Odds and Ends — 23 February 2026

@preparedwombat 78

about 4 hours ago

oddsandends

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

Hodlers have ‘given up’ at $65K

Stablecoins Set to Scoop Up $1T in T-Bills by 2028: Standard Chartered

Flash Fiction:

”Welcome to Camp Waatsahoomie! Girls, move over to by that boulder. Boys, by that pine tree. Non-binaries, by that oak tree. Good, good. Counselors will assign you to cabins based on your age.”

”You all know why you’re at Camp Waatsahoomie. Your parents sent you here because you’re addicted to social media. There’s none of that at Waatsahoomie. Absolutely no electronics here. Not even in the administration building behind you. There is a pre-war rotary phone we can use to call for an ambulance in case of emergency, but it has no screen and even if you got to it, I’m pretty sure none of you even know your parents’ phone numbers without relying on your phone’s memory.”

”You’re here for the entire summer. Twelve weeks of touching grass. Enjoy!”

Written for this prompt.

Coronavirus and Public Health:

Scientists create universal nasal spray vaccine that protects against COVID, flu, and pneumonia

Politics:

Top '28 Dems retreat on AI — huge sign of rising backlash

The AI backpedaling has begun: 2028 Democratic contenders who bet big on data centers are suddenly retreating amid a growing voter revolt.
The politics of AI are evolving almost as rapidly as the technology.
Just a few months ago, potential 2028 presidential candidates — including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore — were bending over backwards to lure data centers, with offers of lavish tax breaks and other goodies.

https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/2025751383027101901

Mayhem Rocks Mexico After Cartel Boss Is Killed

The Mexican government said it killed the nation’s most wanted cartel boss on Sunday, setting off a wave of fires and violence across the country as cartel operatives sought to exact revenge in an unsettling show of force.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/2025712399882305959

Dems working on secret report found Gaza cost Harris votes

Top Democratic officials who worked on the party’s still-secret autopsy of the 2024 election concluded that Kamala Harris lost significant support because of the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza.
The Democratic National Committee’s research on what went wrong in 2024 has been under lock and key since party leaders decided last year to hide it from the public — a reflection of how explosively it could resonate within the party and beyond.

Tech’s new generation and the end of thinking…
One of the pervasive new doctrines of Silicon Valley is that we’re in the early stages of a bifurcation event. Some people will do incredibly well in the new AI era. They will become rich and powerful beyond anything we can currently imagine. But other people—a lot of other people—will become useless. They will be consigned to the same miserable fate as the people currently muttering on the streets of San Francisco, cold and helpless in a world they no longer understand. The skills that could lift you out of the new permanent underclass are not the skills that mattered before.

https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/2025661598459953627

https://twitter.com/rellim_evad/status/2025729391313969413