconnect, I noticed, between the speculative musings about what might be possible in a technologically enhanced future and the banal exigencies of living in a semi-communal environment. Who could arrange for a grocery store run? What were the social activities planned for the evening? Where was the trash room, and could people please remember to clean the shared kitchen? Even this futuristic city could not avoid the realities of humans cohabitating, and I started to feel that I was bunking in a college dormitory. One evening, someone got stung by a scorpion, and medical care had to be sought outside Próspera, which didn’t have a doctor who could treat it.” The Island Where People Go to Cheat Death.
+ “Skijoring is a high-adrenaline, low-temperature sport that involves a horse and its rider pulling a skier through a snow-packed obstacle course at full speed.” (I hadn’t heard of this until five minutes ago and I already know it’s my worst sport.)
2025-10-28 20:00:00
Back in the early days of the web, a remarkable service launched. It was called Kozmo. You could go online and order a few movies and several snacks, and a little while later a bike messenger would knock on your door and hand over your items. Just like that, without leaving your pot-smoke filled apartment, you’d be eating and watching. My wife and I used to look out our window and giggle in disbelief as the messenger approached. Aside from our children being born, these were the greatest deliveries of our lives. Of course, today, home delivery has grown by orders of magnitude and an entire industry has been built to order to convey your every need from anywhere to your front stoop. Your power to issue orders is limitless. “An entire commercial mechanism will have whirred to life the moment you clicked ‘Place order,’ one that is part of an industry that barely existed 15 years ago but now brings in tens of billions of dollars in revenue annually.” While Kozmo deliveries occasionally changed an evening, modern delivery has changed the entire restaurant industry, and more. “The fanciest, most famous restaurants are still doing mostly table service, but just about every other establishment has been conscripted into the army that ferries hot food out of professional kitchens and into American mouths 24 hours a day, 365 days a year … In effect, delivery has reversed the flow of eaters to food, and remade a shared experience into a much more individual one. If communities used to clench like a fist around their restaurants, now they look more like an open palm, fingers stretched out as far as possible, or at least to the edge of the delivery radius.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Innovation That’s Killing Restaurant Culture. “Convenience is like sex: Once you’ve had it, it’s hard to forget how good it is to have it.” (Funny, it seems like I had a lot more convenience back in the Kozmo era…)
The NBA betting scandal could represent a much broader problem when it comes to being able to trust sports aren’t tarnished. It definitely represents a much broader societal problem when it comes to gambling. “What started for fans as once a season became every day, and is now a constant stream of action. DraftKings and FanDuel allow gamblers to bet on virtually any moment in nearly any game happening almost anywhere. The friends I used to play video games with now fire off parlays before lunch, during the afternoon games and when they’re struggling to go to bed. They’ll gamble on almost everything: Sunday football, Korean baseball, Lithuanian table tennis.” NYT (Gift Article): Gambling Is Killing Sports and Consuming America. (The latter item in that headline is a sure bet.)
+ There’s a much more efficient way to make big money in sports. First, become a college football coach. Then, get fired. $54m to walk: getting fired as a college football coach is a booming industry.
“Hours before the storm, the Jamaican government said it had done all it could to prepare as it warned of catastrophic damage. The streets in the capital, Kingston, remained largely empty except for the lone stray dog crossing puddles and a handful of people walking briskly under tree branches waving in a stiff wind.” Hurricane Melissa expected to hit Jamaica as its strongest storm since records began. Here’s more from the NYT and BBC.
+ US Air Force provides views from inside Hurricane Melissa. And some webcam footage from Jamaica.
I think I finally found something that can get Los Angeles liberals to stop worrying about democracy. At least for a few hours. Last night’s 18-inning World Series Game 3 may have been the best World Series game ever. It went on so long, at one point I worried it would run into Opening Day. While the headlines are about the heroics of Freddie Freeman (another World Series walkoff) and Shohei Ohtani (two homers, two doubles, five walks, and an out call at second that proved he’s human which makes him all the more unbelievable) the game was really won by some relatively unknown relief pitchers. Freddie Freeman hits walk-off HR to end 18-inning epic. (As a Giants fan, I’m just hoping this game tires the Dodgers out for next season…)
+ “The powers that be have tried to make baseball behave. They have strictly restricted the time between pitches. They have tampered with once-sacrosanct rules to ensure that extra innings aren’t too extra. They have made the sport more predictable, more pliable, more presentable, more marketable. For much of the year, they have made major league games into activities it’s possible to plan around. In pursuit of popularity and profit, they have tried to break baseball like a bucking bronco. They have tried to make it conform. But baseball is incorrigible, and it will not be bound.” The Dodgers’ Game 3 Win Was a Series Unto Itself.
