2026-02-13 20:00:00
One of the ironies of the story of AI’s impact on jobs is that it came first for the companies that helped create it. Recently, software as a service (SaaS) companies that can potentially be disrupted by AI have been experiencing what investors are calling the SaaSpocalypse — a result of “Anthropic and then Open AI launching agentic AI systems for enterprises that appear to perform some key functions currently provided by SaaS players, undermining their business models.” And these market forces are hitting companies in every sector. Earlier this week, logistics and freight companies took a hit “after a little-known Florida company announced a new tool that would scale freight volumes without increasing headcount. (By the way, until this year, that little-known company was in the Karaoke business.) But the new tech is hitting the tech sector the most directly. The disruptors are being disrupted by a force they themselves unleashed. Like many in tech, Matt Shumer has had a front row seat for the impending changes (and more time to ponder them as some of his technical duties have been offloaded to the machine). In his essay, Something Big is Happening Here, he explains what’s coming, not just for his industry, but for everything, and compares this moment to just before the pandemic hit. “Think back to February 2020. If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed a few people talking about a virus spreading overseas. But most of us weren’t paying close attention. The stock market was doing great, your kids were in school, you were going to restaurants and shaking hands and planning trips. If someone told you they were stockpiling toilet paper you would have thought they’d been spending too much time on a weird corner of the internet. Then, over the course of about three weeks, the entire world changed. Your office closed, your kids came home, and life rearranged itself into something you wouldn’t have believed if you’d described it to yourself a month earlier. I think we’re in the ‘this seems overblown’ phase of something much, much bigger than Covid. I’ve spent six years building an AI startup and investing in the space. I live in this world. And I’m writing this for the people in my life who don’t… my family, my friends … The people I care about deserve to hear what is coming, even if it sounds crazy.”
+ And just in case the impending pace of change does sound crazy, it’s worth noting that there is a lot of consensus about what’s coming. Microsoft AI CEO predicts ‘most, if not all’ white-collar tasks will be automated by AI within 18 months. (Luckily, summarizing the news in 2026 is so depressing, even the machines don’t want my gig.)
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off for most, and probably all, of next week, unless, you know, something really newsworthy breaks into the break.
Inside the administration, there’s a combination of inexperience, cruel intentions, and extreme corruption; a model that has put the least qualified in charge and pushed the most qualified toward the exits. Nowhere is that more clear than in Kristi Noem’s Dept of Homeland Security. The WSJ (Gift Article) proves that some stories can still make you say wow: A pilot fired over Kristi Noem’s missing blanket and the constant chaos inside DHS. “Within DHS, Noem and Lewandowski have cut employees or put them on administrative leave. The pair have fired or demoted roughly 80% of the career ICE field leadership that was in place when they started. In the blanket incident, Noem had to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket wasn’t moved to the second plane, according to the people familiar with the incident. The Coast Guard pilot was initially fired and told to take a commercial flight home when they reached their destination. They eventually reinstated the pilot because no one else was available to fly them home.” (Good thing the pilot didn’t bring his dog on the trip.)
+ And the excellent Dahlia Lithwick in Slate (Gift Article) on how the Epstein story (and this week’s repulsive performance by Pam Bondi in Congress) represents everything. “The Epstein file dump is not simply playing out as a backdrop against which other acts of American lawlessness are occurring. The Epstein story is also the template and the proof text for all that is happening in Minnesota; at dangerous detention centers; in efforts to punish members of Congress for lawful speech; for crypto scams; and for measles outbreaks. It is an ongoing road map for an administration that lives out the reality that they are rich and powerful and famous enough to be above the law each day, and wishes for the rest of us to ultimately learn and accept that fact.” Pam Bondi’s Epstein Testimony Exposed the Whole Game. “What Bondi, and Donald Trump, and Lutnick, and Todd Blanche are doing under the banner of law and law enforcement and pardons and immunity and impunity is an operatic performance of a single truth: The ‘law’ will now protect those who are within the network of favors and privilege and secrets and side-eyes and snickers and abuse of young girls, and the ‘law’ will also abandon those who are not.”
“Perhaps more than anything, the operas that Italians began creating 400 years ago are designed to make you feel. To have the rest of the world melt away as you get lost in a story sung in a language you might not understand, but whose stakes are unmistakable. No wonder the country that invented the art form where music and poetry merge, and these Winter Olympics seem to be such a perfect fit.” Bravo! Act I of the Winter Olympics’ visit to Italy has been filled with drama, catharsis and tears.
+ Apparently, amid all the drama, catharsis, and tears (and competition), athletes have found time for horizontal pursuits. Winter Olympic village runs out of condoms after three days.
+ “U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim’s quest for a historic Olympic halfpipe three-peat was foiled by none other than her teenage protégé. Kim took home silver, after 17-year-old Gaon Choi of South Korea rebounded from a dramatic crash to overtake her in the final run.” It’s still quite a result for Kim, who has an injured shoulder and barely competed at all leading up to the games. Besides, Chloe Kim’s smile will always be worthy of gold. (Note to Miles Garrett: I mean that in a purely platonic sense…)
+ “If you’ve watched even a small amount of figure skating at the Winter Olympics, you’ve probably seen Benoît Richaud. He’s the tall, slender, bald man sitting next to seemingly every athlete after they compete, when their scores are read aloud.” You may also notice that he wears a lot of different jackets. He coaches 16 skaters from 13 countries at the Winter Olympics.
+ High-Level, Actionable Insights From Watching Doubles Luge For The First Time. “Unlike other baffling Olympic sports like biathlon and curling, doubles luge has no legible explanation rooted in Scandinavian military training or bored Scottish people. Doubles luge appears to be the consequence of somebody watching luge and being struck by the idea of stacking another guy on top of the first guy. Apparently back then there were no bad ideas.”
