Reading archive 2026-03-31

Army reviews why helicopters flew near Kid Rock’s home, No Kings rallies: An Army official said “appropriate action” will be taken if the probe reveals violations of safety standards or other regulations.

I broke up with my Kindle. My new e-reader treats me better.: After Amazon’s Kindle removed my ability to download and back up my own e-books, I went in search of an alternative.

Scientists captured female sperm whales on video working together during a birth to protect the calf

Oil and gas prices are soaring. Some countries are ready with solar panels and EVs

The Kurdish Ground Force Preparing to Fight in Iran: The Peshmerga on the Iraq-Iran border are eager to join the American campaign. They’re also deeply uneasy about where it might lead. - "'The real alternatives to this regime are not outside Iran,' [Adib Watandust, a member of the Kurdish Komala Party] said. 'They are inside-the political prisoners, union activists, teachers, journalists in jail, women and men. They are the real leadership. And the West cannot dictate an alternative from outside.'"

The Manosphere Turns on Trump: How many times can a coalition crack before it shatters?

Reading archive 2026-03-30

Local Teens Speak Out at Inaugural D.C. Teen Summit

House approves GOP bill to create public safety commission for DC

D.C.’s speed cameras are catching super violators. Most have Va. and Md. tags.: The most egregious violators have racked up thousands of dollars in unpaid fines for several hundred tickets. - "The biggest obstacle to better enforcement in the city is that most violators live in Maryland or Virginia. Of the 103 vehicles with the most tickets in fiscal 2025, 67 have Virginia plates, 25 have Maryland plates, and 3 have D.C. plates. Of the 100 top speeds registered by cameras in the past two years, 37 of the vehicles involved had Virginia plates, 35 carried Maryland plates, and 13 featured D.C. plates."

Miscellanea: The War in Iran - "The result is a fairly classic escalation trap: once the conflict starts, it is extremely costly for either side to ever back down, which ensures that the conflict continues long past it being in the interests of either party. Every day this war goes on make both the United States and Iran weaker, poorer and less secure but it is very hard for either side to back down because there are huge costs connected to being the party that backs down. So both sides ‘escalate to de-escalate’ (this phrase is generally as foolish as it sounds), intensifying the conflict in an effort to hit hard enough to force the other guy to blink first. But since neither party can back down unilaterally and survive politically, there’s practically no amount of pain that can force them to do so.

...

"There is a very real risk that this conflict will end with Iran as the de facto master of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, having demonstrated that no one can stop them from determining by force which ships pass and which ships cannot. That would, in fact, be a significant strategic victory for Iran and an enormous strategic defeat for the United States.

...

"But the United States is likewise going to bear diplomatic costs here. Right now the Gulf States have to shelter against Iranian attack but when the dust settles they – and many other countries – will remember that the United States unilaterally initiated by surprise a war of choice which set off severe global economic headwinds and uncertainty. Coming hot on the heels of the continuing drama around tariffs, the takeaway in many places may well be ‘Uncle Sam wants you to be poor,’ which is quite a damaging thing for diplomacy. And as President Trump was finding out when he called for help in the Strait of Hormuz and got told ‘no’ by all of our traditional allies, it is in fact no fun at all to be diplomatically isolated, no matter how powerful you are."

How the Turner Twins Are Mythbusting Modern Gear: Ross and Hugo Turner are genetically identical professional adventurers. By dressing one in cutting-edge technical apparel and the other in 100-year-old heritage kit on the world’s toughest expeditions, they are conducting the ultimate A/B test on modern gear.

Building Tanks While the Ukrainians Master Drones: Ukrainian drones have made artillery and armored vehicles look obsolete. Why is the world still buying them? - "In the end, Rheinmetall has a strong incentive to continue making the expensive weapons it has made for much of its history, even if they can be blown apart by drones that cost less than the average smartphone."

