Editor's note: We're proud to bring NextDraft---the most righteous, most essential newsletter on the web---to WIRED.com. Every Friday you'll get a roundup of the week's most popular must-read stories from around the internet, courtesy of mastermind Dave Pell. So dig in and geek out.
Again, terror. Again, France. At least 84 people --- including at least ten children and a father and son from Texas --- have died and hundreds more were injured in a Bastille Day truck attack in Nice. The attacker who was killed by police has been identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel. So far, authorities haven't found any links to known terror groups. Whether there is a connection or not, this tragedy is yet another reminder of how much damage can be wreaked by one determined lunatic. Here's the latest on another brutal day in French history from the BBC.
+ Terrorism by truck has long been feared by law enforcement.
+ The bad could have been worse had it not been for a policewoman who jumped in front of the truck.
+ "Western civilization is in a war. We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in sharia, they should be deported." So said Newt Gingrich following the attack. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg explains why that's precisely the kind of reaction that terrorists want, and why sharia law is probably not what you think it is. There have been many recent terror attacks in places like Iraq and Turkey. It's time to retire the notion that only western civilization is at war.
Donald Trump needs to shore up his support among conservatives and the religious right, and to bolster his lack of DC experience. Hence, Pence. With a tweet (of course), Trump makes his selection of Indiana Governor Mike Pence official.
+ Fishing. Camping. Mowing the lawn. A lot of GOP senators won't be able to make it to the convention next week.
In WaPo, Chris Ingram shares one striking chart that shows why pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana. In short, "in the 17 states with a medical-marijuana law in place by 2013, prescriptions for painkillers and other classes of drugs fell sharply compared with states that did not have a medical-marijuana law." This isn't just about pot and opioids. It's about the power of lobbying and professional messaging to skew public policy and opinion. Thanks to big pharma maneuvering and the false rhetoric of the drug war, we prohibit one drug while pushing others that are about a zillion times more dangerous (I’m a Humanities major, but I’m pretty sure my math is right). A tenet of the anti-drug movement has been to warn of the risk of gateway drugs. For thousands of people, prescription opiates have been a gateway to the graveyard while, as far as I can tell, marijuana is at most a gateway to laughing hard at jokes that aren’t that funny.
+ "The doctor began prescribing the opioid painkiller OxyContin -- in extraordinary quantities. In a single week in September, she issued orders for 1,500 pills, more than entire pharmacies sold in a month. In October, it was 11,000 pills. By December, she had prescribed more than 73,000, with a street value of nearly $6 million." How did the sometimes deadly Oxycontin become so widely available to those who abuse it? The LA Times follows the pills and explains how more than 1 million OxyContin pills ended up in the hands of criminals and addicts. They also ask the question: What did Purdue Pharma know about the people who doled out their addictive product like Tic Tacs?
Question: How many people does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: It doesn't matter anymore. LED light bulbs last a lot longer than their incandescent predecessors. As The New Yorker's J. B. MacKinnon explains, "this would seem to be a good thing, but building bulbs to last turns out to pose a vexing problem: no one seems to have a sound business model for such a product." How does an industry make money when planned obsolescence has always been the name of the game?
"Her mind is shot -- resign!" So said Donald Trump in response to several comments Ruth Bader Ginsberg made about his candidacy, including one in which she referred to him as a faker. While Trump's tone is more ruthless than most, he is not alone in his opinion that the Supreme Court justice should keep her political opinions to herself. The editorial boards of both the NYT and WaPo have suggested that this time, RBG might have been a little too notorious. And Slate's Mark Joseph Stern suggests that RBG just risked her legacy to insult Trump.
+ Later in the week RGB put an end to her short-lived career as a political pundit: "On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them. Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect."
+ You can't blame her. Like millions of us, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is Under the Influence.
"It can become very difficult for anyone to tell the difference between facts that are true and 'facts' that are not." The Guardian's Katharine Viner with an interesting look at how technology swallowed the truth. At the Internet's outset, it seemed like the transparency it offered would create a watch-dog effect, and make it more difficult to hide the truth. But maybe the flood of data just makes the truth harder to find.
+ "The growing inter-communication of distant nations, the rapid transmission of intelligence over the globe -- the worldwide ramifications of commerce -- bringing together the knowledge, the skill, and the mental power of the world, cannot but dispel prejudice, dissolve the granite barriers of arbitrary power, bring the world into peace and unity." I'm not sure that's how our modern connectedness will play out. But that was what Frederick Douglass predicted about the power of new technologies like photography. Jill LePore with a thoughtful look at American Exposure.