+ The Dodgers’ historic World Series Game 3 victory, by the numbers. (I only wish my friends who are Dodgers fans would lose mine.)
Judge, Jury, Executioner: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that the U.S. military has carried out three strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean against boats accused of carrying drugs, killing 14 people and leaving one survivor.” And from Bloomberg (Gift Article): Hegseth Is Waging War Against the Laws of War. (He’s getting a pretty big assist from lawmakers.)
+ Stupid Is as Stupid Sues: “Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, sued the makers of Tylenol on Tuesday, claiming that the companies hid the risks of the drug on brain development of children. The lawsuit is the latest fallout from President Trump’s claim last month that use of Tylenol during pregnancy can cause autism. That link is unproven.” (The more this story evolves, the more I need a Tylenol.)
+ AI Yai Yai: No one knows for sure how AI will impact employment. But we can probably get some key indicators by looking to early adopters that are already widely deploying the technology. And, uh, Amazon to cut about 14,000 corporate jobs in AI push.
+ Profit Sharing: OpenAI Completes For-Profit Transition, Pushing Microsoft Above $4 Trillion Valuation. And Apple just became the third company in history to crack $4 trillion market value.
+ Pace Makers: “The Trump administration is planning to replace some regional leaders at Immigration and Customs Enforcement with Border Patrol officials in an attempt to intensify its mass deportations effort amid growing frustration with the pace of daily arrests.” Over and over, we’re seeing the extremists squeezing out the moderates (who are often pretty extreme).
+ Rewriting the Rules: “There’s no better leading indicator of market psychology than real-time covenant changes, which show where the smart money is quietly hedging. Right now, the smart money is fortifying against a downturn.” WSJ (Gift Article): A Private-Credit Winter Is Coming.
+ No Weigh: “The obesity rate dropped to 37% of U.S. adults this year, down from a high of 39.9% three years ago.” Weight loss drugs are bringing down the country’s obesity rate.
“The emergence of clipping shows just how much social media has changed since the early days as a platform for user-generated content. Videos that once seemed unusual or spontaneous and became instant topics of chitchat have given way to orchestrated marketing efforts. These advertising videos pop up in your social media feed and look like they could be from any random superfan.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Paid Armies of ‘Clippers’ Boost Internet Stars Like MrBeast.
2025-10-27 20:00:00
How are things going in the economy these days? Well, that depends if you’re playing the market or if you can’t afford to shop in one. If you’re investing, especially in the AI/tech driven market, things are going really well. Bad news doesn’t seem to register and good news is driving a boom. The economy looks a lot less bullish if you’re one of the 42 million or so Americans who rely on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to feed your family. For these Americans, things are going from bad to worse. “Food banks across the United States were stretched thin even before the federal government shut down. Rising food prices had driven a growing number of people to their doors. Cuts to federal programs had left them with less to give. Now, that system — a last resort for tens of millions of hungry Americans — is anticipating an even greater surge in demand. With no end in sight to the nearly monthlong federal government shutdown, funding for the nation’s largest food assistance program, known as SNAP, will disappear at the start of November.” NYT (Gift Article): Food Banks Brace for Overwhelming Demand as SNAP Cutoff Looms. The government shutdown is driving this story at the moment. But, of course, there’s a broader question here. In supposedly economic good times, why are more than 40 million people in the world’s richest country unable to afford to eat? If there’s one story that underpins all other American stories, it’s the economic divide. It’s the divide that powers most of our other divides. And like those other divides, it’s only getting more divided.
+ The “knowledge economy is accelerating away from most people, not flattening out or becoming more accessible through AI. Rather than creating more opportunity for low-skilled workers, it’s removing opportunities they might otherwise have had and, at the same time, increasing the advantages of highly skilled workers. The bottom 60% effectively lose twice, while AI functions to amplify inequality rather than level the playing field.” Ray Dalio sees a vast American underclass increasingly dependent on the top 1%.
+ While a huge swath of America is wondering if food will be available in November, a small sliver of America is busy buying private jets… to save money. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Private Jets and Car Washes Are the Latest Tax Shields for the Ultrarich.