The Surprising Reason for the New Homophobia: Americans are burned-out, frustrated, and hunting for scapegoats. - "But any good explanation of how queer personalities are formed begins with the acknowledgment of how powerful marginalization can be. Gay people realize, at some early age, that the world isn't made for people like them. And for men, raised with the social pressure to seek dominance, that realization can lead to an obsession with climbing the rungs-whether in the context of sex, money, or something else. All of which is to say: Gay men are the original incels. They are born into heightened status anxiety and must maneuver to get ahead. And one way to do that is to be hot."

Reading archive 2026-03-29

He took Pelosi’s lectern on Jan. 6. Now he’s running for office.: Adam Johnson has rarely voted and embraces his role as clown prince of Jan. 6. Floridians will decide whether a man who tried to upend democracy can help lead one.

Pentagon prepares for weeks of ground operations in Iran: If President Donald Trump approves the plans, such an effort would mark a new phase of the war that could be significantly more dangerous to U.S. troops than the first four weeks.

Land by Georgia swamp, once slated for a mine, will become a wildlife area: The state plans to buy about 4,000 acres near Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge from a conservation group, which acquired the land to halt a proposed titanium mine.

NYC’s newest hobby is cleaning up trash and documenting the filth: In a city long vexed by excess garbage, volunteer cleanup clubs are increasingly filling the gaps.

Reading archive 2026-03-27

How Reverse Game Theory Could Solve The Housing Shortage: Our hardest problems — from housing shortages to climate retreat to democratic trust and technology — aren’t failures of politics; they’re failures of incentives.  "This is the promise of mechanism design: It suggests our hardest problems — from housing shortages to climate retreat to democratic trust and technology — won’t be solved by better attitudes or more flexible positions. They will be solved by better architectures, by structures that treat division not as an obstacle to eliminate but as material to consider when building." [ed. note: mechanism design; Transferable Development Rights]

Where Are All the Campus Protests?: Two years ago, students occupied buildings and colonized the quad. Now the same places are strangely silent.

The Deep Risk That Republican Hawks Overlooked: If the Iran war goes badly, the isolationist, anti-Israel wing of the party is likely to steer the GOP’s future. - "Trump has held [America First and Neocons] in place through personalist rule. Anybody who supports Trump - however disreputable or criminal they might be - can be in the party, nobody in the party can oppose Trump, and the party's platform consists of whatever Trump has said at any given moment, even if it contradicts what he claimed to stand for yesterday. The holdover Republicans who have remained attached to the party's old identity (hawkish, pro-Israel, anti-Russia, opposed to anti-Semitism) have squabbled with its newer entrants. But those disputes could be settled by Trump, who has repeatedly declared, 'I am MAGA.'"

Infamous DC squatter sues homeowner, claims $500K in designer goods are missing

US newspaper circulations 2025: Washington Post print declines 21% in a year: Some 24 out of top 25 US newspapers saw print circulation decline in 2025.

Education Department headquarters will relocate as part of Trump’s dismantling

What gladiatorial politics will bury in the midterms: Never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. - "Trump, himself a highly caffeinated creature, has been caffeine for the electorate: a stimulant, who in 2024 upended the axiom that higher voter turnout is better for Democrats. Last spring, David Shor, a data scientist, calculated that if more people had voted, Kamala Harris would have fared even worse. Trump would have won the popular vote by almost five points instead of 1.4 points, and in doing so would have won five states he lost (Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Virginia). The electoral vote outcome would have been 355-183 instead of 312-226."

FBI probe of 2020 election count in Georgia faces crucial court hearing: A federal judge Friday will consider Fulton County’s request for the return of thousands of ballots seized by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department.

House Democrat violated ethics rules, panel finds, putting her seat in jeopardy: The Ethics Committee panel cited a years-long inquiry into whether Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick misused covid pandemic money. She has maintained her innocence. - "The Justice Department brought its charges against Cherfilus-McCormick and several others, including her brother and tax preparer, in November, concluding an investigation that began during the Biden administration."

U.S. uses hundreds of Tomahawk missiles on Iran, alarming some at Pentagon: More than 850 have been fired in just four weeks, people familiar with the matter said, raising concerns about the weapon’s limited supply.

