Going Hungary

A Recipe for Disaster

Let’s start with a recipe. It’s one that takes a while, but it’s already in progress. It turns apple pie into Hungarian goulash. What do you get when it’s fully baked? Anne Applebaum lists some of the ingredients in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “Flick through pro-government Hungarian accounts on TikTok, and you might see an AI-generated version of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, sitting on a golden toilet, counting his money, snorting cocaine, and barking orders at a Hungarian soldier. You might also find an AI-generated Péter Magyar, the leader of the Hungarian opposition, appearing to say he’s fine with handing Hungarian factories over to foreigners, as long as he’s the one in charge of the country ... You won’t find much about Hungary itself, which is not an accident. In recent years political parties around the world have produced surrealist campaigns, comic campaigns, conspiratorial campaigns, even beer-drinking campaigns. But on any list of strange elections, the 2026 parliamentary election in Hungary will stand out.” This may be the world’s first post-reality campaign. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t we have enough lies and obfuscations to worry about when it comes to our own country and its upcoming election? Yes, we do. But, sadly, the two stories are related. What you see as the demoniacal demolition of democracy, others see as an achievable and worthy aspiration (and I’m not just talking about the golden toilet). “Not long ago, the U.S. government would have vocally defended the democratic process in Hungary, and might have sought to downplay wild claims about fictional Ukrainian invasions. Instead, the Trump administration is doing its best to amplify them. Strange though it sounds, Hungary, although a tiny country in Central Europe, plays an outsize role in the imagination of the American and European far right: MAGA and its international wing understand that the Hungarian election, the most important in Europe this year, could mark a turning point in the war of ideas that has convulsed the democratic world for the past decade.”

2

We Haven’t Shuffled Off This Mortal Oil

With 50,000 American troops in the Middle East and a threat of a ground war, even Trump doesn’t know what to believe about what Trump is saying. “President Trump zigzagged from claims of diplomatic progress to renewed threats of destruction on Monday, sending new shocks through oil markets as he sought to pressure Iran to make a deal to end the monthlong war.” Here’s the latest from the NYT.

+ “Australian farmers are planting less wheat. South Koreans were urged to take shorter showers. Russia is getting a little richer. Thailand’s premier wore short-sleeved shirts to work and urged others to do the same.” How the Iran War Has Rippled Across the World. One thing we’re seeing is reduced consumption. But a bigger thing we’re seeing is the burning of more coal. This Is What Happens When the Gas Runs Out. So this must be good for the EV industry, right? Well, not so fast. “The aluminum that gives electric vehicles their range is now stuck behind the same choke point as the oil they were built to replace.”

+ Meanwhile, oil is up again on the entrance into the war by “the Houthis, an Iran-backed proxy militia based in Yemen, threatening safety in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Djibouti.”

+ And here’s a twist: Ukraine Finalizes Air Defense Deals With Gulf Nations Amid War in Mideast. “In the Mideast conflict, Ukraine has sought to shift its image from a recipient of military aid to a supplier. It sees an opening to export its low-cost, innovative designs created during the war with Russia to compensate for shortages of weapons and ammunition. Ukraine’s military often relies on consumer technologies such as virtual-reality goggles for gamers and off-the-shelf drone components.”

3

Over the Moon

“Artemis II is something of an elaborate dress rehearsal. The goal is to demonstrate that many of the major components of the Artemis program – the Boeing-built Space Launch System rocket and the Lockheed Martin-built Orion space capsule – can safely send a crew beyond the moon and back.” Bloomberg (Gift Article) with an illustrated guide to what NASA is up to, and why. Around the Moon and Back.

4

Kingdom Comeuppance

We may have crossed a critical threshold over the weekend. The protests are spreading faster than the measles. Organizers said eight million people turned out for the No Kings protests. The scenes were amazing. Here’s a collection of Photos From the Third Nationwide ‘No Kings’ Protest.

5

Extra, Extra

Rogue Won: “Whenever and however America’s war with Iran ends, it has both exposed and exacerbated the dangers of our new, fractured, multipolar reality—driving deeper wedges between the United States and former friends and allies; strengthening the hands of the expansionist great powers, Russia and China; accelerating global political and economic chaos; and leaving the United States weaker and more isolated than at any time since the 1930s. Even success against Iran will be hollow if it hastens the collapse of the alliance system that for eight decades has been the true source of America’s power, influence, and security.” Robert Kagen: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower.

+ Making a List: “When I started Craigslist in the mid-1990s I never thought I’d become rich. But I did. A lot of people in tech around that time also got lucky. Millions — even billions — were made simply by being in the right place at the right time. That’s too much money for anyone to have, so I’m giving most of it away to people and causes that need it.” Craigslist Made Me Rich. Giving the Money Away Is Easy. (Amidst all the whining from tech billionaires who somehow view themselves as being victimized by this era, it’s refreshing to hear someone admit how f--cking lucky we are.)

+ Aiding and A Betting: “A new product liability lawsuit alleges that the online sportsbooks DraftKings and FanDuel use a variety of sophisticated tactics to addict users, comparing their offerings to tobacco, cocaine, and heroin. The case, filed by the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) at Northeastern University School of Law on behalf of two former gamblers, is being led by Richard Daynard — the same lawyer who secured a $206 billion settlement from the tobacco industry ... Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that the two companies ‘capture every aspect of a customer’s interaction in real-time through automated analytical tools, and then process the data through predictive algorithms to generate bets that are optimized to stimulate compulsive gambling.’”

+ This Guy’s Got Some Ballroom: “Critics warn it still has many issues — its portico is too big, its stairs lead nowhere, its columns will block views from inside the ballroom.” Trump’s Ballroom Design Has Barely Been Scrutinized.

+ Sheer Madness: March seemed a little short on madness (at least on the basketball court). But then we saw one of the maddest moments of all. The Athletic: I witnessed Christian Laettner’s shot. UConn’s game-winner from Braylon Mullins was better.

+ Welcome to Macintosh: “But in almost every way that mattered, the Macintosh was right. Right about how we’d use computers going forward. Right about the idea that computers needed to be less complicated. Right about the fact that caring this deeply about both hardware and software design would make a difference.” As part of its series on Apple at 50, The Verge (Gift Article) with a video review of how the Macintosh changed computers forever. (It definitely had the same effect on me as it had on computers.)

+ Timbre-land: At the start of the year, Anthony Palmini was taken down by a terrible cold. That was bad news for him. And potentially bad news for romance. He’s the voice of romantasy audiobooks’ biggest heartthrobs.

6

Bottom of the News

“In our peptides-pumping, cosmetic-surgery obsessed world, Alloclae is being marketed as the latest body-buffing hack for anyone seeking to level up their appearance. The process is minimally invasive and largely safe, as long as you can get your head around where that extra va-voom has come from.” People are pumping themselves with fat from corpses to perk up their pecs, boobs and butts. (How’d you like to agree to be a donor and end up there?)

+ Thieves make a break with over 400,000 KitKat bars in Europe.