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Odds and Ends — 14 March 2023

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@preparedwombat
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So many books, so little time. Right now, I’m bouncing between three books. The Feist book is thanks to a @galenkp recommendation, the Beerbohm essay collection has been on my ever-lengthening list of books that I want to get around to reading. Jim Butcher’s is the eighth in a series; loads of fun, but if Harry says “Hell’s bells” one more time, I think I’ll scream.

Meta pulling the plug on NFTs across Instagram and Facebook

Inside the Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank

Silicon Valley Bank has been technically insolvent for months: the company had more assets than liabilities, but a huge chunk of those assets could not be liquidated without taking a major loss.

Israel to weigh action after Silicon Valley Bank collapse

Wall Street — not taxpayers — will pay for the SVB and Signature deposit relief plans

Plans announced Sunday to fully reimburse deposits made in the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank and the shuttered Signature Bank will rely on Wall Street and large financial institutions — not taxpayers — to foot the bill.

OR

U.S. says ‘all’ deposits at failed bank will be available Monday

Claims that the decisions do not amount to a ‘bailout,’ however, are likely to be challenged. While the fund going to the depositors is paid into by U.S. banks, it is ultimately backstopped by the Treasury Department — and therefore U.S. taxpayers…

COVID-19 Can Cause Face Blindness

Americans want feds to be ready for the next Covid

21 South Carolina GOP Lawmakers Propose Death Penalty for Women Who Have Abortions

Trump-Appointed Judge Tries To Keep Hearing In Major Abortion Pill Case Secret

Trump Blames Mike Pence For Jan. 6 Violence For Not Going Along With His Coup Attempt

GOP Quietly Halts Inquiry Into Trump’s Finances

House Republicans have quietly halted a congressional investigation into whether Donald Trump profited improperly from the presidency, declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement agreement that demanded that Mazars USA, his former accounting firm, produce his financial records to Congress.

The Age of American Naval Dominance Is Over

Because freedom of the seas, in our lifetime, has seemed like a default condition, it is easy to think of it — if we think of it at all — as akin to Earth’s rotation or the force of gravity: as just the way things are, rather than as a man-made construct that needs to be maintained and enforced. But what if the safe transit of ships could no longer be assumed?

I went to CPAC to take MAGA supporters’ pulse – China and transgender people are among the top ‘demons’ they say are ruining the country

Is Trump Fascist or Semi-Fascist?

On the narrow point of terminology, I largely agree that fascist should not be used to describe figures like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Historians and political theorists have innumerable definitions of fascism — some narrow, others extremely broad. But most people understand fascism to mean a single-party state in which effective political opposition is impossible — or at least extremely dangerous. Neither Trump nor DeSantis is trying to build a system like this. What I do believe is that it’s accurate to describe Trump and DeSantis as engaging in and advocating authoritarian measures that weaken democracy without eliminating it altogether as a fascist would. A more limited and precise term might be democratic backsliding — a term I favor (despite its unsuitability in headlines), because it correctly conceives of democracy and dictatorship as existing on a continuum rather than in a binary. I think Joe Biden’s term, ‘semi-fascist,’ captures this well enough.

Las Vegas water agency seeks power to limit residential use

Autopsy: 'Cop City' protester had hands raised when killed

From grave robbing to giving your own body to science – a short history of where medical schools get cadavers

Iwao Hakamada: Japan retrial for world’s longest-serving death row inmate

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