What to Watch: It took a while for Industry on HBO to gain a big following. But I’m glad it has. It could be the best show on television these days, and it’s especially welcome to those who have been missing Succession. Season four remains excellent.
+ What to Movie: Splittsville on Hulu with Adria Arjona, Dakota Johnson, Kyle Marvin, and Michael Angelo Covino in a somewhat crazy look at two couples going through some relationship issues. There are some really funny moments in this movie.
Glass Houses: NYT (Gift Article): Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Technology to Its Smart Glasses. “Meta’s internal memo said the political tumult in the United States was good timing for the feature’s release. ‘We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.'” (Big tech is not your friend…)
+ There Goes the Neighborhood: “It’s not hard to see why ICE has expanded its reach beyond the Twin Cities. The qualities that have hindered ICE’s operation in Minneapolis and St. Paul — density and walkability; a large, almost exclusively left-of-center population — are absent here. In Minneapolis, I saw patrollers on nearly every street corner. It’s easy to gather for protests or come together to organize a mutual aid network. The sidewalks in Lakeville were deserted, as were the broad streets that led onto the highway. Had there been any bystanders, they may not have wanted to get involved.” ICE moves out to the suburbs.
+ There’s Something Happening There: High-profile resignations and replacements as Epstein case fallout spreads. (Some people in some places are being held accountable.)
+ Who’d Have Predicted? “This was in Iowa City in 1988, long before anyone could bet on elections or Super Bowl halftime shows with their phone. The professors were trying to solve the sort of problem social scientists tackle over lunch. Why did polls get elections so wrong — and what could be done about it?” Three economists grabbed a beer. A multibillion-dollar industry was born. (The breakthrough came too soon for them to lay a bet on Bad Bunny’s first halftime show song.)
+ Ejected: “This school prepared more umpires for professional baseball than all the other schools combined. Over half of MLB’s 76 active major-league umpires this year are graduates from the Wendelstedt school. Numerous others are working toward that goal in the minor leagues. ‘It’s the Harvard of umpire schools.'” And it just closed. The machines are coming for these jobs, too. The Athletic (Gift Article): The ‘Harvard of umpire schools’ closes as changing times favor tech over tradition.
+ Cost in Space: “Summer Heather Worden claimed that McClain had illegally accessed her personal bank account from the International Space Station in July 2019.” Astronaut’s Ex-Wife Sentenced for Lying That Former Spouse Committed First Ever Crime in Space. (Elon still has a shot to be the first space criminal.)
The first strike by San Francisco teachers in nearly 50 years has ended after four days of picket lines, rallies and long negotiations.
+ Renewables are being deployed aggressively across much of the world even as the US, historically the world’s biggest emitter, overturned a landmark domestic climate ruling. And, Africa leads growth in solar energy as demand spreads beyond traditional markets. (You’ll never guess which superpower is benefiting from this growth and which isn’t.)
+ Inflation cooled in January, offering some relief for consumers. (Let’s hope these numbers are accurate.)
+ Surfers raced into ‘crazy’ Santa Cruz surf to save family of six.
+ Teen grabs kayak, paddles through icy pond to rescue neighborhood dog.
+ Firefighter bear-hugs terrified deer on icy lake in daring rescue.
+ 88-Year-Old Grandmother Flies for the First Time on Plane Piloted by Her Grandson.
+ Florida man saves pregnant woman from drowning hours before baby’s birth. (Come on, a feel good story about Florida Man! What more do you people want?)
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off for most, and probably all, of next week, unless, you know, something really newsworthy breaks into the break.
2026-02-12 20:00:00
“I have proposed and President Trump has concurred that this surge operation conclude.” So said border czar Tom Homan as he announced that the Trump administration is ending its immigration surge in Minnesota. Of course, we’ll have to see it to believe it. The move likely has to do with budget negotiations in Congress, the incredible resistance of everyday Minnesotans, and (mostly) the extreme damage the images out of Minneapolis have done to presidential approval ratings and recent GOP election results. Here’s the latest on the planned departure. Even if federal agents do evacuate the city, many questions remain. Will they just be redeployed to another blue city? Are we witnessing Veni, Vidi, Retreati, or Veni, Vidi, Relocati? (As Minneapolis Mayor Jaocb Frey explained, “[This surge] has been catastrophic for our neighbors and businesses … They thought they could break us, but a love for our neighbors and a resolve to endure can outlast an occupation. These patriots of Minneapolis are showing that it’s not just about resistance — standing with our neighbors is deeply American.” Let’s just pause and consider that this is an American mayor talking about an invasion of his city by American officials.) How many of the 4,000 arrestees actually committed crimes or posed any danger to anyone? Will there be any justice for the innocent protesters who were gunned down in the streets, or will those involved just be able to take their ball and go home—or to their next domestic deployment? And what will be the next twist in this troubling American saga?
+ For an answer to that last question, you may want to tweak a famous political adage, and follow the leases: “Over the past several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have carried out a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US. Documents show that more than 150 leases and office expansions have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations.” Wired: ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next.
+ And, in case you needed one, here’s yet another reminder that many of the people who are being targeted for deportation aren’t who you think they are. NYT (Gift Article): Judge Ends Deportation Case for Mexican Father of 3 U.S. Marines. Narciso Barranco was detained while landscaping outside of an IHOP in Southern California. “At the time, the Department of Homeland Security defended the agents’ aggressive arrest, saying the agents had felt threatened by Mr. Barranco and accusing him of having raised his weed trimmer at them.” Given what we know now, I guess Narciso Barranco is lucky he’s still alive.
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off for most, and probably all, of next week, unless, you know, something really newsworthy breaks into the break.
“We are officially terminating the so called endangerment finding, a disastrous Obama era policy. This determination had no basis in fact — none whatsoever. And it had no basis in law. On the contrary over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world.” So said Trump, as the Environmental Protection Agency just repealed “its own conclusion that greenhouse gases warm the Earth and endanger human health and wellbeing.” EPA reverses longstanding climate change finding, stripping its own ability to regulate emissions. “If climate change law was a tower in the game Jenga, the endangerment finding would be a wooden block at the base.”
