Trump v Kimmel (and the rest of us)
I’m not even going to humor the idea that Jimmy Kimmel’s light joke about the Trumps’ age difference can somehow be connected to the actions of a deranged would-be assassin. Nor am I going to pretend that the most divisive, disgusting, heinous, social media troll of all time — a low-browbeater who, in just in the past few of weeks, has used his bullying pulpit to celebrate the death of the distinguished Robert Mueller, attack the Pope, compare himself to Jesus, and threaten to wipe out an entire civilization — could somehow be offended by a throwaway line during a late night show. The idea of anyone in this administration calling anyone else’s words offensive represents an act of projection of such magnitude it makes Artemis II look like a backyard stomp rocket. This is not a story about a joke told by a comedian, who offends the president because he’s funny, relentless in his resistance, and is known as a genuinely good and extremely well-liked person. It’s the story of a broken administration using the now-mangled levers of government to attack perceived enemies and settle personal grudges. (They just indicted former FBI Director Comey for a second time.) It’s a story about a corporation that shouldn’t have to Mickey Mouse around with this nonsense, but who we need to be able to count on not to tear down its values in the face of a manufactured controversy. But it’s also a story about the millions of us who wake up every morning to another set of depressing headlines that alienate us from our country, our fellow citizens, and our reality – but who are buoyed by our more public counterparts like Jimmy Kimmel who continue to fight the good fight, reminding us that we’re not alone, and that none of this is normal. The resistance celebrates Kimmel when he’s acting as the tip of the spear. But it’s more important that we stand by him when the most powerful people in America turn him, yet again, into a human shield. Kimmel opened his monologue last night with this: “You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning and the First Lady puts out a statement demanding you be fired from your job? We’ve all been there, right?” No, we haven’t experienced that. But we’re right there with you, Jimmy.
+ Reliable Sources: “Kimmel’s show went ahead as scheduled last night. None of the ABC affiliates preempted it. This morning, the Trump White House stepped up the pressure even more, with WH comms director Steven Cheung calling Kimmel a ‘shit human being’ and saying ‘ABC needs to fire him immediately.’ But that’s simply not going to happen. My sense from sources in and around Disney is that the company is ready for this fight. And make no mistake: It’s going to be a long fight. The FCC is preparing to take action that will be widely seen as retaliatory.” A repeat of Kimmelgate?
Don’t Be Left Holding the Bag
Let’s shift to a positive story. Well, it’s a positive story about something negative. Maybe that’s even overstating it, but it’s not totally negative in every way, so let’s go with it. Kit Dillon on why go bags aren’t enough in a time of increasingly common natural disasters. “Water, medication, important documents, a few days of food are all important. But true preparation isn’t something you can buy off Amazon or stuff in a bag, and it certainly won’t be found on YouTube. It’s built by people and our commitments to one another.” NYT (Gift Article): The Prepper Delusion. “Tomorrow there will be no climate havens. The sirens will sound again. Pack a bag if you want. But the real preparation begins when you knock on your neighbor’s door and invite them over.”
Place Your Bots
“Among the winners, a majority of the profits were raked in by a tiny slice of what look to be automated bots, based on the Polymarket trade records compiled by the data firm Dune. Everyone else, in aggregate, lost $131 million.” (In fairness, the bots aren’t the only ones winning. Some insider traders are doing quite well.) Bloomberg (Gift Article): Most Prediction Market Traders Are Losing Money While Bots Rack Up Gains.
+ The prediction markets recently got into sports gambling. So the sports gambling apps are getting into the prediction markets. At least it will be easy to find a place to lay a bet on which app you think will win.
The American (Data) Center
“Developers plan to build six of the sprawling campuses in Archbald to power the demand for artificial intelligence, eventually covering about 14 percent of the town’s land. Those campuses would include 51 data warehouses — each about the size of a Walmart Supercenter — including seven buildings encompassing more than a million square feet.” WaPo (Gift Article): A town of 7,000 planned so many data centers, it’s like adding 51 Walmarts.
+ Ars Technica: The great American data center divide. The divide isn’t across political leanings. It’s between the companies that want to build data centers and the people who live where they want to build them.
+ The people worried about over-developing data centers could soon include those building and financing them. WSJ (Gift Article): OpenAI Misses Key Revenue, User Targets in High-Stakes Sprint Toward IPO. “The company’s CFO and board have questioned the wisdom of massive data-center spending in the face of slowing growth.”
Extra, Extra
Collapse in Judgment: Trump “claimed in a new Truth Social post that Iran has ‘just informed’ Washington that they are in a ‘state of collapse.’ Trump also said Iran wants the US to open the Strait of Hormuz ‘as soon as possible’ as they try to ‘figure out’ their ‘leadership situation,’ something he says he believes is possible. We have not been able to verify any of these claims. Iran has not commented on them yet.” The whole region is facing a critical moment as peacemakers urge Hamas to finally disarm, Israel keeps firing on Hezbollah, the UAE said it will exit OPEC, the Strait is still closed, and we’re not sure anything we’re hearing about any of it from the White House is true. Here’s the latest from AP and The Guardian. (Not everyone is bumming out about high oil prices. BP’s profits more than doubled in the first quarter. Also, not everyone is getting blocked in the Strait. Here’s a headline for the era: Russian superyacht sails through Strait of Hormuz despite blockade.)
+ King and Kong: Well, so much for No Kings. We now have two of them in DC. Here’s the latest on King Charles’ visit to America and planned Congressional address.
+ Passport in the Storm: The State Dept. is reportedly finalizing a plan to put Trump’s picture on U.S. passports.
+ Child Custody: “Charging as much as $20,000 a month, many of these facilities promise in their marketing pitches to treat adopted children for reactive attachment disorder, often called RAD. They offer a salve for desperate adoptive parents, claiming the child’s behavioral problems are caused by a pathological failure to connect with their caregivers, and they can learn to attach in faraway treatment.” An AP special report: Adopted and Locked Away: Kids promised ‘forever homes’ instead confined in for-profit institutions.
+ Vacuum Pact: “It should go without saying, but once you threaten to invade an allied country, you don’t just place the existence of the alliance in jeopardy; you raise the possibility of allies turning into mortal enemies. You can also trigger the kind of insecurity and scramble for power that contributed to the start of World War I. In practical terms, it’s hard to see how alienating American allies puts America first.” David French in the NYT (Gift Article): Meet the New Leader of the Free World. “Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is taking the next step, one that would have been unthinkable even as recently as 2024. By word and deed, he’s showing Europe and the world how the post-American free world can preserve its liberty and independence.”
+ Claw Machine: John Herrman: My Adventures With The AI That Actually Does Things. “This is a recurring theme when you try out new AI tools. You recognize that there’s a lot that might be done with them, but not much comes to you.”
+ ‘Dance with the Devil: “Paramount Skydance said the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery will be 49.5% owned by foreign investors, with about 38.5% of the equity in the new company held by a trio of Middle Eastern funds.”
Bottom of the News
“It’s not that complicated. Beginning in elementary school, students are socialized to behave this way — in the classroom, in the school yard or on a playing field. ‘Japanese sports fans at world events who clean up the stadium are behaving much the same way they did when they learned how to enjoy sports as school boys and girls.’ There is a phrase in Japanese that explains it. Tatsu tori ato wo nigosazu. The literal translation is: A bird leaves nothing behind.” Why you may see Japanese soccer fans cleaning up the stadium after World Cup games. (When the World Cup comes to the Bay Area, I’ve got to figure out a way to turn Japanese visitors into fans of my daughter’s bedroom.)
+ Rare two-colored lobster caught by fishermen off Cape Cod.
