Now Days

Ceasefire Deal, Alito Just Reads the Articles

Peace in the Middle East is more often a when hell freezes overpunchline to a bad joke than a reality on the ground. And today's ceasefire announcement hardly promises long term peace or any obvious solution to what will happen next in Gaza. But after 15 months of hostage holding and the brutal war that ensued, it's remarkably good news that a ceasefire deal has been made and that the hostages will be released. By most accounts, the deal is the same Biden-brokered agreement that's been on the table for months. So why now? On the Hamas side, they've been severely damaged including the killing of much of the organization's leadership while the group's chief sponsor, Iran, has been hurt militarily and politically in the region, and the so-called Axis of Resistance has been dramatically weakened (note Hezbollah in Lebanon and Assad's fall in Syria). For Netanyahu, the timing is likely related to the desire to please the incoming (and, one assumes, very friendly to Bibi) administration, internal pressure to get the hostages home, and an increasing number of IDF reserves refusing to return to Gaza. Foreign Policy: One Question Looming Over Israel-Hamas Truce Deal—Why Now? Considering all the deals that have fallen through, now can't come soon enough.

+ As the hostages return (and share their stories) and the fighting stops, we'll be faced with a more complicated question: What next? Here's the latest from BBC, CNN, and Times of Israel.

+ A good overview from Ilan Goldenberg: A Gaza Ceasefire and Hostage Deal.

+ AP: Trump and Biden both claim credit for ceasefire deal. When asked by a reporter, "Who deserves credit for this deal, you or Trump?" Biden responded, "Is that a joke?" (We're all gonna be asking ourselves that question a lot over the next few years...)

+ And the latest on the deal from the NYT (Gift Article): "When President-elect Donald J. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Saturday to pressure him on a cease-fire deal in Gaza, there was someone on the speakerphone: Brett H. McGurk, President Biden’s longtime Mideast negotiator. It was a vivid example of cooperation between two men representing bitter political rivals whose relationship has been best described as poisonous. Rarely if ever have teams of current and new presidents of different parties worked together at such a high-stakes moment, with the fate of American lives and the future of a devastating war hanging in the balance." (Yes, we'll end this section on a positive note. Let's hope we end the week on one. The ceasefire and hostage releases are set to start this weekend.)

2

Debbie No Longer Does Dallas

"U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed worries on Wednesday over the availability of online pornography to minors as they weighed the legality of a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of users, but also voiced concern over burdens imposed on adults to view constitutionally protected material." In many states, one is required to share proof of age before viewing online adult material. (Uh yeah, let me just scan my passport real quick...) US Supreme Court grapples with Texas online porn age-verification law. I'd be willing to bet that this restrictive Texas law will be upheld (at least until betting is outlawed). At one point during the hearing, Justice Alito asked about the site P-rnhub. "Is it like the old Playboy magazine, you have essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.?" (Alito talking about porn could be the one thing that stops people from searching for porn.)

+ Supreme Court divided on Texas age-verification law for porn sites. (One assumes there will be porn parodies of today's hearing called Oral Arguments, Habeas Play, Gripping Testimony, Is That a Docket in Your Pocket?, Robes, Globes, and Probes, Alitoe Fetish, Please Submit Your Briefs, and If Clarence's RV's a-Rocking, Don't Come a-Knockin'...)

3

Can We Rebuild It?

With LA still burning, facing strong winds, and living under extreme fire warnings, those who have lost everything are left to wonder what of their community can be rebuilt. And with the incoming administration, one has to wonder who will be around to do the building. WaPo (Gift Article): Who will rebuild Los Angeles? Immigrants. "Immigrant labor has already been vital in the recovery of other U.S. cities devastated by natural disasters."

+ Suffering a natural disaster of this size and scope is bad. Suffering it just as a hostile (to California and to reality) administration is arriving makes matters worse. WaPo (Gift Article): Trump’s pick for energy secretary rejects linking climate change and wildfires. "Wright wrote on LinkedIn that 'the hype over wildfires is just hype to justify' harmful climate policies."

+ LA Times: Can fire-torn L.A. handle the World Cup, Super Bowl and Summer Olympics?

+ NYT (Gift Article): More Americans Than Ever Are Living in Wildfire Areas. L.A. Is No Exception.

4

Chat Me Up

"She read erotic stories devoted to 'cuckqueaning,' the term cuckold as applied to women, but she had never felt entirely comfortable asking human partners to play along. Leo was game, inventing details about two paramours. When Leo described kissing an imaginary blonde named Amanda while on an entirely fictional hike, Ayrin felt actual jealousy." NYT (Gift Article): She Is in Love With ChatGPT. "A 28-year-old woman with a busy social life spends hours on end talking to her A.I. boyfriend for advice and consolation. And yes, they do have sex." (At first this sounded weird until I remembered how many people make out with this newsletter...)

+ AI Brad Pitt dupes French woman out of $850,000.

5

Extra, Extra

Miner Expense: "Authorities are particularly under fire for their tactics last year, when they cut off food and other supplies to the miners underground for a period of time. It was an attempt to 'smoke them out,' a South African Cabinet minister said, adding that authorities would not help the miners because they were 'criminals.'" A crazy and tragic story: South African police end mine rescue operation with at least 78 dead and 246 survivors.

+ Can You Confirm? After yesterday's Pete Hegseth exchanges, today's confirmation hearings seemed almost normal. Here's the latest on the questioning of Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio, and others.

+ Arresting Development: BBC: "Yoon Suk Yeol has become South Korea's first sitting president to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut through barbed wire to take him into custody." (Yoon was arrested on charges of insurrection and a failed martial law order. In America, this is known as being electable.)

+ Geofencing: Depending on the SCOTUS decision, TikTok is preparing for a full US shutdown on Sunday. We hear a lot less about another industry absolutely dominated by a Chinese made brand. DJI just made a very big change to its drone software. DJI will no longer stop drones from flying over airports, wildfires, and the White House.

+ Red Alert: "The US Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of red dye No. 3 in food, beverages and ingested drugs, more than 30 years after scientists discovered links to cancer in animals." (Thankfully, blue is my favorite flavor.)

+ REM Sleeps: "In retrospect, it is kind of crazy that a group of four indie rockers from a college town in Georgia who wrote jangly wistful songs and were forever obsessed (and successful!) with keeping their indie credibility became the biggest rock band in the world. The band had its moment, it made some truly beautiful, often downright perfect songs, and then it moved on." Will Leitch in WaPo (Gift Article) on REM. How the biggest rock band in the world disappeared.

6

Bottom of the News

"Drake has filed a defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG), the record label he and rival Kendrick Lamar share, over the latter artist’s diss track Not Like Us." Drake may have a point that his label valued "corporate greed over the safety and wellbeing of its artists," but it's hard to come to grips with the idea that rap beefs are decided in courts.