“You’re siding with the perpetrators, and you’re ignoring the victims. That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change course.” So said Rep. Jamie Raskin during an oversight hearing with Pam Bondi that devolved into a schoolyard fight. And when it comes to Bondi and the Epstein files, there are a lot of MAGA folks who would agree. But turning oversight committees into chaotic shouting matches certainly appears to be part of some bizarre strategy. To you, it probably looked like Bondi was crashing out, that the photo of her with her back toward Epstein victims was soulless, and that holding a burn book with canned personal attacks prepared for each questioner looked pathetic. But this show is for an audience of one, and the new goal in these oversight hearings is no oversight.
+ This hearing was similar to Bondi’s past performances. During the last one, the personal attacks “went for hours, a calculated performance that amounted to a giant middle finger to basic notions of decorum and accountability, leaving all sorts of questions unanswered, including a fundamental one that some of Bondi’s old friends and colleagues back home in Florida had been asking. As one of them put it to me: ‘I keep asking myself, What the f-ck happened to Pam?‘” (You could ask the same question about a lot of people these days…)
In one of the mostly hotly-contested events on ice, USA’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates got edged out for ice dancing gold by the controversial duo of Beaudry and Cizeron. “The reigning European champions only teamed up last year and continue to face questions over their former partners.” Meet France’s controversial ice dance Olympic champions. The judging also proved to be controversial, driving headlines like this one: Olympic judge who cost Madison Chock and Evan Bates gold has a history of questionable scores. I’ve only been an expert in ice dancing since last night, but the winners looked pretty damn good to me. So did the silver medalists, for that matter.
+ IOC boots Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych from Olympics for wearing helmet honoring war victims.
+ Breezy Johnson gets engaged at Winter Olympics after boyfriend proposes at finish line. (The proposal came right after she crashed in her final event. If I had done something like that, I’m convinced I’d still be single.)
+ “No ice is colder and harder than speedskating ice. The precision it takes has meant that Olympic speedskaters have never competed for gold on a temporary indoor rink – until the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games.” Meet the man behind the ice.
+ “‘We sell it because it works, not because it tastes good,’ says Emil Sjölander, one of Nomio’s three founders, who described that taste as ‘some combination of wood and Dijon mustard.'” WSJ (Gift Article): Olympians Can Eat All the Pasta in Italy. So Why Are They Drinking Broccoli?
Alef Bet: The widespread adoption of sports betting has led to several scandals involving players and coaches. But with prediction markets, you can bet on anything. Will stories like this one become the norm? “Two Israelis have been charged with using classified military information to place bets on how future events will unfold.” I covered this topic in detail yesterday. As I wrote in ‘Dict Picks, I believe the increasing popularity of prediction markets will cause a gambling addiction scourge the likes of which we’ve never seen.
+ Tariff Not Now, When? “The House voted Wednesday to slap back President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, a rare if largely symbolic rebuke of the White House agenda as Republicans joined Democrats over the objections of GOP leadership.”
+ I Need Another ‘Gram: “Mosseri said that he didn’t think that it was possible to be addicted to Instagram but that “problematic use” was possible, though it varies from person to person.” Instagram chief denies social media can be ‘clinically addictive’ in landmark case.
+ Lead Balloon: “Officials targeted what they thought was a drug cartel drone, but turned out to be a party balloon, they said.” Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser.
+ Nut Givin’ Up My Shot: “It’s hard to recall a regulator who has done as much damage to medical innovation in as little time as Vinay Prasad. In his latest drive-by shooting, the leader of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division rejected Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine without even a cursory review. This is arbitrary government at its worst.” WSJ Editorial Board: Vinay Prasad’s Vaccine Kill Shot.
+ Your Place Or Mine(field): “Security measures once reserved for presidents and royalty—safe rooms, biometric access controls, laser-powered perimeter defenses—are now mainstream items in luxury homes. Executive-protection teams and armed guards patrol gated enclaves and suburban estates, while tech startups are rolling out predictive threat-detection systems built for the ultra-wealthy. The shift reflects a hardening view among the affluent: Traditional policing and communal safety are no longer enough, so security is being privatized, customized.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Mega-Rich Are Turning Their Mansions Into Impenetrable Fortresses.
Everything good about the early internet seems to have disappeared. Even cat videos have changed. They used to refer to videos of cats that humans could watch. Now they refer to content created for your pet. TV, It’s Not Just for Humans Anymore. (My beagles got bored with this stuff and now mostly just use AI to confirm their preconceived biases about my cats.)
+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off for most, and probably all, of next week, unless, you know, something really newsworthy breaks into the break.
2026-02-11 20:00:00
I believe the increasing popularity of prediction markets will cause a gambling addiction scourge the likes of which we’ve never seen. I’m so sure of it, I might go to one of the prediction markets and lay down a bet. Because these days, you can bet on anything. “Prediction markets entice enterprising nerds to make and lose fortunes by wagering on everything from politics to the weather. Here’s why they’re unstoppable—and only getting more powerful.” Zoë Bernard in Vanity Fair: The CEOs of Kalshi and Polymarket Are Betting On the Most Hated Experiment in Business. (Alt link.) At a happy hour for one of the leading platforms, Kalshi, a group of mostly young men, in their 20s, were swapping tips and stories about their experiences in “a marketplace that, until recently, had existed in a legal gray zone. Many were making thousands a week speculating on highly specific fixations: whether the temperature would tick up by a single degree in Colorado next weekend, who would win the Coney Island hot dog eating contest, the gender of celebrity babies.” … Yet only one person there mentioned the dirty word that everyone else had so carefully avoided … ‘You’re writing about this, but you have no idea what this meeting is, do you?’ ‘What is it?’ I asked, leaning back to avoid his spittle. ‘This,’ he said, taking in the barroom of traders, ‘is just the latest Gamblers Anonymous meeting.'”
