About 60 trans athletes play organized sports in the US. Sixty. Politicians and influencers trying to stir up outrage about this are distracting you while they steal from you.
Matt Stoller: The Populist Revolt Against Oligarchy Begins. Oligarchs opposed Trump 1 — they were the foundation of the Resistance— but they’re kissing the ring now and the people are getting pissed off.
The view from my hotel window, in one of the most ancient and beautiful cities in the world.
Barcelona really is all that — truly ancient and beautiful. However, my neighborhood does not partake of that legacy. It’s fine, though. Comfortable and reasonably close to Mobile World Congress.
The great thing about AirTags as you get instant reassurance when you get off the plane that your luggage is in the same airport that you are. The frustrating thing is you can see that your luggage is 3/10 of a mile away from you and hasn’t moved in a long time.
JFK airport is a shitshow, particularly if you are unused to flying through it and trying to make a connection from one side of the airport to the other. But the random people who work there that I asked for guidance were extremely helpful – and I’m not kidding about that.
Quest Bars are an exceptionally great travel snack to pack in your go bag. They’re satisfying when you don’t have time to get real food; they’re just tasty enough to enjoy while eating them, but not tasty enough that you’re ever tempted to eat them recreationally.
I got this recommendation years ago from a podcaster named CGP Grey on the Cortex podcast. 100% correct, extremely useful.
RIP Joseph Wambaugh, 88, ex-cop and writer, who wrote brilliant police procedurals and true crime, including "The Onion Field."
I loved his books. His cops were sometimes heroic, sometimes bad and dirty, sometimes both at once. He wrote lovingly about them and about cold-blooded murderers.
He had a remarkable life, continuing to work as a policeman years after his writing career took off, quitting only when he became too famous for police work.
Robert D. McFadden at the NY Times::
“I’m very interested in the concept of the sociopath, very interested, because my conscience has bothered me all my life,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1989. “Talk about regrets – I have about 20 every day. I was educated in Catholic schools, and they did that to me. So I have to cope with a conscience all the time. And I’m interested in a creature who has none of that.”
I’m at the airport at the gate waiting for a flight out. There’s a guy here sitting in a chair literally playing the trombone. I’m pretty sure he’s a passenger — I don’t think he works for the airline as an onboard trombonist.
At least it’s not a tuba.
The Fastest and Easiest Second Passports for Americans in 2025
I qualify for Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, if I can get the paperwork to prove it. I presume Julie qualifies too, as my spouse.
I’m not planning on going anywhere, but if things get extremely DOGE-MAGA, a second passport might be a useful thing to have.
‘I’m proud of its wonderful teens’: Amy Heckerling on how Clueless revolutionised the high-school comedy. I loved “Clueless” and I’m man enough to admit it.
Startup Lonestar Data Holdings is catching a ride on a SpaceX rocket to put a mini data center on the moon — a proof-of-concept for the real thing. I get the technical and legal benefits of putting a data center in space, but why the moon? Why not in orbit, where it would be closer to home and more easily serviced?
Burritos, AI art, corporate fascism
Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day: “You ordered a private taxi for your burrito.” Also: " … AI art is the aesthetic of 21st-century fascism the same way Italian Futurism was in the last century."
Also: “The Washington Post as a tool of fascism:”
As Juniper wrote on Bluesky, “I think everyone needs to stop framing what’s going on as ‘bending the knee’ and what’s really happening which is ‘they’re finally feel free to do what they’ve always wanted to do.’”
Oh, and by the way, totally unrelated. I’m still working my way through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I just got to the section where all the German industrialists that supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power because he was anti-union get their companies nationalized and they all get thrown in jail.
More than a billion people now watch podcasts on YouTube every month. This seems bonkers to me. Podcasts aren’t for watching. They’re for listening to, while walking the dog, driving or doing chores around the house. And yet YouTube is apparently now the most popular podcast platform by far.