Odds and Ends — 25 April 2026

@preparedwombat 78

about 20 hours ago

oddsandends

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

https://twitter.com/david_parker/status/2047344440399085716

CFTC sues New York over bid to apply gambling laws to prediction markets

https://twitter.com/sciencegirl/status/2047600936059625631

Tennessee Becomes Second State to Outlaw Bitcoin, Crypto ATMs

https://twitter.com/JohnTeufelNYC/status/2047479182725107726

Flash Fiction:

“For months, you’ve been saying you want to be made, and now when I ask you to do this, you’re having second thoughts?”

”Does it have to be Carlo? We grew up together. He’s like a brother to me. Isn’t there anyone else you’d want me to whack?”

”Listen carefully. I ask you to do something and you do it because it’s not that hard to grant my wishes. In fact it’s much harder to not do what I ask. People who don’t do what I ask of them tend to have short lives.”

Written for this prompt.

Coronavirus and Public Health:

CureVac sues Moderna for patent infringement over COVID-19 vaccines

https://twitter.com/DrCatharineY/status/2047750747350020133

Iran:

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/2047407577378517014

The Iran War Comes for the ‘King of Chemicals’

The conflict is wreaking havoc on an obscure sector that is more important than you’d think.
For a commodity essential to everything from pharmaceuticals to agriculture and mining, sulfur rarely makes headlines. But the Iran war is showing why the world should pay closer attention.
That’s because by throttling global energy markets, the widening conflict is also wreaking havoc on the global trade of sulfur, which today is largely produced as a byproduct from the oil and gas sectors. Once converted into sulfuric acid—known as the “king of chemicals”—it powers operations across the fertilizer, metals, and pharmaceutical sectors. Which means that any disruptions to the sulfur market reverberate far beyond it.

Politics:

https://twitter.com/archer_rs/status/2047589049343340902

https://twitter.com/shivmalik/status/2047869059132174382

Trump Wants 2020 Election ‘Wiped From the Books’

https://twitter.com/bloggingsbyboz/status/2047614402258501877

Patients are getting stuck in the emergency department for days while waiting for a spot in an inpatient ward.

https://twitter.com/neenareports/status/2047312996804841715

Something Is Happening to America’s Moral Code

The late political scientist James C. Scott endorsed what he called “anarchist calisthenics”—the regular practice of small acts of lawbreaking and disobedience. Jaywalk at an empty intersection. Have a beer in the park. Smuggle a pudding cup past the TSA agents. The point, Scott said, was to keep the civic muscles strong. Without constant reinforcement, these muscles will atrophy, and when real tyranny arrives, the flabby citizen will be powerless to resist. Scott particularly enjoyed telling Germans to get their reps in, because their grandparents had not.