+ The data from these prediction markets can be valuable, as it taps into the wisdom of the crowd. NYT (Gift Article): Thousands of Amateur Gamblers Are Beating Wall Street Ph.D.s. But people aren’t just predicting, they’re betting. And they’re betting on in-pocket slot machines that deploy all the most addicting techniques from casinos, social media apps, and online games. Think of it as a ‘Dict-a-phone.
+ These prediction apps fall under a different federal jurisdiction from gambling apps. And they largely avoided sports betting (which is legal in some states, but not others). But something changed, and all bets were off. “Until early last year, Kalshi, the leading US prediction market startup, was using its status as a federally regulated financial exchange to offer niche financial contracts tied to pop culture events and elections. The agency overseeing all this, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, had indicated that so-called event contracts tied to sports were off limits. Then Donald Trump won the election. Kalshi tested the waters by offering its first wagers on the Super Bowl in early 2025 and the CFTC did not step in to stop them. Those first contracts were little more than an experiment, but sports have since come to account for more than 90% of the trading volume on Kalshi.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Gambling Stocks Sag as Prediction Markets Steal Super Bowl Bets.
+ If you’re predicting that the Trump administration will step in and slow the prediction market roll toward being full-on casinos and sportsbooks, you might want to first consider the involvement of a notable ‘Dicthead. NYT (Gift Article): Leading Prediction Firms Share a Commonality: Donald Trump Jr. “At the intersection of the prediction market industry and Trump world is Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. He is both an investor in and an unpaid adviser to Polymarket, and a paid adviser to Kalshi, the two biggest prediction markets. And he is a director of the Trump family’s social media company, which recently announced it would start its own platform called Truth Predict.” (These days, laying some money against Truth may be one safe bet you can make.)
We’ve all been pretty disappointed at the lack of pushback on corruption and lawlessness from political officials and what we thought were our strongest institutions. But from the streets of Minneapolis to the courtrooms of Washington, we may be finally finding out who will save us: Citizens. NYT (Gift Article): Grand Jury Rebuffs Justice Dept. Attempt to Indict 6 Democrats in Congress. “It was remarkable that the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington — led by Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump’s — authorized prosecutors to go into a grand jury and ask for an indictment of the six members of Congress, all of whom had served in the military or the nation’s spy agencies. But it was even more remarkable that a group of ordinary citizens sitting on the grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington forcefully rejected Mr. Trump’s bid to label their expression of dissent as a criminal act warranting prosecution.” This gives new meaning to Jury Duty.
+ “It’s exceedingly rare for a federal grand jury to reject prosecutors’ attempts to secure an indictment, since the process is stacked in the government’s favor.” But in this case, as a sign of just how insane this prosecution was, zero grand jurors found the Trump DOJ met low probable cause threshold
“When Nancy Guthrie went missing, officials said she had a doorbell camera, but that it had been forcibly removed, and she did not have a subscription. This meant there were no videos stored in the cloud. Ten days later, the FBI released footage from the camera, which was revealed to be a Nest Doorbell, clearly showing the masked suspect. This is a huge break in the case and highlights the value of security cameras in solving crimes, even if their deterrent effect remains largely unproven. But it raises privacy concerns around how this supposedly ‘lost’ footage was recovered.” Why ‘deleted’ doesn’t mean gone: How police recovered Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell footage. This is like so many of today’s surveillance-related stories. It’s really good that Google was able to track down images that could help solve a crime. It’s really scary that everything we do is being recorded to that great hard drive in the sky, whether we opt in or not.
“Powered by encrypted messaging apps, anonymized platforms and a growing pool of people willing to move money for a cut, the system is agile, scalable and disturbingly hard to shut down. What began a decade ago as a fringe trend on dark-web bazaars is fast evolving into a sprawling global ecosystem of freelance money movers. Even the biggest criminal groups, long reliant on in-house laundering, are starting to tap it.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Drug Cartels Are Shifting Their Money Laundering to Crypto. Cops Can’t Keep Up. (I keep reading examples of how crypto is good for bad stuff, but what good is it for good stuff?)
B.C. Mass Shooting: “Nine people were killed and 27 more were injured after a mass shooting in the community of Tumbler Ridge, B.C.” Here’s the latest on the tragedy from CBC.
+ El Paso the Buck: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport. “Sean Duffy, the Secretary of Transportation, and officials from the White House and the Pentagon said Mexican cartel drones breached U.S. airspace, prompting the temporary closure of airspace over El Paso. But two people briefed by Trump administration officials said the shutdown was prompted by the Defense Department’s use of new counter-drone technology and concerns about the risks it could pose to other aircraft in the area.” (Weird not to be able to get a straight answer from these guys…)
+ Bridge Financing: “A Detroit billionaire met with Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, hours before President Trump said he would block the opening of a new bridge connecting Detroit to Canada, officials said.” NYT (Gift Article): Bridge Owner Lobbied Administration Before Trump Blasted Competing Span to Canada. (If you don’t think every decision and every post is driven by overt corruption, I’ve got a bridge that will never open to sell you…)
+ Five Ring Circus: The ex-girlfriend of the Olympian who expressed public regret for cheating isn’t ready to give the story a happy ending. “It’s hard to forgive. Even after a declaration of love in front of the whole world.” (This combination of Olympic sports with Love Island intrigue could actually work…) “The Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych has been warned that he faces disqualification from the Winter Olympics if he wears a ‘helmet of memory’ for his country’s war dead when the men’s competition starts on Thursday.” I wonder if there’s a lesson here: French biathlete guilty of fraud wins Olympic gold while scammed teammate comes 80th. This seems like a reasonable request: Olympic Photographers: Stop Doing The Lugers Dirty. And watching J.H. Klaebo ski uphill faster than many of us ski downhill is quite something.