+ Meanwhile, if you can’t afford a vacation, an AI app will sell you pictures of one.
“Ana paced on the sidewalk at 68th and Figueroa, her front teeth missing and an ostomy bag taped down under her hot pink lingerie. She surveyed the intersection in South Central Los Angeles, where preteens were hobbling in stilettos and G-strings. It was a Tuesday night this January, and Ana knew that most of the girls longed for a coat or gloves — anything to keep them warm — but covering up was not an option. Their eyes were cast down, but their hands waved mechanically at every car, angling for another customer to help meet their traffickers’ quotas.” Some excellent reporting by Emily Baumgaertner Nunn in the NYT Magazine (Gift Article): Can Anyone Rescue the Trafficked Girls of L.A.’s Figueroa Street? “Over the years, the Blade had become much busier than when Ana started: more girls, more customers, more traffickers idling in their Hellcats and Porsches on the side streets, watching to make sure their girls didn’t hide any money and didn’t snitch. Ana had seen the Blade expand from three main intersections of Figueroa to more than three miles. She had met girls brought in from the East Coast and the Deep South, and there sometimes seemed to be four times as many minors as before — easy to spot by their over-the-top makeup and unsteady gait. The police helicopters Ana used to notice hovering overhead with search lights seemed to become infrequent. Eventually, she said, they disappeared completely.” It makes you wonder. In a era when were spending so many resources fighting the hyped-up threat of an imaginary invasion, what if we put the same kind of effort into solving real, long term problems?
“The U.S. hasn’t sent this many ships to the Caribbean since the Cuban missile crisis. There are already roughly 6,500 Marines and sailors in the region, operating from eight Navy vessels, as well as 3,500 troops nearby. Once the Ford arrives, the U.S. will have roughly as many ships in the Caribbean as it used to defend Israel from Iranian missile strikes this summer. The carrier strike group also provides far more firepower than is necessary for the occasional attack on narco-trafficking targets. But the ships could be ideal for launching a steady stream of air strikes inside Venezuela.” Some experts don’t think these moves are all about targeting speed boats. The Atlantic (Gift Article): The U.S. Is Preparing for War in Venezuela.
“Mackenzie Dryden’s happiest childhood memories are of running barefoot through the sunlit corn fields of her hometown. But when she was diagnosed with cancer 2½ years ago at 18 years old, a disturbing thought began to take hold.
Could something in the land she loved have made her sick?” WaPo (Gift Article): The mysterious rise of cancer among young adults in the Corn Belt.
+ The New Republic: Of Corn and Cancer: Iowa’s Deadly Water Crisis.
Melissa: “We’re witnessing satellite history.” That’s not what anyone in Jamaica wants to hear about the incoming Hurricane Melissa. WaPo: Monster hurricane to hit Jamaica. And here’s the latest from The Guardian: Hurricane Melissa strengthens to category 5 as communities in Jamaica warned of ‘potentially unimaginable impact.’
+ You Can Check Out Anytime You Like, But You Can Never Louvre: “Two suspects with a history of jewel thefts had been tracked for days after their DNA was recovered from the museum and were arrested shortly before one of them was set to board a flight out of the country.” Hunt on for remaining Louvre thieves after first arrests made.
+ Roach Clip: “The 2008 financial crisis occurred in part because banks and other financial institutions were offering too many mortgages to borrowers who couldn’t plausibly repay them. When enough bad loans began caving in at the same time, they sucked big banks and the rest of the economy into the sinkhole along with them. Banks today are subject to stricter regulations, which have largely functioned as intended, keeping banks from making as many risky loans. Filling the void has been private credit.” NYT (Gift Article): How Bad Is Finance’s Cockroach Problem? We Are About to Find Out.
+ Source-ry: Wired: Chatbots Are Pushing Sanctioned Russian Propaganda. (Consider the source material.)
+ Pet Peeve: “It is out there — the concept of ‘pawtism.'” Vaccine Skepticism Comes for Pet Owners, Too. (My beagles choose to do their own research.)
+ His Constitution is Strong. America’s? Not So Much: Trump Says a Recent M.R.I. Scan Was ‘Perfect,’ and He’d ‘Love’ a Third Term.
