Welcome back to TGIF, where we do the news. Writing to you from a subterranean reading camp where my 3.5-year-old is spending two days. I’m that tiger mom. Scott Pelley is standing outside, chewing his glasses and chastising me, but I’m honestly getting used to it. It’s a comforting baritone.
In other notes, please scoop up your America at 250 hats for July. And remember that the best comments section now is at The Free Press Forum, especially our red-hot dating section!
→ The Vances got a chicken coop: Sure, it’s not the most important news. Sure, we’re bombing Iran again (why not, it’s summer, but then again maybe we’re not bombing anymore), but we begin with the coop. J.D. Vance has installed a chicken coop at the Naval Observatory, the home of America’s vice presidents. Inflation is so bad, the VP can’t even afford to buy eggs at the store. This is a sign of total Berkeley, California dominance. What was a weird, crunchy, left-wing hobby is now embraced by “guys who are definitely into QAnon and I just really don’t want to go to their house for dinner.” Yes, by our own J.D. Vance, homestead guy. And now the Vances are tradlife influencers posing for photos like this:
Move over, Ballerina Farm, it’s Usha’s turn. And I know there may be more pressing questions to ask the Second Lady, but there’s only one thing I want to know: midwife or doula, Mrs. Vance?
→ Insane amounts of money are about to be made: With the SpaceX IPO, it’s estimated that more than 4,000 people are about to become millionaires, with 400 projected to have fortunes over $100 million. And then there’s the upcoming Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs. Between space and LLMs, we’re looking at a new generation of wealth. And if I can climb back on my California soapbox for a moment, it’s always amazing to me that the East Coast produces none of this. The East Coast is the Europe of America. You go to New York when you decide it’s time to hire a dozen ADHD-identified individuals in Brooklyn who will sue you, not like, build stuff. For that, it’s all still the Bay Area or, thanks to SpaceX, Texas! And in the boom times, one group that’s thriving is (of course) prostitutes. Forbes has an amazing story about the nerdy escort boom. These ladies are charging upward of $2,000 an hour, even as much as $6,000 an hour—and you know they’re spending most of that hour talking about Moravec’s Paradox. One reports charging $23,000 a day. The absolute weirdest people in America have created artificial consciousness (probably Satanic) and despite all their efforts, they still exist in these pesky bodies that demand stupid things like [redacted], which the computer can’t quite do yet. Good for the prosties.
In other signs of new financial realities, women are hiring witches to help protect their weddings, or so Bloomberg tells us this week. Is it just me, or is heterosexuality getting weirder than being gay? Prostitutes and witches? Maybe you guys should take Pride this year, I think you need it.
