Robot homeschooling, radicalized soccer moms, GOP losing streak continues, yet another Covid variant, Waffle House teleportation explained.
It's National Spinach Day!
Melania Trump (right) wants a robot to homeschool your child.
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The newsletter is published Monday through Thursday (holidays excepted).
—Kevin G. Barkes
(Most) everything you need to know for today:
March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 280 days remain until the end of the year. As of this writing, 1,030 days remain in Trump’s term of office.
Knee-deep in the hoopla:
The latest on the Iran war from the Associated Press.
At a Pentagon “Christian” service, Hegseth prays for violence ‘against those who deserve no mercy’. Apparently Matthew 5:44 from the Sermon on the Mount wasn’t the Bible reading for the day. (AP)
Donald Trump’s 59% disapproval rating hits all-time high, Fox News poll shows. (Newsweek via MSN)
‘This is our fight’: Suburbanites embrace anti-Trump resistance ahead of No Kings protests. The so-called “soccer moms” are becoming bona fide activists taking to their well-manicured streets to fight Trump and his allies. (AP)
What a GOP loss in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago district says about the midterms. Since Trump assumed his second term. Democrats have flipped 30 legislative seats since 2025, raising hopes for significant wins in the 2026 midterms. (Washington Post gift article)
Three factors have driven double-digit stock market losses in the last 100 years. All three are now in effect. But no one’s predicting a recession. (Yahoo Finance)
Do back-to-back courtroom losses herald Meta’s ‘Big Tobacco’ moment? The verdicts could open the way to a flood of litigation that could force the social-media giants to make significant changes to the way they design and deliver their products. (Wall Street Journal gift article)
OpenAI Is doing everything … poorly. OpenAI seems to finally be learning that slop is not a business strategy. (The Atlantic gift article)
New Covid-19 variant BA.3.2 has spread to 25 states and 23 countries, and may ‘evade immunity,’ CDC warns. (Gizmodo)
It begins as a tick bite and can be devastating. And it’s spreading. The incidence of alpha-gal syndrome appears to be growing significantly. Patients who are bitten can develop a severe allergy to red meat, and a few have died. (New York Times gift article)
Are you sure you know what ‘gaslighting’ is? “Gaslighting is not a disagreement. It’s a deliberate effort to undermine my reality, or if I’m doing the gaslighting, for me to undermine your reality.” (NPR)
Why drawing eyes on food packaging could stop seagulls from stealing your chips. (Or fries. It’s a story from the UK.) (Yahoo News)
Kindly old uncle unleashes fires of Hell with giant boosted Tesla coil. It can currently fry electronics up to 30 feet away from the coil. He’s working on a way to generate a relativistic runaway breakdown event, which would boost the coil’s power by a factor of ten. The neighbors must be thrilled. (Gizmodo)
No, you can’t teleport yourself to Waffle House. Trust me. (Lifehacker)
Late Night:
The Daily Show: Josh Johnson covers updates on the situation in Iran: Al Roker forecasts “haboobs” developing in the Middle East, Tehran defiantly refuses a ceasefire agreement, and Trump declares the war over and “won” while Pete Hegseth’s loosened enlistment requirements say otherwise. (Video)
Jimmy Kimmel Live: Tomorrow is officially opening day in Major League Baseball, First Lady Melania Trump hosted the second day of her global summit where she made quite the entrance with an unusual escort, Trump voted by mail while at the same time trying to ram an act through Congress that would ban mail-in ballots, we are now on day 26 of Operation Epic Fury and Trump thinks it’s going great, he gets a sizzle reel every day that only shows us attacking Iran, the Iranians have said that they will not accept Jared Kushner as negotiators, Alan Dershowitz claimed that Trump would have prevented the Holocaust, and the price of fertilizer has gone up so much since the start of the war that Trump came up with a plan of his very own to bring it down. (Video)
Late Night with Seth Meyers: Seth takes a closer look at Donald Trump’s approval rating hitting a new low as ICE agents loitered in airports and Iran rejected his proposal to end the war. (Video)
Keep scrolling… lots of interesting stuff in Quote of the Day, Holidays, On This Day, Birthdays, and Deaths. I can pretty much guarantee you’ll learn something new.
History highlight:
2024 – The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed following a collision between the MV Dali container ship and one of the bridge’s support pillars, killing six people. (Video)
Quote of the day:
It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
--Viktor Frankl (Wikipedia link)
(More Viktor Frankl quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
Legal Assistants Day, Live Long and Prosper Day, National Make Up Your Own Holiday Day, National Nougat Day, National Science Appreciation Day, National Spinach Day, Purple Day, and Solitude Day.