Is The End of NATO Near?: The alliance has been battered by Trump’s threats.

A Turning Point in the Iran War: The president is discovering the high stakes of an escalation that damages energy facilities.

The Countdown to a Ground War: The president wants to avoid a long, messy entanglement, but all of the ground options promise to be just that.

The Immigration Restriction Trump Won’t Try: Focusing enforcement on employers might be the easiest choice in immigration policy—after all the hard ones are made. - "For these reasons, the Democrats proposing employer-focused enforcement all offer the same important caveat: Yes to E-Verify, but only after most of the undocumented people already in the country are given a path to legal status. 'Once we have immigration reform,' Gallego told me, 'and once we have actually legalized' most undocumented immigrants without a criminal record, then strict enforcement of E-Verify is the natural next step. Last August, the New Democrat Coalition, a caucus of 115 congresspeople, released an immigration plan embodying the same logic. It proposes beefing up border security, creating new visa categories and expanding existing ones, giving Dreamers a path to citizenship, and granting legal status to noncriminal undocumented immigrants who arrived more than five years ago and pay a fine."

Welcome to a Multidimensional Economic Disaster: The AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis. - "The way the money moves is concerning, but so is the AI industry's underlying business model. At every layer, the technology appears to decrease the value of its assets. The advanced AI chips that make up the majority of the cost of a data center? Their value rapidly decreases as they are superseded by the next generation of chips, meaning that the ultimate backstop for all of the data-center debt - selling the data center itself - is not actually a backstop. The way that AI companies make money when people use their products is also deflationary. OpenAI, Anthropic, and others charge users for using 'tokens,' the components of words processed by their bots. This means that tokens are an industrial commodity akin to, say, crude oil or steel. But unlike other commodities, the cost of each token is rapidly decreasing owing to advancements in AI's capabilities. Kedrosky called this 'a death spiral to zero.' As the value of a token plummets, the value of what data centers can produce also falls.

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"Even if Iran and the Strait of Hormuz don't directly trigger an AI-driven financial crisis, the odds are decent that another vector could. (Remember tariffs?) Energy prices could stay elevated for years, because the targeted fossil-fuel facilities in the Persian Gulf will take a long time to restore. As the U.S. directs huge amounts of attention and military resources toward Iran, it's easy to imagine China launching an invasion of Taiwan - a scenario that terrifies Silicon Valley, because it would halt the production of chips needed to train frontier models. That's not even considering the single Dutch company that makes the high-tech lithography machines used to print virtually all AI chips, or the German company that makes the mirrors used in those machines. 'There are too many ways for it to fail for it not to fail,' Kedrosky said of the AI industry's web of risk. 'All you can say for sure is this is a fragile and overdetermined system that must break, so it will.'"

OpenAI Is Doing Everything … Poorly: The company’s sudden decision to pull the plug on Sora is a sign of deeper trouble.

What Was Clavicular?: The internet’s most famous looks-maxxer is far more pernicious than he may seem.

Reading archive 2026-03-26

Neither tattoos nor slurs are slowing this Senate candidate down: The controversial Democrat is still piquing Mainers’ interest by channeling their frustrations. - "That’s if Platner can pull off his big ideas. Anger might be enough to win the primary in June. But it will be difficult to persuade working Mainers to replace the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee with a junior senator who thinks he can deliver universal health care without raising their taxes." [ed. note: Senate Approps doesn't do anything anymore, though, lol]

Politicians are trying to make life cheaper. Economists are appalled.: Republicans and Democrats are pitching ideas intended to address affordability, but experts warn the proposals could cause other problems.

Pentagon considers diverting Ukraine military aid to the Middle East: A shift would highlight the growing trade-offs required for the U.S. to sustain its war with Iran as the conflict depletes the military’s critical munitions. - "Separately, the Pentagon notified Congress on Monday that it intended to divert about $750 million in funding provided by NATO countries through the PURL program to restock the U.S. military’s own inventories, rather than to send additional assistance to Ukraine, according to two U.S. officials.