+ External Revenue Service: “The Internal Revenue Service improperly shared confidential tax information of thousands of individuals with immigration enforcement officials, according to three people familiar with the situation, appearing to breach a legal fire wall intended to protect taxpayer data.” (The fire walls have been burned the ground.)
+ One Flu Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: “The vaccine maker Moderna said on Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration had notified the company that the agency would not review its mRNA flu vaccine, the latest sign of federal health policy that has become hostile to vaccine development.”
“More than 5,000 Stanford students have used Date Drop at a school with about 7,500 undergraduates … The growth, fans say, reflects a reality about many college kids: They’re intimidated by real-life courtship and overwhelmed by the endless scroll of dating apps. Entrepreneurial students have found huge demand for alternate matchmaking tools.” A Stanford Experiment to Pair 5,000 Singles Has Taken Over Campus. “A student built a matchmaking algorithm that has consumed the school—and highlighted the challenges of finding love for high achievers.” (High achievers? Wait, I thought this was a story about Stanford, not Cal…)
2026-02-10 20:00:00
In 1977, the perfectly named Johnny Paycheck sang the lyrics, Take this job and shove it, landing a number one hit, inspiring a movie, and creating a lasting anthem and adage. But another lyric might more aptly fit our current moment: Take these employees and shove them. When push comes to shove, today’s corporations are making more money while employing fewer people. “In 1985, IBM was America’s most valuable company, one of its most profitable, and among its largest employers, with a payroll of nearly 400,000. Today, Nvidia is nearly 20 times as valuable and five times as profitable as IBM was back then, adjusted for inflation. Yet it employs roughly a 10th as many people. That simple comparison says something profound about today’s economy: Its rewards are going disproportionately toward capital instead of labor. Profits have soared since the pandemic, and the market value attached to those profits even more. The result: Capital, which includes businesses, shareholders and superstar employees, is triumphant, while the average worker ekes out marginal gains. The divergence between capital and labor helps explain the disconnect between a buoyant economy and pessimistic households.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Big Money in Today’s Economy Is Going to Capital, Not Labor. (Alt link.) Capital gains are going up, the value placed on human capital is going down. And, of course, these trends are only being accelerated by technological shifts and political winds. Yale economist, Pascual Restrepo, explains: “There will be winners: workers whose jobs require social skills, proximity or manual labor, and consumers, who get cheaper products and services. The biggest winners of all? Shareholders.”
+ “Anyone subcontracting tasks to AI is clever enough to imagine what might come next—a day when augmentation crosses into automation, and cognitive obsolescence compels them to seek work at a food truck, pet spa, or massage table. At least until the humanoid robots arrive.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs. (They may have an inkling, though. What a new Gallup poll shows about the depth of Americans’ gloom.)
+ And about our new immigrant unfriendly policies that are supposedly going to create more jobs for Americans? Binyamin Appelbaum in the NYT (Gift Article): What Replaces Deported Immigrant Workers? Not Americans. “There is a big hole in the seductively simple argument that Mr. Trump’s policy will push employers to hire Americans: For many jobs, the cheaper and more likely replacement is a robot. And the jobs that can’t be done by robots? Many will simply leave the country.”
+ It doesn’t take an AI program to figure out that these factors will contribute to an already massive economic divide. And we’re engineering it to be even wider. Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet report plunging tax bills thanks to AI investment and new rules in Washington. Meanwhile, US consumer delinquencies jump to highest in almost a decade.
+ Related: Here’s a flight tracker showing all the private jets leaving the Bay Area after the Super Bowl.
One of the better Super Bowl ads was for Amazon Ring’s Search Party feature that gives neighbors a way to combine their security cam feeds to quickly locate missing pets. Amazon’s CEO says the feature helped bring home 99 dogs in 90 days. But like many security stories, there is another side to this one. “Chris Gilliard, a privacy expert and author of the upcoming book Luxury Surveillance, told 404 Media these features and its Super Bowl ad are ‘a clumsy attempt by Ring to put a cuddly face on a rather dystopian reality: widespread networked surveillance by a company that has cozy relationships with law enforcement and other equally invasive surveillance companies.'” With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet.
+ Most of us want more security and technology enables us to get it. But most of us don’t want that same technology used for every purpose. Flock cameras to make school parking lots more secure? Sounds great. But what about this? Local police aid ICE by tapping school cameras amid Trump’s immigration crackdown. “The data raises questions about the degree to which campus surveillance technology intended for student safety is being repurposed to support immigration enforcement.”
“Amplify is designed for that everyday athlete to give them the energy they need to go further, to go faster, with greater levels of confidence. It’s like an e-bike for your feet.” NPR: How bionic sneakers could change human mobility. (I only hope they make the same sound as the Six Million Dollar Man’s bionics…)
“Instantly, scoreboards showed Aicher had finished in 1 minutes, 36.14 seconds — four-hundredths of a second behind. Johnson sighed and rubbed a hand over her head in relief. Johnson ultimately won and Aicher took the silver, their careers forever altered by that tiny difference determined by the most important team at the Olympics you don’t know about — the Omega timekeepers.” The most important team at the Olympics isn’t a country. It’s the timekeepers. “Since the Swiss timing giant sent employees with 30 stopwatches to Los Angeles for the 1932 Olympics, Omega’s business of keeping results at the Olympics has grown so large and sophisticated that a delegation from the company is already in Los Angeles preparing for the Olympics’ return in 2028.”
+ Mikaela Shiffrin’s Olympic hex continues after faltering in team combined slalom.
+ Speed skating star Leerdam wins gold as fiance Jake Paul weeps. (The former was enjoyable, the latter more so.)
