Odds and Ends — 18 July 2026

preparedwombat(78)

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2026-07-18 15:40

Well, I fell down an internet rabbit hole. Ended up learning odds and ends about W. C. Fields. I’d known that he’d been a vaudeville entertainer, but didn’t know that before that, he’d started off as a juggler. Years later, his juggling was featured in The Old Fashioned Way, staring at a bit after 58:00 (damn, he was good).

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

French gambling regulator orders ISPs to block Polymarket

FUD comes to the rescue: ECB Warns Stablecoins May Drain Bank Deposits

Coronavirus and Public Health:

New study offers clues about long COVID’s brain symptoms

Iran:

U.S. Sends Dozens of Refueling Planes to Israel

The Trump administration notified Israel it is sending dozens more refueling planes to the country ahead of a potential expansion of military operations against Iran, three U.S. and Israeli officials said.
Why it matters: After he was presented with several new military plans in a Situation Room meeting Tuesday, President Trump is considering a massive offensive in Iran that would be wider in scope than the current strikes around the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran Threatens Infrastructure Across Region

Iran said Thursday it would destroy ‘all’ regional infrastructure if President Donald Trump followed through on his threats to attack Iranian power plants and bridges, as U.S. military forces expanded their range of strikes within Iran.

Trump Failed to Learn the Lessons from Past Wars

In their early months, both wars were fueled by a novel military strategy that rose to prominence after the 1991 Persian Gulf war. It posited that by simultaneously attacking with precision weapons on multiple fronts, the U.S. military could paralyze its enemy and achieve a swift, low-casualty victory.
As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars dragged on, the military’s faith in this new approach began to wane. By 2007, a new theory of warfare — summed up in the Army’s counterinsurgency doctrine — took hold.
The strategy preached that too much firepower, poorly applied, would only produce more enemies.

Politics:

https://x.com/RadioFreeTom/status/2078204766526583112

Trump Loses Bid to Cancel Grants Retroactively

The court denied the Trump administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by 20 states.
A federal judge declared Friday that the Trump administration can’t cancel grants based on new rules or goals established after the fact — in a blow to its efforts to terminate billions of dollars already promised.

https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2078156758137073884

———— The Donald’s Election Rant ————

https://x.com/aidnmclaughlin/status/2078111371539931136

Declassified Intel Contradicts Trump

Newly-declassified documents touted by President Donald Trump during his address on election security Thursday cast doubt on some of his claims about ‘shocking vulnerabilities’ in the country’s election infrastructure.
While Trump claimed during his address that the nation’s election systems are vulnerable to ‘hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference,’ the intelligence reports released by the White House concluded overall that the main infrastructure used to conduct elections in the United States ‘would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to alter the election outcome.’

https://x.com/Kasparov63/status/2078157972207739142

———— Mitch is Undead ————

https://x.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/2078193266395111481

https://x.com/covie_93/status/2078262113294864808

https://x.com/RickPetree/status/2078273899586883608

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

https://x.com/BillKristol/status/2078099452682817695

Leon Black Walked Out of Epstein Interview

Billionaire investor Leon Black, who for years paid Jeffrey Epstein for tax and financial advice, is facing scrutiny over his relationship with the late convicted sex offender after walking out of a closed-door interview with House investigators last month.
Black refused to answer questions about nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) he signed with women less than an hour into questioning.

https://x.com/michaelpfreeman/status/2078121820914323697

https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/2078289511394545991