Odds and Ends — 11 December 2022
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, and Debt:
Goldman Sachs Is Trying to Make Blockchain Bonds Happen
‘Cuba Is Depopulating’: Largest Exodus Yet Threatens Country’s Future
The pandemic and tougher U.S. sanctions have decimated Cuba’s economy, prompting the biggest migration since Fidel Castro rose to power.
A Supreme Court case could kill Facebook and other socials — allowing blockchain to replace them
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
Beijing swings from anger over zero-COVID to coping with infections
China’s disappearing data stokes fears of hidden Covid wave
Politics:
Don’t ever go full retard.
Instead of taking off like a rocket over the past three weeks, Donald Trump’s bid to win back the White House appears, so far at least, to be blowing up on the launchpad.
The swagger of 2016 has given way to somnolence in 2022. Opinion polls are grim. Legal setbacks are piling up. A run of dismal results in the midterm elections, culminating in another Republican loss in Georgia this week, have punctured his aura of invincibility within the party.
And Trump has performed astonishing acts of self-sabotage, from dining with antisemites to calling for the constitution to be shredded. He has eschewed a widely-anticipated spree of public rallies, instead remaining largely out of the public gaze.
Herschel Walker ‘Shocked’ He Didn’t Win 100% in Home County
Said Walker: “I’m gonna call the sheriff and have him find out who didn’t vote for me.”
Nobel Peace Prize: Russian laureate ‘told to turn down award’ but he refused and in his acceptance speech in Oslo called the Russian war against Ukraine “insane and criminal”. Um, he might want to hold off a bit on returning to Russia.
Friday evening, continuing to take questions in a news conference after his spokesman tried to end it, President Vladimir Putin of Russia put forward a blunt thesis on the nature of truth.
Said Putin: “You can’t trust anyone. You can only trust me.”
It was a fitting coda to a week that saw Mr. Putin particularly busy in constructing his version of reality at a time when a Russian victory in Ukraine appears as distant as ever. In a marathon of public appearances that began on Monday with a televised drive across Russia’s damaged bridge to Crimea, Mr. Putin held forth on nuclear doctrine, prisoner swaps with the United States, supposed Polish revanchism and even the ‘very harsh’ practices of European zoos.
Pentagon now more likely to support Ukrainian long-range missile attacks on Russia
FWIW, Lockerbie bombing suspect in US custody but there’s an alternate theory: Secret CIA testimony identifies real Lockerbie mastermind
If Merrick Garland Had the Courage of His Convictions…
Serendipity:
‘Biological Strip Malls’ Have Taken Over the Planet
Human activity is making ecosystems around the world look the same.
Amid rising energy costs, Italian cooks go old-school to save gas
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I think that things here in Cuba certainly are not in the best fashion nowadays, but I regret the notion that everything is getting worse, as the NYT article seems to establish through the experience of some Cubans. I always refer that we can't be absolute in social and political terms. The Cuban HIVE community, and in general the crypto enthusiasts group that is growing here, for example, are good examples of one of the many opportunities that people have found for making some improvement in their material well-being. I have some friends doing well in the IT sector here, and others entrepeneurs doing nice profits as well. Thanks for this periodic information service.