Odds and Ends — 7 December 2022
I’ve been playing around with DeepDreamGenerator’s newish “text prompt” artificial intelligence image creator. This image was generated in response to a prompt from a snippet of a story I wrote a while back, “Jonny Dunn is an island. He floats in this sensory deprivation tank, nutrients dripping in, just enough to keep him alive.”
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:
World’s poorest countries’ debt interest payments rise 35%
How corn fuels the U.S. economy
Early Bitcoin Pioneer Ian Freeman Goes to Trial in New Hampshire
North Carolina power outage points to Homeland Security long-documented threats to US power grid
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
For the Uninsured, Covid Care Has Entered a New Stage of Crisis
Politics:
Trump’s company convicted by New York jury of scheme to defraud tax authorities
”The whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real.”
Special Counsel Subpoenas Officials in Three States
Special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed local officials in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin — three states that were central to former president Donald Trump’s failed plan to stay in power following the 2020 election — for any and all communications with Trump, his campaign and a long list of aides and allies. The subpoenas… show that Smith is extending the Justice Department’s examination of the circumstances leading up to the Capitol attack to include local election officials and their potential interactions with the former president and his representatives.
Germany arrests 25 accused of plotting coup
Satellite images of Russian airbase in Engels show damaged aircraft
Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd over 60 years ago and Leningrad reverted back to Saint Petersburg after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so why hasn’t Engels reverted back to Pokrovsk?
Warnock defeats Walker, giving Democrats 51-49 majority in Senate
House January 6 committee has decided to make criminal referrals
Republicans: "Joe Biden is to blame for rising gas prices."
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) December 5, 2022
Also Republicans: "Joe Biden has nothing to do with falling gas prices."
Japan’s Rising Defense Budget Is Now Nearly on Par With Russia
On the other hand, Germany Backtracks on Defense Spending Promises
Germany on Monday walked back its promise to swiftly raise defense spending to at least 2 percent of its economic output — breaching the key commitment made days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to become a more serious military force.
Hungary vetoes EU aid for Ukraine, bloc delays decision on funds for Budapest
Flu Shots Drop Dramatically Among White Kids
We know that before the pandemic there were political fringes on the right and left which opposed vaccination. But the idea that politics would have anything to do with whether you got your flu shot would have seemed strange. Now, however, we’re seeing another concrete downstream effect of anti-vaccine activism on the right.
He lies about lying. He lies more than any man alive. He lies with total contempt for his cultish base who eat up his lies, enjoy his lies, see his lying as power. https://t.co/Yxk09kjXEY
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) December 5, 2022
Why the Right Needs Hunter Biden
They desperately want Joe Biden to be corrupt and for the whole family to be, in Stefanik’s words, ‘a crime family’ because they have provided succor and support to someone who has encouraged political violence since his early rallies in 2015, has stoked hatred of minorities through lies, has used his office for personal gain in the most flagrant fashion, has surrounded himself with criminals and con men, has committed human rights violations against would-be immigrants by separating children from their parents, has pardoned war criminals, has cost the lives of tens of thousands of COVID patients by discounting the virus and peddling quack cures, has revived racism in public discourse, and attempted a violent coup d’etat. They know it. It gnaws at them. That’s why the Hunter Biden story is their heart’s desire. But here’s something else they need to meditate on: Even if everything they’re alleging about Joe Biden were true; even if he did pull strings to help his son and even profited unjustly thereby, it still wouldn’t amount to a fraction of what Trump did.
Serendipity:
Hollywood’s Latest Diet Craze? Ozempic, the Insulin Drug With Vanishing—Literally—Side Effects
Originally marketed for diabetics, Ozempic has become an It Drug in Tinseltown, even at $1,500 a pop.
Text-to-image AI: powerful, easy-to-use technology for making art – and fakes
Badge thanks to @arcange