+ Spinning Off: “Sheridan is one of the industry’s biggest talents, creating the Yellowstone franchise (along with its multitude of spinoffs like 1923 and 1883), the Sylvester Stallone-led franchise Tulsa King and other programming for Paramount, like Special Ops: Lioness and Mayor of Kingstown.” Taylor Sheridan to Leave Paramount for NBCUniversal. (He seems to write all of their hits, so this is a pretty big deal.)
“Others might have celebrated with a victory lap, a glass of wine, or the afternoon off. Not Šobat. He changed, packed his gear, and met his wife and daughter in the parking lot. They didn’t mention the record once. And besides, it was his turn to clean the bathroom.” The Man Who Held His Breath for 24 Minutes. (I can only hold my breath for a few seconds, but I hold my nose the whole time I read the news…)
+ Drone photo winners will amaze your eyeballs.
+ Dole breeds pineapple that tastes like piña colada. (That’s great, but I ordered a piña colada that tastes like pineapple.)
2025-10-24 20:00:00
It was inevitable. That opening from Love in the Time Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez is one of the most famous lines in literature. Too bad it’s taken, because it also works as a pretty decent intro to the news that the mingling of professional sports and big time gambling operations has quickly led to scandals. García Márquez’ inevitability refers to “the scent of bitter almonds.” The NBA’s current scandal is all about the scent of money. The league, like its professional counterparts, has historically worked to keep a distance from anything even remotely connected to betting. A few years ago, with the legalization of sports gambling presenting an irresistible upside, what was once kept at arm’s length has been fully embraced. “For the last seven years, anyone who cares about sports has been conditioned to accept that gambling goes hand-in-hand with the activity of watching a game. We turn on a podcast, we get an offer code from a betting app. We read a story, we get the pop-up ad directing us to check out the odds. Even when we go to an arena in certain markets, you walk right past the sports book before getting to your seat.” Hence, wagering that a scandal would emerge was about the safest bet you could have made. Dan Wolken in Yahoo Sports: The inevitable bill of legalized sports gambling has come. “And everyone who feeds off its advertising dollars — the sports leagues, team owners, even the media — kept shoving it in everyone’s faces, buoyed by the idea that it’s better to have a gambling ecosystem operating with oversight rather than in the shadows. That may still be true. And yet today, for all the sports leagues that have been nursing from the teat of easy gambling company cash, the justification doesn’t matter. The inevitable bill has come due.” Will this be an isolated incident or the first of many sports betting scandals? Bet the over.
+ ESPN: What we know about the Billups-Rozier NBA gambling cases.
+ The NBA game-fixing part of this story has more far reaching implications. But the poker-fixing scandal is even more interesting. WSJ (Gift Article): The Rigged Poker Games That Used NBA Stars and James Bond Tech to Steal Millions. “Prosecutors say the defendants in the poker-rigging scheme would often modify DeckMate shufflers with tech that could read the cards in the deck and relay that information to an off-site operator … They had other ways to cheat, too. They used poker-chip trays equipped with hidden cameras. There was an X-ray table that could read cards while they were face down. There were even special contact lenses that could read marked cards.”
+ “Terry Rozier has earned an estimated $160 million from three teams over his 10-year NBA career. Chauncey Billups played for 17 years and earned $106.8 million.” Why do millionaire athletes get involved with gambling? (You think wealthy people are any less attracted to gambling than anyone else? Consider that more than 1,300 AI startups now have valuations of over $100 million, with 498 AI ‘unicorns,’ or companies with valuations of $1 billion or more. The richest investors in the world like gambling so much they’ve made unicorns ubiquitous.)
+ For what it’s worth, I’m saving Gabriel García Márquez’ other famous novel opening for another story. From One Hundred Years of Solitude: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ICE.
The United States has another international conflict. With Canada. And, no, I’m not talking about Toronto playing the Dodgers in the World Series. “President Donald Trump announced he’s ending ‘all trade negotiations’ with Canada because of a television ad [featuring video from a Ronald Reagan speech] opposing U.S. tariffs that he said misstated the facts and was aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.” (You can watch the Reagan address for yourself.) I used to get really worried when Trump took out his petty anger on international allies. These days, I’m just glad he’s not taking it out on another wing of the White House.
+ Canada ready to pick up trade negotiations with US, Carney says.
