Odds and Ends — 3 May 2024
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
Jack Dorsey’s Block to use 10% of Bitcoin profit to buy BTC every month
https://twitter.com/DouglasLFarrar/status/1786028385874887039
MicroStrategy Unveils Plan for Bitcoin-Based Decentralized Identity Using Ordinals
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
Moderna’s sales from its only product, the COVID-19 vaccine, fell 91% from last year
Politics:
Jury Hears Audio of Trump Talking about ‘Hush Money’
To recap, the jury just heard a very important recording, made by Michael Cohen during the 2016 campaign and extracted from his phone. On the recording, Trump discussed a hush-money payment with Cohen, asking him specifically about the financing of the deal. The payment in question went to Karen McDougal, not Stormy Daniels. Still, the jurors now heard clearly how Cohen reported his dealings to Trump, and that Trump was involved in one of the deals they’ve heard so much about.
The defense has done its best to distance Trump from the hush-money deals, particularly during Keith Davidson’s cross-examination. But primary source evidence is hard to wave away. That recording, from Cohen’s phone, was a doozy.
I’d like to hope that this is a fake story with photoshopped and/or A.I.-generated deep fake photos, but it is a cult so I’m having a hard time being 100% sure: More Trump Diapers At Pennsylvania Rally
https://twitter.com/JoJoFromJerz/status/1786038765514879309
Trump’s Naps Are Actually Worrying
Trump’s bouts of drowsiness occupy a strange place in the political news. They began as an object of amusement, good fodder for comedians of the late-night, social-media, and podcast varieties. (‘Don Snoreleone’ was one memorable coinage; others fittingly compared him to Rip Van Winkle, a lethargic New Yorker who’s stuck in the past and waking up to an unpleasant new reality.) Now, like many of Trump’s strangest behaviors, his impromptu naps threaten to become normal, as though catnapping through a lurid trial is typical.
But they shouldn’t be mere comic fodder, nor accepted as normal: They are a worrisome sign about a leading presidential candidate. If Trump can’t manage to stay awake during a trial when his very freedom is on the line, what are the chances that he will be able to focus on the intricacies of a spiraling regional war, a trade policy, or any new crisis that might face him if he returns to the White House?
Trump seems to get that, and appears to be actually a bit embarrassed—unusual for a man who, when caught in what might otherwise be a shameful situation, more commonly acts proud. In this case, though, Trump isn’t insisting that he’s been taking ‘perfect’ naps. Instead, he’s posting about President Joe Biden being the sleepy one.
https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16/status/1786071697877053796
”Maybe he gets hit by a truck.”
“Can make his life pretty miserable”: Trump faces “increasingly unpleasant” contempt punishments
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1786066530104652229
A Failure of Imagination About Trump
One problem has been around as long as the republic: Americans don’t pay attention to politics, and when they do, they frequently blame the current president for whatever is going wrong in their lives. For most people, economic cause and effect is mostly notional; if gas prices are high today, or if someone is still not working despite low unemployment rates, it’s because of the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Combine this with the peculiar amnesia that helps people forget how many Americans needlessly died of COVID while Trump talked about ingesting bleach, and you have a population that fondly remembers how good they had it during a terrifying pandemic.
Nostalgia and presentism are part of politics. But a second problem is even more worrisome: Americans simply cannot imagine how badly Trump’s first term might have turned out, and how ghastly his second term is likely to be. Our minds are not equipped to embrace how fast democracy could disintegrate. We can better imagine alien invasions than we can an authoritarian America.
U.S. Accuses Russia of Using Chemical Weapons in Ukraine
The United States has accused Russia of using chemical weapons, including poison gas, ‘as a method of warfare’ against Ukrainian forces, in violation of a global ban on the use of such weapons.
Boris Johnson barred from voting under his own voter ID rules
Boris Johnson was turned away from a polling station while trying to vote on Thursday, having not brought appropriate identification — a requirement that he himself introduced while prime minister.
https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1786126785677013128
Trump Won’t Commit to Accepting Wisconsin Results
Donald Trump on Wednesday didn’t commit to accepting the results of Wisconsin’s presidential election in November if he does not win and again promoted the falsehood that he won the Badger State in 2020.
Said Trump: “If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
He added: “I’d be doing a disservice to the country if I said otherwise. But no, I expect an honest election and we expect to win maybe very big.”
https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1786064186050478202
U.S. Military Admits Airstrike Killed Civilian
The US military has finally acknowledged that it mistakenly killed a civilian man in an airstrike in Syria nearly a year ago after misidentifying him as a senior al Qaeda leader.
Vladimir Putin warned he could 'lose his life' as Ukraine prepares huge attack in war
https://twitter.com/Strandjunker/status/1786123694596632856
Trump's Motion to Dismiss the Florida Charges based on Selective and Vindictive Prosecution
Judge Cannon has "unsealed" a Trump motion from her secret docket, and it's just as ridiculous as you'd expect.
https://twitter.com/HobbyistBrendan/status/1785682115105075527
Serendipity:
A racist AI deepfake framed a high school principal
https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1786113557945540808
Researchers Reconstruct Neanderthal Face From Crushed 75,000-Year-Old Skull
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Why do you think the US nuclear arsenal is useless? The only way for any country to not become a victim of nuclear extortion is to either have nuclear weapons, have a nuclear deterrent provided with by an ally or be so unimportant or remote as to be uninteresting to a nuclear power engaged in nuclear extortion.
The possibility of a Trump presidency means that Japan, South Korea and Australia are more likely to acquire their nuclear arsenal than ever. In Europe, countries like Sweden and Poland are likely to consider getting their own nukes going forward. Tearing up the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty would be no small matter. But given Russia's aggressive posturing, countries bordering or near Russia might find it necessary to become nuclear powers.
Not my meme but, FWIW, I tend to think that a fusion arsenal is useless. Now that the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, a fission deterrence is de rigueur for major and regional powers. But fusion arsenals are just asking for disaster.
The largest fission bombs tend to have quite large yields as well. Besides, the trend for quite some time has been to use multiple re-entry vehicles to target several targets in the same local area for maximum impact without wasting yield.