"The first official said it was unclear whether European countries providing their funds for the initiative to bolster Ukraine understood how the money was being spent."

Bigotry among young conservatives has Republicans on edge: Many Republicans dismiss such party members even as white supremacists like Nick Fuentes gain popularity, but there’s growing unease at their presence in the rank and file.

Reading archive 2026-03-25

People Who Love Corporate BS Are Bad at Their Jobs, New Cornell Research Confirms: The psychologist behind a new study confirming the link between dumb jargon and dumb decisions explains how to fight corporate BS. - "Here’s how Cornell Chronicle summed up the results: 'Essentially, the employees most excited and inspired by 'visionary' corporate jargon may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions for their companies.'"

Trump showed classified map to passengers on his plane in 2022, memo says: The document offers a snapshot of an early moment in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and adds new shading to the public understanding of Smith’s probes.

At a Virginia vineyard, volunteers are fighting to eliminate this invasive pest: The invasive insects, which one winery owner called “vampires,” have wreaked havoc across the D.C. region.

Conservative activist convicted in voter-fraud case: In Wisconsin, Harry Wait said he set out to expose the potential for voter fraud. He ordered mail ballots in the names of others — and got charged with felonies.

Partisan brawl in Virginia muddles Spanberger’s message of moderation: The congressional redistricting fight is tainting the governor’s image, one Democrat said: “This should be a flashing red light for Democrats everywhere.” - "Spanberger, who uses saltier language in private meetings than during her carefully controlled public appearances, said in the interview that she told Wittman and the other Republicans they should have spoken up when Trump urged Texas, North Carolina and other red states to rig their districts for the GOP. 'You didn’t give a s--- about fairness,' she said she told the GOP delegation, '… until your singular seat was potentially the one' affected."

'They did not have a chance' | Trial begins for convicted DUI driver who killed three men on Rock Creek Parkway in 2023: Nakita Walker is facing three second-degree murder charges for the deaths of Mohammed Kamara, Jonathan Cabrera, and Olvin Velasquez.

Treason in the Futures: Markets People close to Trump are trading based on national secrets - "But in any case, Trump’s sudden climb-down was startling. Who could have seen this coming? 

"The answer is, the person or people who bought large quantities of stock market futures and sold large quantities of oil futures around 15 minutes before Trump’s announcement."

The Situation: The Enduring Truths of the Mueller Report: There are four of them. - "Mueller made mistakes. There is no doubt about that. That said, the Mueller Report remains the single best account we have of the relationship between Trump and the Russians and the manner in which Trump will deploy power within and from the executive branch. Little that has happened since its release should surprise those who read it carefully."

Canada’s Polite Pogrom: Is a national tolerance for zealotry purging Jews from public life? - "The awkward reality is that a main driver of these incidents is a very Canadian aversion to causing offense: The deference of many politicians and institutions to the views of a rapidly growing minority community is too often leading them to reject another minority community. Although relatively few Canadians hold negative views of Jews, opinion polls have found that such views find greater levels of support within the Canadian Muslim community. From 2001 to 2021, the Muslim population of Canada more than tripled, to about 5 percent of the population. Just 4 percent of non-Jewish Canadians agree that Jews are largely to blame for the negative consequences of globalization, but that figure rises to 28 percent among Canadian Muslims, according to a survey conducted by the University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym. Similarly, only 16 percent of Canadians believe that it is appropriate for opponents of Israel's policies to boycott Jewish-owned businesses in Canada, but that claim finds support among 41 percent of Canadian Muslims."

‘You Want to Leave Us Alone With Mojtaba?’: I’ve spoken with more than a dozen Iranians since the start of the war. Most are terrified, and some are losing faith in America.

Reading archive 2026-03-24

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years: An investigation by The New York Times found extensive evidence that the United Farm Workers co-founder groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the movement.

Exercise can lower Alzheimer’s risk. Scientists may have discovered why.: In an ambitious study, memory and learning abilities improved substantially after exercise among mice with a form of Alzheimer’s disease.

