Odds and Ends — 15 October 2026

preparedwombat(78)

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I went to see Digger yesterday. It’s gotten mixed reviews from critics and bombed at the box office. It’s already disappearing from theaters. For what it’s worth, I thought it was fooking brilliant. Part dark comedy, part satire, part social commentary. Go see it, today, if it’s still available where you live.

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

Bitcoin price dips below $82K as high oil prices spike US CPI inflation

Coronavirus and Public Health:

The genetic technique that finds (almost) every infection

Iran:

It’s bad. It’s really bad: Pentagon Intends to Hold Iran School Attack Report Past Midterms

Politics:

https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2110495472800440475
https://x.com/JimmySecUK/status/2110462472293642403
https://x.com/davetroy/status/2110480065754489236

Republicans Believe the Polls, Even if You Don’t

I don’t know a single Democrat—not a political operative, elected official, activist, or Message Box reader—who feels anything but trepidation about the polls. Everyone is so worried about having their hearts broken that if you talk about the unrelenting run of good polls, people around you knock on wood or tell you to lay off the hopium…
But here’s the thing: even if Democrats don’t believe the polls, Republicans clearly do. Just follow the money. If you track how the various Republican Super PACs are spending their money, you can see that their polls are showing a big blue wave bordering on a tsunami.

https://x.com/LorraineEvanoff/status/2110361996852179144

Kimberly Guilfoyle Reportedly Threatening Trump Family With Burn Book

“Kimberly knows where the bodies are buried,” one source said.

https://x.com/MilesTaylorUSA/status/2110099757456879828

———— The Latest Ivanka ————

https://x.com/VeryBadLlama/status/2110148071174598762

https://x.com/OurShallowState/status/2110375777015595499

https://x.com/joe_jo9/status/2110357556384121212

https://x.com/kurtbardella/status/2110339817250890041

https://x.com/PaulRudnickNY/status/2110705368934527467

https://x.com/smc429/status/2110379945751093548

https://x.com/SweetFnLucifer/status/2110198334375834032

———— Autocracy R Us ————

https://x.com/aintscarylarry/status/2110047561801400758

Trump Says Leakers Should Be Shot

I’m assuming California is telling them to pound sand: Justice Department Issues California Voter Ultimatum

https://x.com/petersterne/status/2110526853752795536

———— Blatant In-Your-Face Corruption ————

CFTC Staff Told to Retract Analysis of Suspicious Oil Trades

Chairman’s adviser intervened to take over examination of lucrative bets that were made around Trump reversal on Iran power plant attack…
Traders had grown accustomed to prices lurching wildly on developments in the Middle East. But this time, some bettors had timed it perfectly. Billions of dollars’ worth of contracts predicting oil would fall and the S&P 500 would rise were placed about 15 minutes before the president announced his U-turn in a post on Truth Social, fueling widespread speculation about whether someone had an unfair advantage.
Responsibility for looking into the incident fell to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission… There, a team of career forensic analysts embarked on their usual task of pulling together data on the day’s winners and losers.
Based on the timing of the trading they observed and who was behind it, the analysts, from the agency’s Division of Market Oversight, filed a referral to the Division of Enforcement, which would decide whether to launch a full-scale investigation into potential insider trading…
What happened next, they said, was highly unusual: Mel Gunewardena, a senior adviser to the agency’s Trump-appointed chairman, Michael Selig, told a supervisor within the market oversight team to retract the referral.

A federal judge wants Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to explain all his anti-trans posts on social media. The Justice Department is asking her to pretend the posts don’t exist.

https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/2110379980274454622

https://x.com/TaskandPurpose/status/2110377375318020535