"I've attended too many memorials. I've hugged too many families who have lost a loved one to senseless violence ... I've seen how inadequate words can be." President Obama spoke at a memorial for the slain Dallas police officers. It's impossible to overstate the importance of a speech by America's first black president at this moment in American history. He spoke on law enforcement, race, bias, guns, violence, danger, protests, etc.: "None of us entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune." You should watch the whole speech. "Can we see in each other a common humanity and a shared dignity? ... I don't know. I confess that I too sometimes experience doubt ... If communities are mistrustful of the police, that makes those law enforcement officers who are doing a great job, and are doing the right thing, it makes their lives harder. So, when people say 'black lives matter,' it doesn't mean 'blue lives' don't matter, it just means all lives matter. But right now, the big concern is the fact that data shows black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents. This isn't a matter of us comparing the value of lives, this is recognizing that there is a particular burden being placed on a group of our fellow citizens. And we should care about that. We can't dismiss it. We can't dismiss it." This is a moment, folks.
+ Former President Bush also offered poignant remarks, especially for the Internet generation: "Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates too quickly into dehumanization. Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions."
+ If you want to get a good overview of the law enforcement issues facing black men, then listen to this evenhanded explanation by Tim Scott. He was pulled over seven times in a year. And he's a Republican U.S. Senator. "I have felt the pressure applied by the scales of justice when they are slanted ... Just because you do not feel the pain, the anguish of another, does not mean that it does not exist. To ignore their struggles, our struggles, does not make them disappear, it simple leaves you blind."
The NYT on a nursing home that not only acknowledges that sex occurs among residents, they encourage it: "The Hebrew Home has stepped up efforts to help residents looking for relationships. Staff members have organized a happy hour and a senior prom, and started a dating service, called G-Date, for Grandparent Date." Forget retirement homes. I could have used this service in college.
+ "Humanity hasn’t yet worked out how it feels about the internet’s effect on our collective sexuality. Some see it as a liberating force, opening us up to new levels of pleasure, satisfaction and self-understanding. Others see it as corrosive: transgressive stuff like diaper porn -- in which young girls stripped naked save for a pair of Depends roll on the floor cooing and gurgling." In Aeon, Mark Hay reflects on the way "ever-faster feedback loops and micro-targeted digital p*rn are pushing human sexuality into some seriously weird places."
+ The Verge: A new app lets women charge for a night out. Will dating join the on-demand economy? (And you thought I was chasing Pikachu...)
+ You can be into whatever you're into, but sadly, no, you can't have fries with that.
"It started as an April Fool’s joke. Google released a funny video that mashed up Google Maps and Pokémon ... Two years later, Hanke and his team have turned that joke into a reality." The excellent Om Malik on how Pokémon Go will make you crave augmented reality. (I get why you're walking around staring at your phone now, but why were you doing it before?)
+ Buzzfeed: An Adult’s Guide To Pokémon Go.
+ The Verge: We spoke to the US veteran who took a break fighting ISIS to catch Squirtle.
+ A collection of photos of people playing the game. You know, we can joke about the rise of this game, but every single person working in tech is looking at this moment with both awe and a hint of envy. This is what we live for.
"People did not view this as barbaric; it was part of the legal process. The presiding justice in the case attended the fight, invoked the monarch’s name, and followed a specific ritual that called for God to intervene and bring victory to whichever side was honest in its claim." Pricenomics with a brief history of trial by combat.
+ After spending most of my adult life perusing hundreds of thousands of open news tabs, I’ve come to at least one interesting conclusion. You Want the Good News or the Bad News?
+ The New Yorker's Gregory Crewdson takes a crack at understanding the allure of the show Naked and Afraid: "At its core, the show is about the search for meaning." (I always thought of it as a search for one's pants.)
+ The return of authoritarianism. The end of privacy. And a world where virtually anyone will be able to create their own pandemic. Gizmodo with 10 predictions about the future that should scare the hell out of you.
+ No on hammocks, canned goods, tennis balls. Yes on guns. Hello, Cleveland.
+ Timeline: How stationary bikes went from curiosity to cult.
+ The US Fish and Wildlife Service is going to use drones to unleash vaccine-laced M&Msin bid to save endangered ferrets. (Thankfully, the anti-vax movement has not yet spread beyond the human race.)
+ Buster Posey has really, really good aim.
+ How do we know we're not in a tech bubble? Because if we were, this headline definitely would have popped it: Elon Musk tweets he might unveil 'Top Secret Tesla Masterplan' this week.
+ David Cameron's last hummer.
This is a weekly best-of version of the NextDraft newsletter. For daily updates and to get the NextDraft app, go here. (Original story reprinted with permission from NextDraft.)
