Odds and Ends — 3 June 2024

in #oddsandends5 months ago


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Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:

Crypto exchanges see $3B Ethereum exit since ETF approvals

Only 10.6% of the total Ether supply is currently on centralized crypto exchanges, its lowest level in years.


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Welcome to the Hell Hole of Programmatic Ads

The internet is a cesspool of misinformation, and the biggest blue-chip brands and their ad agencies are the ones funding it — by stuffing money into a Rube Goldberg machine no one really understands.

The Dalai Lama Is Landing in the Middle of the 2024 Election

And Joe Biden should welcome him.

I went to see the Dalai Lama when he was in Minneapolis 20-something years ago. Oddly enough, among my impressions at the time was that he had a great sense of humor and could do worse than to consider a second career as a standup comic.

Europe’s fascist future awaits

The death of Western democracy is now highly conceivable, with a return to authoritarian strong men no longer a far fetched fantasy

Trump Supporters Call for Riots and Retribution

Supporters of former President Donald Trump, enraged by his conviction on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution.
Some called for attacks on jurors, the execution of the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, or outright civil war and armed insurrection.

One in 10 Republicans less likely to vote for Trump after guilty verdict, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

It’s just one poll, and an early one at that. We’ll probably have to wait until mid-summer after the sentencing phase to have a clearer picture.

Are Trump’s Scottish Golf Courses a Front for Money Laundering?

The ex-president may soon be screwed across the pond, too.

What Donald Trump Didn’t Say After His Trial

The way to evaluate a political speech — I mean as a literary critic, not as a pundit or a partisan — is to examine how the rhetoric rises to the occasion. Does the moment demand gravity or transcendence? Humility or defiance? Do the speaker’s words answer the call of history?
In the case of Donald Trump’s 33-minute address in the lobby of Trump Tower on Friday, the occasion was both bizarre and momentous. A former president on the brink of becoming, for the third time in a row, the nominee of his party, stood convicted of 34 felonies. That nothing remotely similar has ever happened before is sufficient to guarantee the speech a place in the annals of American political discourse.
As text and performance, though, the thing was kind of a slog. Mr. Trump has never been an orderly orator or a methodical builder of arguments; he riffs and extemporizes, free-associates and repeats himself, straying from whatever script may be at hand. He did some of that on Friday, but his manner was subdued. The matter was also curiously flat: a rehash of the trial, with a few gestures toward the larger political stakes.

Looming over Trump’s conviction: Reversal by the ‘13th juror’

Serendipity:

Futuristic nuclear energy tech is here, but the risks of bombs and another Chernobyl remain

Microreactors promise climate resilience and military-tech might — but proliferation and pollution concerns linger

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