Reading archive 2026-06-30

The all-natural way to fix the Reflecting Pool: Enlisting nature to help clean up the algae would be more patriotic than tossing in chemicals. - "I’ll be crystal clear: I don’t know if this approach would work. What I do know is that the current strategy has not survived contact with reality, and unless we try something different, we will fail, over and over again. 

"The United States isn’t known for learning quickly from its mistakes. There’s an apocryphal line from Winston Churchill that Americans will always do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else."

Iran’s leverage over Strait of Hormuz snarls Trump’s push for a deal: The U.S. president is set on bringing gas prices down and reaching a nuclear deal, but Iran has little incentive to cede its newfound power to control shipping traffic.

As war stalls, Putin concedes he never cut a deal with Trump in Alaska: Putin just admitted the Anchorage summit didn’t yield a plan to end the war in Ukraine — perhaps because he needs a real deal now.

Trump is using a $500M no-bid contract to build his White House ballroom: The secret agreement was routed through a White House office that typically handles repairs and furnishings and is exempt from competitive bidding requirements.

American agriculture is broken: Fixing it will require much more than the new farm bill can deliver - "Cheap cash crop exports also carry economic risk, as witnessed by China’s plummeting purchases of US soyabeans amid a trade war. The idea that the US should continue to spend billions of dollars bailing out farmers who are still being incentivised to keep producing a crop that their largest buyer no longer wants (China is actively moving towards more food independence) makes zero sense."

A Watergate Every Week J. D.: Vance contends that the scandal would be “a 12-hour news story” today. He’s probably correct, but the lesson isn’t what he claims.

A Long-Standing Theory of Childbirth Is a Myth: Delivering a human baby is not uniquely difficult.