On This Day:
2024 – The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed following a collision between the MV Dali container ship and one of the bridge’s support pillars, killing six people. (Video)
1999 – Tom Snyder's final appearance as host of "The Late Late Show" on CBS, after 777 episodes. (Video)
1997 – Thirty-nine bodies were found in the Heaven’s Gate Cult mass suicides.
1982 – A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was held in Washington, D.C.
1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel peace treaty in Washington, D.C.
1969 – The first antiwar demonstration since the inauguration of President Richard Nixon was held in Washington, D.C.
1968 – “Wise Men” advised President Johnson to negotiate peace in Vietnam.
1967 – Ten thousand people gathered for one of many Central Park be-ins in New York City.
1964 – The musical “Funny Girl” opened on Broadway.
1953 – American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announced on a national radio show that he had successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio.
1945 – World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ended as the island is officially secured by American forces
1920 – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel was published.
1830 – The Book of Mormon was published in Palmyra, New York.
1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston-Gazette coined the term “gerrymander“ to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.
1812 – An earthquake devastated Caracas, Venezuela.
(For more comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Some Birthdays:
1985 – Jonathan Groff, American actor and singer (Video)
1985 – Keira Knightley, English actress
1980 – Margaret Brennan, American journalist
1976 – Amy Smart, American actress and former model
1973 – Larry Page, American computer scientist and businessman, co-founder of Google
1968 – Kenny Chesney, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1966 – Michael Imperioli, American actor and screenwriter
1960 – Jennifer Grey, American actress and dancer (Video)
1954 – Curtis Sliwa, American talk show host and activist, founded Guardian Angels
1950 – Alan Silvestri, American composer and conductor (Video)
1950 – Martin Short, Canadian-American actor, screenwriter, and producer (Video)
1950 – Teddy Pendergrass, American singer-songwriter (died 2010) (Video)
1949 – Vicki Lawrence, American actress, comedian, talk show host, and singer (Video) (Video)
1948 – Steven Tyler, American singer-songwriter and actor
1946 – Johnny Crawford, American actor and singer (died 2021)
1944 – Diana Ross, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress (Video)
1943 – Bob Woodward, American journalist and author
1942 – Erica Jong, American novelist and poet
1941 – Richard Dawkins, Kenyan-English ethologist, biologist, and academic
1940 – Nancy Pelosi, American lawyer and politician, 52nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
1940 – James Caan, American actor and singer (died 2022) (Video)
1934 – Alan Arkin, American actor (died 2023) (Video)
1931 – Leonard Nimoy, American actor (died 2015) (Video)
1930 – Sandra Day O’Connor, American lawyer and jurist (died 2023)
1923 – Bob Elliott, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter (died 2016) (Video)
1919 – Strother Martin, American actor (died 1980) (Video)
1916 – Sterling Hayden, American actor and author (died 1986) (Video)
1914 – William Westmoreland, American general (died 2005)
1911 – Tennessee Williams, American playwright, and poet (died 1983) (Video)
1905 – Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist (died 1997)
1904 – Joseph Campbell, American mythologist and author (died 1987)
1881 – Guccio Gucci, Italian fashion designer, founded Gucci (died 1953)
1874 – Robert Frost, American poet and playwright (died 1963)
(A more complete list of today’s birthdays.)
Some Deaths:
2023 – Jacob Ziv, Israeli electrical engineer, developed the LZ family of lossless data compression algorithms (born 1931)
2016 – Jim Harrison, American novelist, essayist, and poet (born 1937)
2011 – Geraldine Ferraro, American lawyer and politician (born 1935)
2003 – Daniel Patrick Moynihan, American sociologist and politician, 12th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (born 1927)
2000 – Alex Comfort, English physician and author (born 1920)
1996 – David Packard, American engineer and businessman, co-founded Hewlett-Packard (born 1912)
1996 – Edmund Muskie, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician, 58th United States Secretary of State (born 1914)
1990 – Halston, American fashion designer (born 1932)
1979 – Jean Stafford, American author and academic (born 1915)
1973 – Noël Coward, English playwright, actor, and composer (born 1899) (Video)
1966 – Cyril Hume, American novelist and screenwriter (born 1900)
1959 – Raymond Chandler, American crime novelist and screenwriter (born 1888)
1932 – Henry M. Leland, American machinist, inventor, engineer, automotive entrepreneur and founder of Cadillac and Lincoln (born 1843)
1923 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress and screenwriter (born 1844)
1892 – Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, and journalist (born 1819)
1827 – Ludwig van Beethoven, German pianist and composer (born 1770)
(A more complete list of today’s deaths.)
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I can think of a couple “Black Mirror” episodes where that Mother-of-all-Tesla-Coils would have come in handy.