Odds and Ends — 20 April 2021

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Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse:

Kids these days.

None of them really has a clue about what things were like before The Collapse. How do you explain surfing through YouTube music videos to someone who’s never seen a functioning monitor? When us old farts reminisce about still being able to buy gasoline for under a hundred dollars a gallon, what can that mean to a teenager who’s never seen a car do anything but sit there and rust and wouldn’t know what paper money was if you handed it to him to wipe his butt with? Hell, these kids think “running water” means a river.

So I didn’t even try to tell Charlie’s boy about things before The Collapse when he told me with pride about the price haggling he did with the Cat Lady to get the price for that tabby down to 27 eggs and a pair of pliers. He’d never believe that there used to be people who had dozens or even hundreds of cats as pets — it would be as impossible a concept to him as that people used to actually go to the moon. Cat Ladies capture and sell cats as food, “everybody knows that” he’d say.

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Disinfecting surfaces to prevent Covid often all for show, CDC advises

Why do so many vaccinated people remain irrationally fearful?

Guido Calabresi, a federal judge and Yale law professor, invented a little fable that he has been telling law students for more than three decades.
He tells the students to imagine a god coming forth to offer society a wondrous invention that would improve everyday life in almost every way. It would allow people to spend more time with friends and family, see new places and do jobs they otherwise could not do. But it would also come with a high cost. In exchange for bestowing this invention on society, the god would choose 1,000 young men and women and strike them dead.

How the Tiny Kingdom of Bhutan Out-Vaccinated Most of the World

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, and Debt:

Mix of Old, Wrong and Dubious ‘News’ Scares Rookie Investors, Fuels Crypto Selloff

Blockchain Association executive debunks rumored crypto crackdown by Treasury

Larry Kudlow: Once an Asshat, Always an Asshat.

Politics:

Leaked Ukraine memo reveals scope of Russia's aggression

Bernie Sanders says Putin is murdering Navalny 'in front of the world' for exposing the Russian president's 'vast corruption'

Apple to let Parler back onto App Store

MyPillow is doubling down on election conspiracy theories despite being hit by a massive lawsuit

Biden Administration Considering Rule to Cut Nicotine in Cigarettes

U.S. ambassador refuses Kremlin push to leave Russia

Serendipity:

Why Spirited Away is Japan’s greatest animated film

How product placements may soon be added to classic films

Slave Traders Knew Exactly What They Were Doing: A new history of three 19th-century human traffickers explodes all the old excuses.

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Badge thanks to @arcange

Meme credit: TroutieMcTrouterson (source)



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