+ “A postrace interview with the bronze medal winner in the men’s Olympic biathlon competition on Tuesday took an unexpected turn when he revealed in a live broadcast that he had been unfaithful to his girlfriend.” (He basically seemed to be trying to get her back. Will it, or a bronze, be enough?)
Bet Threat: Legalized gambling in many states meant that millions of people were suddenly walking around with souped-up casinos in their pockets. Prediction markets mean that people in all 50 states can bet on anything, anytime. “Everything is gambling now”: How betting is taking over America. “These days, you can wager on everything from Sunday’s Super Bowl LX, November’s midterm elections, March’s Oscars, this winter’s weather, the words that commentators will use — even the second coming of Jesus Christ.” The stats are already insane. “Nearly 40 percent of men and 20 percent of women gamble online daily. Two percent of these bettors gamble more than ten hours a day … Most bettors are men. They’ve gotten younger and younger as sports betting companies gamified gambling. Pokémon, the trading card and video game mega-franchise, co-opted slot machine and casino imagery in the 1990s, and technology companies latched on, eager to bring in young gamblers to replace the old heads. Public schools see problems with boys, and sports betting stokes some school officials’ fears of it becoming as ubiquitous as cellphones and as poisonous as social media.” Prospect: The Scourge of Online Sports Betting.
+ Harm to Table: “A number of people working at hunger relief organizations and in education, who asked not to be identified for the record for fear of retribution, said the food instability and lack of access to social services are not simply a byproduct of the ICE crackdown but rather part of the agency’s strategy, essentially weaponizing food. Among other tactics, they said, the agency is tracking food delivery volunteers and staking out donation distribution centers.” NYT (Gift Article): Hungry Families, ICE and Secret Grocery Networks in Minneapolis. This is America, folks. And from ProPublica: Letters from the Children Detained at ICE’s Dilley Facility. From a nine year-old: “Seen how people like me, immigrants are been treated changes my perspective about the U.S.”
+ Death Wish Granted: “A small group of conservative activists has worked for 16 years to stop all government efforts to fight climate change. Their efforts seem poised to pay off.” Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation.
+ No Longer Deep Sixed: “If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those three million files.” Democratic congressman Ro Khanna names six men appearing in unredacted Epstein files.
+ Guthrie Case: “The FBI on Tuesday released new surveillance photos from the night Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, disappeared. The images show someone wearing a ski mask and gloves.”
+ Update: Measles Bad: “Dr. Mehmet Oz has urged Americans to get vaccinated against measles, one of the strongest endorsements of the vaccine yet from a top health official in the Trump administration, which has repeatedly undermined confidence in vaccine safety.” (In addition to the public statement, he might want to send an internal memo.)
+ Winter is Coming: “As tensions with Russia in the Arctic rise, U.S. Special Forces have been prepping for the future or war in the high north in Sweden.” How do you fight where it’s hard to even survive? In this video piece, WSJ’s Sune Rasmussen joined U.S. Green Berets in a grueling Arctic training camp to find out.
“Teratophiliacs were once a niche group that bonded over their sexual attraction to monsters in obscure forums. Now—as online communities proliferate and genres like romantasy grow—monster p-rn is going mainstream.” GQ: Inside the Booming Business of Monster P-rn. (This gives new meaning to doing the Monster Mash.)
2026-02-09 20:00:00
I survived the Great Super Bowl Halftime Scare of 2026. At least, I mostly survived. For some reason, from the time Bad Bunny got about 30 seconds into Tití Me Preguntó, I’ve only been able to write in Spanish. I’ve been forced to use Google and ChatGPT to translate today’s edition back into Inglés, so forgive me if some of my usually pithy, punny wordplay is no bueno. During my first day of high school Spanish, my teacher, Mrs. Martinez, asked, “Cómo te llamas?” And I nervously answered, “Bien, y tu?” So if anything, for me, the Bad Bunny halftime show arrived too late. Given the reaction of many of the critics, including our Complainer in Chief, the message of the show couldn’t come soon enough. Neither could the phrase written on the football he held up at the end of the performance: “Together, We Are America.” Only against the backdrop of today’s divisions could that statement be seen as a form of protest.
+ Featuring Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga (Hmm, that last name sounds a little foreign), a cast of celebrities, and a real wedding, “his entire performance rebuked the notion that he is some culture-war proxy being foisted upon an American public that wants its stars to shut up and sing. Yes, he filled this show with slogans and symbols signaling Puerto Rican and Latino pride at a time when federal agents are menacing Spanish speakers and President Trump has declared English to be the national language. But fundamentally, the halftime was a blast: an instant-classic, precisely detailed, relentlessly stimulating medley rooted in the good old-fashioned pleasure principle.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Bad Bunny’s critics said his Super Bowl halftime show would be divisive. They were totally wrong.
+ With messages like, “God bless America” and “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” it’s no wonder that Trump complained that, “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying…it makes no sense.” Hopefully, he had an easier time understanding Green Day’s pre-game rendition of American Idiot.
+ There are rough journalistic assignments, and then there are rough journalistic assignments. Chandelis Duster in NPR had one of the latter. Here’s what happened at Kid Rock’s alternative halftime show.
+ For the most part, the commercials played it as safe as the teams’ offenses. A guy whose most famous public meal was Evander Holyfield’s ear giving us dietary advice was certainly a choice. The most notable thing about the ads was that a whole lot of them were for AI companies or used a lot of AI to create. USA Today ranked all of the commercials.
+ And, yes, yes. There was a game. But you’d be forgiven for missing it. Everything, and I mean everything, went dark right from the start. The Ringer: How the Seahawks’ Dark Side Defense Turned Super Bowl LX Into a Blowout. The best stories on the other side of the ball included a rare MVP for a running back. Seahawks’ Kenneth Walker III becomes first RB to win award in 28 years. And the redemption of Sam Darnold was so sweet, I managed to completely forget he played for USC.
