• Japan’s Sanae Takaichi finds perfect playlist for Donald Trump, and a profile: Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s iron lady is set to surprise
• Sequoia COO quit over Shaun Maguire’s comments about Mamdani. I think many of Mamdani’s proposals are idiotic, but with enemies like this combined with the media harangue against him — including from the nominally liberal NYT — I can’t help but root for the guy. Which, I realize, is the position many republicans took with the current President.
• Europe and the curse of geography. “When Trump has his much-anticipated meeting with Xi Jinping this week, Europe will resemble a child looking up at two parents squabbling over its head. Successive generations of European leaders deserve all the criticism in the world for letting the continent become the cringing vassal that it is today. The military neglect, the preference for a “social market” over growth at all costs: these were life-and-death errors, smugly made.” From Janan Ganesh.
• The relentless rise of China’s biotechs, which I will quote more extensively:

While US groups have poured resources into gene therapy, many have been held back by soaring costs and regulatory hurdles in their home market. In China, by contrast, regulators have supported the field by allowing earlier human trials and more flexibility in how they are designed. […] But while Chinese regulators have nurtured innovation, low domestic drug prices have forced companies to look abroad to recoup investment. “One huge disappointment has been that the commercial sales for China’s drug sector have never bloomed,” said Loncar.

So let me see if I got this right: Americans are paying for health care out of their noses to finance the world’s medical innovation which nowadays mostly comes from China, the citizens of which have among the lowest medical costs in the world. Someone here is being played.

• Kyla Scanlon for the NYT: It Is Trump’s Casino Economy Now. You’ll Probably Lose. Left unsaid is what fuels it: the self-reinforcing duo of greed and envy.
• Lily Lynch: The Curtain Falls on Aleksandar Vučić’s Foreign Policy “Balancing Act” I wish I could consider this good news. Alas, “king” Aleksandar’s reign was full of pathos and drama tinged with blood, so it is hard to see its end being any different.
• The anonymous person behind “Applied Divinity Studies”: Peter Thiel and the Antichrist. A brief defense of Peter Thiel including zingers like “Since technology can progress, it may eventually become powerful enough to kill everyone. But a force capable of regulating this technology would be at least as powerful, and stagnation comes with its own dangers”. What dangers, the essay doesn’t say. I suspect the biggest one is to Mr. Thiel’s pocketbook.
• Ernie Smith: The Sky Is Falling, The Web Is Dead. A deep dive into one analyst’s history of making false claims. Motivated reasoning is a powerful force, particularly when the motive is money.
• Daniel Kolitz for Harper’s Magazine: The Goon Squad. A scary story about a particular corner of the Internet. Warning: there are some graphic depictions of despair that may be distressing for people who have children and now have to worry about protecting them from the bottomless pits of porn. Make no mistake that this, too, is fueled by greed.

🍿 Perfect Days (2023) was the perfect movie, with a story that could not have been told through any other medium. In that way it was the polar opposite to that year’s Oscar winner for Best International Film, and I am certain it will be remembered longer and more fondly than The Zone of Interest.

🏀 The Wizards are a cursed team with tone-deaf ownership. For a prime example of their cluelessness I would like to refer you to Monumental Sports' corporate website and their tagline, “Where Monuments meet Momentum”, plastered all over the soon-to-be renovated Capital One Arena. The same group of people who thought this sounded good is in charge of running the team. They are also the owners of the Washington Capitals. The Caps have been, may I remind you, employers of the all-time best hockey player for more than 20 (!?) years, and have managed to win a single Stanley cup with him on board. Hope lies eternal that they will become good, but the odds are that the Wizards will turn any good player they get into a mediocrity.

None of this applies to the Wizard’s courtside entertainment crew, from the show runner to the mascot to their three dancing groups (standard, juniors and — the best of all — their senior dancing crew Wizdom). Whoever is in charge of them should take over the whole show.

🍿 A House of Dynamite (2025) was the horror movie of the year — nay, decade — with a soundtrack made for nightmares. It is also the most geographically correct DC movie in ages, although in 10 years living here I am yet to see someone wearing a clean suit take a WMATA bus to work. Regardless, it was heartening to see that even Netflix could produce an occasional diamond.

It’s a gorgeous day for picking apples.

I mean, just look at these clouds.

And, of course, the star of the show. It’s apple pie time tomorrow.