How Trump Killed Conservatism: The president has cultivated and encouraged the ugliest passions within the GOP, dousing the embers of hate with kerosene. [ed. note: a conservative write a paean to conservatism, yawn]

How the Midwest Became the Place to Move: It’s (mostly) about affordability.

The Strategic Follies of the Islamic Republic: The past half century reveals a record not of constant brilliance, but of consistent folly.

The Death of Millennial Feminism: Lindy West has unwittingly written the obituary for an era. - "Adult Braces is many things: a paean to the varied landscapes of America, an advert for #vanlife, a reminder to be grateful that your partner hasn't talked you into a throuple with a much thinner woman. It is also the tombstone for Millennial Feminism - that swirling brew of Media Twitter, blog snark, the Great Awokening, whaling on Lena Dunham, fat positivity, and boring straight people identifying as queer through accounting tricks."

Why I Stopped Forcing My Kid to Share: True generosity can’t be coerced.

Why is everyone hating on runfluencers now?" Instagram’s running influencers are facing backlash over an influx of injuries, falsified marathon times, AI-generated training plans and debates about privilege

Suicidal Bootlicking as a Method of Governance: Education and extraction in the cannibal South. - "Ken Griffin goes to Harvard, makes a fortune, builds his business in New York and Chicago, and then finally deigns to move his hedge fund down to Florida in order to not pay taxes, builds a private school, and then watches the kids of all his associates go back to Harvard. Do you think these masters of the universe are going to send their kids to the University of Florida or the University of Texas to learn some halfhearted religious bullshit? Hell no! They want the best educations for their kids. They will not be utilizing the educational systems that have been degraded in order to redirect more wealth into their own bank accounts. Harvard and Yale will educate a crop of imperial capitalists, grow their fortunes, deploy them down to desperate Southern states that they can plunder, and then accept their children back again in order to repeat the process. Notice what the Southern states themselves get out of this process: Less than nothing. They are making the ambient education levels of their own residents lower in order to be better exploited by out-of-state wealth. They are ensuring that their own residents will be less competitive with the Harvard cutthroats of the future. They are locking themselves into a perpetual cycle of having to offer ever more extravagant enticements for out-of-state rich people to come on down, because they robbed themselves of the ability to build their own ladder upwards by giving it all away to attract the last generation of out-of-state wealth. This deranged and suicidal cycle, at least, explains how this stupid system has gone on for so long. The way it is able to extract from the normal residents of a state in exchange for absolutely no positive return is a marvel to perceive."

2028 Dem hopefuls scramble for distance from AIPAC Democrats eyeing: White House bids are distancing themselves from the powerful pro-Israel group amid slumping support for Israel within the party’s base. - "'There are Iranian Americans that bundle money. There are Turkish Americans that bundle money. There are a lot of ethnic groups that bundle money, and often for things that I don’t agree with. But somehow AIPAC seems to be drawing a lot of attention, and that’s problematic to me,' Booker said. '[AIPAC] is not the problem in America. The problem in America is money in politics.'"

Decades after a Florida canal project was abandoned, advocates are trying to reunite 3 rivers

American Aviation Is Near Collapse: Fatal crashes, overstressed controllers, and endless security lines reveal a system teetering on the brink of failure.

How to get Big Tech to pay your energy bills: The most overlooked U.S. power plant isn’t a gas turbine or solar farm. It’s your house (and thousands of others), and firms are paying to use them to power data centers. - "Your home offers another solution to the energy shortage. The concept is simple. When thousands of homes are coordinated together by software into what are known as distributed or virtual power plants (VPPs), they can deliver or free up a power plant’s worth of electricity for the grid by dialing down consumption from smart appliances like electric water heaters or dispatching electricity from home batteries. This approach can bring hundreds of megawatts online in months, not the years it can take to build a new power plant."

Europe’s Far Right Is Turning on Trump: The president’s attempt to influence elections across the Atlantic is backfiring.