+ And maybe the only thing from Super Bowl week that was more absurd than the halftime controversy was the fact that sports reporters who traveled from around the country were shocked to find out that the most beautiful city in the world isn’t a hellscape. It’s just that right wing media has been lying about it for so long. (Guys, they’ve been lying about everything else, too.) Super Bowl Visitors Find San Francisco Better Than Its Apocalyptic Image.
“A prince, an ambassador, senior diplomats, top politicians. All brought down by the Jeffrey Epstein files. And all in Europe, rather than the United States. The huge trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice has sent shock waves through Europe’s political, economic and social elites — dominating headlines, ending careers and spurring political and criminal investigations.” Epstein revelations have toppled top figures in Europe while US fallout is more muted.
+ NBC News: Why the Epstein scandal is Keir Starmer’s most perilous moment yet after chief of staff resigns. (Yet, it doesn’t seem perilous at all for certain other world leaders who were best friends with Epstein.)
+ The Epstein scandal is taking down Europe’s political class. In the US, they’re getting a pass.
+ Ghislaine Maxwell pleads the Fifth in House Oversight Epstein investigation
“When federal agents swarmed the track on Oct. 19 — weapons drawn, a helicopter overhead, unmarked S.U.V.s screeching in on dirt roads — they did more than crack an alleged gambling ring and increase deportation numbers. They shattered Wilder’s innocent belief that its out-of-the-way location and deep-red politics could isolate the town from the raids overtaking other parts of the country. ‘We rely on Hispanic labor,’ said Chris Gross, a second-generation farmer who grows sweet corn seed and mint in Wilder. She added, ‘Nobody thought something like this could happen here.'” NYT (Gift Article): A Raid in a Small Town Brings Trump’s Deportations to Deep-Red Idaho.
+ WSJ (Gift Article): Immigration Raids in South Texas Are Starting to Hit the Economy.
“Most surrogacy contracts forbid disclosing the identities of the parties involved, but, when Elliott sent the author a private message, she confirmed that they were working with the same family. The other surrogate, who lived in Pennsylvania, also shared something else she’d heard about the couple: they already had thirteen children.” Ava Kofman in The New Yorker: The Babies Kept in a Mysterious Los Angeles Mansion.
Five Ring Circus: “For a nation that had become enraptured in Lindsey Vonn’s comeback story and the norm-defying attempt to win an Olympic medal without an ACL in her left knee, the helpless cries of pain as she lay on her back and as the mountain fell silent will be hard to erase from memory.” The event everyone was waiting for lasted 13 seconds and ended with Vonn being airlifted to the hospital. The injury to her teammate made the victory more muted, but no less impressive for Breezy Johnson, who called gold medal run ‘surreal’ after 2022 crash. Ilia Malinin did Ilia things to help win US figure skating team gold. (He’s known as the Quad God, but with that amazing hair, I think of him as the Mane Man.) The medals are having some technical difficulties. (“Don’t jump in them. I was jumping in excitement, and it broke.”) And yes, sadly, our dear leader is getting involved by calling some US athletes losers on social media. The crowds at the Games may have different ideas about who fits that description. NBC appears to cut crowd’s booing of JD Vance from Winter Olympics broadcast.
+ Train Dreams: Brain train game may help protect against dementia for up to 20 years. (It’s probably not quite that simple, but a lot of researchers are excited about this study). Meanwhile, a couple of teas or coffees a day could lower risk of dementia.
+ Deleting History: “The State Department is removing all posts on its public accounts on the social media platform X made before President Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025.”
+ Bannon Fodder: Justice Department moves to dismiss Steve Bannon’s criminal case. (The worse you are, the better it is with this Justice Dept.)
+ Um, That’s Not My Finger: “Proponents predict the new technology will help find cures for rare diseases, discover new drugs, enhance surgeons’ skill and empower patients.” But in the meantime, according to Reuters: As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts.
+ Crypto Night: “In the depths of Donald Trump’s interregnum, his eldest two sons huddled in a Mar-a-Lago conference room with boyhood pal Zach Witkoff to conjure up a new money machine. Two other would-be cryptocurrency entrepreneurs showed up, one in sweatpants.” WSJ (Gift Article): One Generation Runs the Country. The Next Cashed In on Crypto. (Remind me again. What’s the good part of crypto?)
+ Lobster Lady: “Her death, in a hospital not far from her home in Rockland, was confirmed by her sternman, Max Oliver Jr., who was also her son. On the frigid and crustacean-filled waters of Penobscot Bay, Mrs. Oliver was known as the Lobster Lady. She was a folk hero to Mainers — an enduring, if fading, emblem of the state’s hardy, matter-of-fact work ethic.” Virginia Oliver, Maine’s ‘Lobster Lady’ and Folk Hero, Dies at 105.
+ On the Job Training: Ultrarunners in secondhand trainers: the rickshaw drivers taking on the world’s toughest races – photo essay. This is awesome.
“While traditional Crocs are known as much for their comfort as their divisive design, the LEGO Crocs are all about style. If you’re planning to wear them for long periods, have an Epsom salt bath waiting for you at the end of the day.” We walked a mile in the LEGO Crocs so you don’t have to. (Some things are worth a little pain…)
2026-02-06 20:00:00
The President of the United States posted a racist video depicting the Obamas as monkeys in what seemed to be an AI-generated parody of The Lion King. After first defending the video (“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public”), the White House eventually removed the video. The news here is not Trump’s toddler on cocaine-like lack of social media impulse control. Nor is it his overt racism. That, after all, is his most consistent trait, spanning time (his opening salvo in his first successful presidential run centered on birtherism) and geography (from the masked thugs patrolling the streets of Minneapolis to the funding cuts robbing black and brown kids of food and medicine in “sh-thole” countries). The combination of these personality defects means that one can hardly be surprised that another day brought us yet another adult diaper-full of rancid, racist, social media bile spewed across the internet. What’s notable here is that, at least this once, the media didn’t sugar coat the reality of the story (it was racism, period), even some of Trump’s ardent enablers didn’t try to write off the racism as just Donald being Donald (South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” which is really saying something), and that the White House, at long last, finally deleted something instead of defending it. No one expects this to teach the president, his defenders, or his social media team a lasting lesson, and we’re not bracing ourselves for a return of dignity to the Oval Office. But at least when it comes to this one incident and this one moment in time, the lyin sleeps tonight.
