The team you hate the most got crushed by the team you hate the second most. Welcome to what amounts to joy in 2025. OK, I admit it. Without the 49ers in the playoffs this year, the NFL postseason just didn't have the same meaning for me. But putting my bitterness aside (a first in the history of this newsletter), didn't this year just feel a little less Super Bowl-ish than usual? Maybe it was the non-competitive game. Maybe it was that Patrick Mahomes was outed as a human being. Maybe it was that in the age of sociopolitical uproar, marketers played it particularly safe with their commercials. Maybe it was the first-time attendance at the game by a sitting president, which added a political undertone during one of the communal moments we were all hoping would provide a brief respite from politics. Maybe it's that the halftime show, while good, required some backstory and analysis in a year when we probably could have used the simplicity of Left Shark. Maybe it's that we're no longer allowed to eat all the carb-heavy snacks that once dominated gamedays. (My 3-layer dip included Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Wegovy.) Meh, maybe it's just that my team wasn't in the game. 2Don't Judge Me, BroThe GOP-controlled Congress seems pretty OK with allowing Trump and Musk to sideline their power over the pursestrings and allow the emergence of an all-powerful executive branch. So far, the courts have pushed back. But Trump, Musk, and JD Vance have all hinted that maybe those court rulings don't exactly have to be adhered to. The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Signals He Might Ignore the Courts. (Now the administration thinks it can ignore judicial decisions, laws, and the Constitution. Who do they are? The Supreme Court?) 3Lost the Fat, Stat"His colleagues’ use of Wegovy and Zepbound reminds him of the use of statins, drugs that lower cholesterol, in their early days. Cardiologists, who were most familiar with the consequences of high cholesterol levels, were among the first to take the drugs in large numbers." It's not just patients who look a little thinner these days... NYT (Gift Article): The Physicians Really Are Healing Themselves, With Ozempic. 4Blurb Stomping"One big author and one major publisher announced within weeks of each other that they were through with the practice of blurbs, and the resulting conversation threw publishing into a tizzy. In the process, it provided a new lens on who has access to clout and resources in an increasingly precarious industry." A major book publisher announced a change. The industry freaked out. We may have reached peak book blurb. We have definitely reached peak news blurb, or at least I have. (If I've still got my chops, that should read as a cry for help.) 5Extra, ExtraUnreal Estate: "Hamas has said the next hostage release scheduled to take place in Gaza on Saturday will be postponed'until further notice,' accusing Israel of breaking the ceasefire deal. Israel described the postponement as a 'complete violation of the ceasefire' and called on the Israeli military to prepare for 'any possible scenario' in Gaza." Meanwhile, many of the hostage releases that have happened so far have been pretty sick, with emaciated hostages being paraded in front of large crowds. Bound, gagged and starved. Released hostages report severe mistreatment by captors. This all comes against the new political backdrop that includes Trump referring to Gaza as real estate he plans to develop. Trump says Palestinians wouldn't be allowed back into Gaza under his plan. 6Bottom of the News"Earth's core is the beating heart of our planet as it produces a magnetic field that protects life from burning up in the Sun's radiation. The inner core spins independently from the liquid outer core and from the rest of the planet. Without this motion, Earth would die and become more like barren Mars which lost its magnetic field billions of years ago." Earth's inner core may have changed shape, say scientists. (This might be as good an explanation as any for Patrick Mahomes' errant throws on Sunday...)
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