I just spent the last several hours trying to keep from drowning in the bottomless pit of debate analysis. In summation: It's the same as it ever was. Hillary was pretty good. But she's always pretty good. And Trump was terrible. But he's always terrible. If you are a decided voter, nothing you saw last night would change your mind. If you've been paying attention to the election for the past year, nothing you saw last night could have come as much of a surprise. Digg has a good recap of the highlights, and from Buzzfeed: Lies, ISIS, Nukes, And Sniffles.

+ I'm assuming I wasn't the only one who watched the debate with my shrink on speakerphone. Here's my smart and hilarious 'analysis' of Debate One: He Said, She Said.

+ As expected, a lot of people watched. And most people stuck around for the whole thing (other than my 10 year-old son, who said, "They both suck, this is boring, I'm going to play ping pong" at the minute 9 mark).

+ Forget the polls. Watch the markets. Most interesting stat following the debate: The Mexican peso went up.

+ NPR: Fact checking the debate.

+ The search term that trended during the debate: Temperamental.

+ And some reporters at WaPo watched the debate with the only viewers that matter: Undecided voters.

The morning after got started with Trump hinting that he'll hit harder during Debate Two, and making repeated allusions to the Lewinsky affair, which he didn't bring up (even though he sort of did), "because he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings." He also confirmed that Alicia Machado did in fact gain too much weight.

+ Two Georgian politicians refused to let Clinton/Trump own the debate newscycle. They got into a fist fight on live television.

"You might assume that for something as important as presidential succession, the world's most powerful nation has it down to a science ... But in reality, the system is far less clearly delineated, and dogged by questions that are likely to begin the moment it's pressed into action. I've spent the last three years researching a forthcoming book on the government's doomsday plans, and one fact that emerged starkly is just how uncertain the whole process is." From Politico: Who's In Charge of America After a Catastrophe? Who Knows?

"Nearly all of Arlena's adult life had been defined by someone else's control over her. It started with her boyfriend, Alonzo Turner, whom she met when she was a 20-year-old single mother. A few months into their relationship, he started hitting her, and then he started hitting Titches. She tried to escape once and he threw her in the trunk of his car. She tried to escape a second time, after he whipped Titches with a belt and threw him against the wall. He snatched her son away from her and threw her out of their home." Buzzfeed's Alex Campbell on women who are locked up for decades because their children were abused -- not by the women themselves but by their boyfriends or husbands. The woman described above was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

"At every stage in the supply lines, the systems that are supposed to defend the animals against this global butchery are no match for the organized crime groups that dominate the trade." The Guardian on the $23 billion animal trafficking business, and the toothless regulators tasked with stopping it.

"The hate that is fueling the death threats, players, parents and coaches said, is the same reason they are kneeling during the national anthem. And they resolved that the protest would continue, in spite of it all." Colin Kaepernick has taken a lot of heat for his decision to kneel during the national anthem. But don't underestimate the pressure facing the coaches and players (ages 11-12) who are trying to make their own statement on the sidelines of Texas football games. Adam Harris in The Bleacher Report: The Fight Of Their Lives.

+ Why do we have national anthems?

"But then the stimulant decree was released, and that enabled them to stay awake for three days and three nights. Rommel [who then led one of the panzer divisions] and all those tank commanders were high -- and without the tanks, they certainly wouldn't have won." German writer Norman Ohler on how meth powered the Nazis and the course of WWII. (Someone should do a sweeping history of the use of drugs in war, and how those drugs made their way into civilian life.)

"Smart young things joining the workforce soon discover that, although they have been selected for their intelligence, they are not expected to use it." In Aeon, a professor of organizational behavior explains how organizations enshrine collective stupidity and employees are rewarded for checking their brains at the office door. As the only employee in a one person organization, I'm tasked with enshrining that stupidity entirely on my own.

"Jose Fernandez was not someone you had to remind yourself to humanize. He was not a player you had reduced to an on-field construct because that's just how we have to compartmentalize everything. No, no, goodness no. He was so radiant that when he's ripped away, you almost have to force yourself to remember the talent. How well he played the sport is the afterthought because all you can think about at first is the joy."

From The Verge: SpaceX unveils the Interplanetary Transport System, a spaceship and rocket to colonize Mars. Sadly, there's not much chance you can get there before the next presidential debate. (I have a feeling that if Elon Musk gets to Mars, there will be an Amazon package waiting there for him.)

+ Swipe right for a sperm donor.