Humans are pretty worried about losing their jobs to AI. But don’t let that distract you from the other at-risk population. Why Hollywood’s Animal Actors Can’t Find Work. “Rocco, whose credits include Veronica Mars, Jane the Virgin and The Morning Show, is one of many four-legged actors in the L.A. area who aren’t landing Hollywood gigs like they used to. As AI continues to advance, more productions are opting to create animal performances in post rather than film with the real thing — a trend that’s left trainers, wranglers and animal coordinators increasingly anxious about the future of their profession.”
What to Hear: Today should probably be a national holiday. Brandi Carlile has a new album out. It’s more personal and more pared down than some of her recent work. If you happen to have a comfortable seat on a porch dabbled with some Fall leaves, that would be an ideal place to listen to Returning to Myself.
+ What to Watch: The Diplomat on Netflix continues to be one of the most fun and binge-able shows around. The politics and international intrigue in the show are wildly unrealistic, but not nearly as unrealistic as our current reality.
+ What to Coffee Table Book: “When great black and white photography and tongue-in-cheek humor come together, as they did with Elliott Erwitt, the result is a unique coffee table book like Last Laughs. No one was better than the New York photography legend at observing everyday scenes around the world with heart and humor through the lens of his camera.” Heart, humor, and non-AI photos. Who doesn’t need a little more of that?
Whatever Smotes Your Boat: “This latest strike appears to be the 10th carried out by the Trump administration against alleged drug trafficking boats over the past several weeks, which have now led to more than 40 deaths.” New U.S. strike on alleged drug-smuggling boat kills 6 on board. If Congress lets the White House do this with no oversight, what else might they be cool with? US is sending an aircraft carrier to Latin America in major escalation of military buildup.
+ Cool Aid: Inflation numbers (to the extent we can really trust them during a government closure) came in a little cooler than expected. That means the expected rate cut is even more expected. That means the market is soaring.
+ Half Cocked: Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time. (Well, I guess that means they’re a lot more accurate than humans…)
+ Lucky He Didn’t Take a Speed Boat: “The accused Chinese drug boss was this close to the perfect getaway. In July, Zhi Dong Zhang escaped from house arrest in Mexico, where he was set to be extradited to the U.S. on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges. The Justice Department accuses him of being the most important link between Chinese chemical producers and the Mexican cartels that make fentanyl. He then hopped onto a private jet to Cuba and boarded a flight to Russia, beyond the reach of U.S. and Mexican prosecutors.” Most-Wanted Fentanyl Producer Is Extradited to the U.S. After Brazen Escape.
+ Staked Alaska: NYT (Gift Article): Trump Opens Pristine Alaska Wilderness to Drilling in Long-Running Feud. “The Interior Department also said it would allow a contentious road to be built through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Alaska.”
+ All That And a Bag of Chips: “Taki Allen was sitting with friends on Monday night outside Kenwood high school in Baltimore and eating a snack when police officers with guns approached him. ‘At first, I didn’t know where they were going until they started walking toward me with guns, talking about, ‘Get on the ground,’ and I was like, ‘What?'” US student handcuffed after AI system apparently mistook bag of Doritos for gun. (Maybe they just thought Dorito sounded like the name of someone here illegally?)
“Maybe we’re overthinking it. In these grim times, the most efficient path to living a contented life may be to put ourselves through the same simple exercise of thinking about our purpose and then taking a step — even a modest one — toward fulfilling it.” WaPo (Gift Article): A 6-year research project found a surprisingly simple route to happiness.
+ “Ms. Chopin makes no claims to be a wellness guru, nor does she seem to feel a burning desire to evangelize about her own approach to life. But people keep asking for her secrets to aging well.” A 102-Year-Old Yoga Teacher’s Simple Approach to Aging Well. (For personal reasons, I’m a little worried that having tight hammies is not on her list of recommendations…)
+ mRNA COVID vaccines may be helping some cancer patients fight tumors, researchers say.
+ Reversing peanut advice prevented tens of thousands of allergy cases.
+ “The officers, the A.P. caption said, were there to block the entrance to the museum. But the man, dressed in a buttoned up vest, a trench coat and a fedora, who seemed to be surveilling the scene, was more than enough reason for the internet to pounce.” Is This Dapper Man Going to Crack the Louvre Heist Case? (Or, a photo so good, people were sure it was AI.)
+ The secret California factory that powers theme parks’ biggest special effects.
+ When books were being pulled from Iowa classrooms, these teens started an after-school club to read them.
+ Watch a baby elephant play ball with a small pumpkin as her family smashes massive ones.