The Super Bowl used to stand out as a big betting day. But in 2026, it’s more of a representation of every other day (or every other minute). We are betting on anything and everything, and the gamified casinos are in our pockets 24/7. What could possibly go wrong? The Atlantic (Gift Article): Prediction markets are turbocharging America’s obsession with sports gambling. (How turbocharged will it get? Well, you can lay a bet on that, too.) “Thanks to a loophole, Americans have effectively been able to bet on sports no matter where they live. All they have to do is turn to prediction markets. Platforms such as Kalshi let people wager on lots of things: Who will win the Oscar for Best Actor? How much snow will New York City get this month? Prediction markets say that they are more akin to the stock market than gambling. Rather than betting on odds set by bookmakers, users trade contracts that pay out according to the outcome of a given event. This distinction may not mean much for someone betting on the Seahawks over the Patriots, but it does allow prediction markets to operate even in places where sports betting is illegal.”
A British “athlete has launched a stinging attack on the ICE agency ahead of the opening ceremony at the Winter Games, urinating the words ‘F— ICE’ into the snow.” In addition to having some pretty remarkable aim, Gus Kenworthy represents what could be a somewhat uncomfortable Olympics for the American brand. Protesters have already taken to the streets of Milan to protest the presence of ICE at the Games. And what’s happening in Milan isn’t staying in Milan. Stephen Marche in the NYT (Gift Article): The Globalization of Canadian Rage. “Throughout last year, the consensus among many European policymakers in the face of Donald Trump’s bombast was to wait out the nonsense and appease when possible. Mr. Carney’s speech arrived at the exact point at which that position proved untenable: Mr. Trump’s intensifying threats to forcibly annex Greenland, not to mention his insults to NATO troops who fought and died alongside U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. ‘They stayed a little back, little off the front lines’ is a statement that will be remembered in Europe alongside ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ and ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall’ as a presidential remark that embodies the American spirit of its moment.”
What to Watch: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley star in a Marvel superhero show that focuses more on struggling actors than superhero stuff. It’s a solid show. Check out Wonder Man on Disney.
+ What to Book: Don Winslow retired from writing new books. Luckily, that retirement didn’t hold, and he’s back with an excellent collection of short stories that Stephen King calls “The best crime fiction I’ve read in twenty years.” The Final Score.
+ What to Doc: If you’re looking for a good way to get into the Olympic spirit, check out the new doc about one of the games’ greatest moments and maybe the greatest commentator moment ever. On Netflix: Miracle: The Boys of ’80.
Plumb Jobs: “The unemployment gap between workers with bachelor’s degrees and those with occupational associate’s degrees — such as plumbers, electricians and pipe fitters — flipped in 2025.” For the first time in 50 years, college grads are losing their edge.
+ Quiet, Riggie: “A decade ago, in the America of the Before Times, this would have been a ridiculous discussion, given that it is ‘not constitutional or legal’ to federalize elections as Trump wants, as the Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg put it this week. But we live in the post-January 6th world, so the better question to ask is this: With a President who is already the first in our history to try to overturn the results of an election he decisively lost, what more will it take for us to finally acknowledge that, when he says this stuff, he actually means to follow through with it?” The New Yorker: Donald Trump Already Knows the 2026 Election Is “Rigged“.
+ Assad Sack: “Many describe a detached ruler, obsessed with sex and video games, who probably could have saved his regime at any time in the past few years if he hadn’t been so stubborn and vain.” Robert F. Worth in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Fall of the House of Assad.
+ What the World Needs Now: “Imagine you’re the leader of a nation, and you face a dilemma. Half a million or so people who are crucial to everyone’s daily lives inhabit your country. They care for aging parents, work at small and large companies, harvest the food that’s on the table. They are also part of your community. On weekends, they walk in the parks, go to restaurants and play on the local amateur soccer team. But one crucial thing makes these half a million people different from other people in your country: They don’t have the legal documents that allow them to live there.” I’m the Prime Minister of Spain. This Is Why the West Needs Migrants.
+ All Narcissism and No Play Makes Don a Dulles Boy: Trump wanted Dulles Airport and Penn Station named after him — in exchange for releasing federal funds. He already has a prescription drug site named after him.
+ Vaccine But Not Heard: “Over two days of questioning during his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated the same answer. He said the closely scrutinized 2019 trip he took to Samoa, which came before a devastating measles outbreak, had ‘nothing to do with vaccines.'” Surprise! It had to do with vaccines.
+ Prime Spree: WSJ (Gift Article): Trump’s New Tax Law Saved Amazon Billions.
“A division of the U.S. Agency for International Development eliminated by Trump administration cuts last year was reborn Thursday as an independent nonprofit, allowing its international work to continue in a new form.”
+ “Statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs taken by 200 million people worldwide, are safer than previously believed, new research suggested. A review of previous studies totalling 123,000 patients found that only four of 66 potential side effects listed on statins’ packaging were actually caused by the drugs.”
+ These Kansas City students run a credit union from inside their high school. Yes, with real money.
+ An Australian 13-year-old who swam 2.49 miles to shore and then ran 1.24 miles to get help for his stranded family has been described as superhuman.
+ “Noah Winter brags he’s been to way more Super Bowls than Tom Brady. Brady competed in 10 — more than any other player. But Winter will be part of the Super Bowl spectacle for his 30th straight year this year, not in uniform but as the guy in charge of the celebratory confetti after the game ends.”