Author: J.P. Knowles

More cryptocurrency businesses will go bankrupt in a Ponzi scheme-style, but cryptocurrencies will still be an essential tool for international money transfers.

“Overall, I think you’re going to have most things crash,” said Joe Lonsdale, an investor and a co-founder of software company Palantir. Various crypto lenders, crypto tokens and other parts of the ecosystem were “a Ponzi scheme, and it made no sense whatsoever.”

“This is what you’d expect in any situation where you have stuff that’s not regulated,” he added.

Over the last several years, crypto projects have been “valued not based on cash flows, not based on creating value in the economy, but based on what people would pay for it,” Lonsdale said.

Early in November, the Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX declared bankruptcy under Chapter 11 after allegedly suffering losses of at least $1 billion.

BlockFi, a sizable cryptocurrency firm, also declared bankruptcy last week, joining Celsius Network and Voyager Digital in entering Chapter 11 proceedings.

Some companies that have declared bankruptcy “have had a lot of corruption,” Lonsdale said, though he only named FTX. “Long term, there’s a good part of crypto, but most of what we saw in crypto the last three, four, five years was a speculative bubble driven by cheap money and driven by a lot of these Ponzi schemes.”

Despite the recent unrest in the cryptocurrency markets, Lonsdale predicts that crypto-based technologies will continue to advance. According to Lonsdale, the blockchain technology used in cryptocurrencies makes it possible to

“It does make sense to have more decentralized power and for something like Bitcoin to exist,” he said. “It’s helped people get money out of Russia, out of Venezuela, out of China.”

“It allows more kind of liberty for the financial system from really bad-acting governments,” Lonsdale continued.

Blockchain technology will still be an important part of the future, the venture capitalist said.

“This ecosystem, long term, I think you will have some of this stuff emerge as useful for the world,” he said. “But that’s not all we’re seeing right now.”

The censorship of the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020 sparked outrage among liberal pundits, who rushed to discredit a bombshell Twitter thread from Elon Musk and Substack journalist Matt Taibbi. The thread revealed internal communications between Twitter employees and US lawmakers.

The revelations, dubbed the “Twitter Files,” were made public by Taibbi on the social media platform on Friday night at Musk’s request. Musk provided emails and other documents that revealed Twitter’s internal censorship practices leading up to the 2020 presidential elections, including removing the Post’s report.

Taibbi claimed that because there were more liberals on Twitter, requests to throttle conservative accounts were received more frequently. Among the revelations was that Twitter staff had open channels with powerful third parties, including members of both political parties, so they could flag tweets they deemed problematic and have them “handled.”

The most notable were the documents Taibbi released, which showed conversations between high-level Twitter employees who ultimately agreed to emergency moderation measures to stop the spread of the Hunter Biden story, despite the fact that many of them were concerned they had little reason to use such measures.

According to one eye-opening email, Yoel Roth, the former head of trust and safety at Twitter, advised staff to suppress the New York Post story despite the fact that “the facts remain unclear” in light of the “lessons of 2016.”

Although some liberals on the platform tried to intimidate Taibbi and Musk, they did their best to minimize the information from the “Files.”

“Pod Save America” podcast co-host and former Obama White House staffer Jon Favreau criticized Musk directly: “Elon is spending the evening trying to embarrass someone who’s struggled with addiction so that he can juice engagement on the platform he bought that’s hemorrhaging money. Great guy.”

Elon is spending the evening trying to embarrass someone who’s struggled with addiction so that he can juice engagement on the platform he bought that’s hemorrhaging money.

Great guy. pic.twitter.com/PP5JC115sO

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) December 2, 2022

 

Liberal commentator Brian Tyler Cohen tried to destroy the thread’s entire argument by saying, “So Twitter was acting under orders of the government except Biden wasn’t POTUS in 2020. And it’s a First Amendment violation except Twitter can’t violate 1A as a private biz. And the takedown requests from team Biden were nudes against Twitter’s TOS. But going great otherwise!”

 

 

Outside of their Los Angeles home on Friday, a coyote ambushed a California family and dragged their 2-year-old daughter across the lawn before her father charged at the animal and scared it away.

The girl was treated in the emergency room for non-life-threatening wounds and given the rabies shot, according to the girl’s family.

Shira Eliyahuo, the girl’s mother, said that her daughter suffered from scratches and some bruising.

“She has a lot of scratches on her left leg and one of them is really deep,” she said.

She added: “The coyote just kind of dragged her, so her face is also a little bit bruised.”

The incident was captured by the family’s Ring home security system and happened on Friday at around 3:42 p.m.

Ariel Eliyahuo can be seen in the video taking his daughter out of the car seat and setting her next to the SUV as he turns around to reach inside.

The animal then made a strike.

The coyote leaps at the girl and drags her across the driveway and onto the sidewalk, dragging her several feet away. The girl is lying face-down on the ground.

In response to the disturbance, the girl’s father chases after her and grabs her in his arms. The coyote then flees after being hit by what appears to be a water bottle that he threw at it.

The father emerges from welding a piece of wood after bringing the young child inside and then appears to be on the lookout for and pursuing the creature.

Within a short period of time, the entire incident is over.

The parents claimed that the family had just returned from her preschool.

Los Angeles is home to many coyotes, but they rarely attack people.

In response to the disturbance, the girl’s father chases after her and grabs her in his arms. The coyote then flees after being hit by what appears to be a water bottle that he threw at it.

 

 

 

 

Some 401(k) plan managers and other investment fiduciaries will now be able to offer investment options that take into account environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues like climate change and social justice initiatives. This is thanks to a new regulation that was recently released by the White House. Tens of millions of Americans nationwide could see their retirement investing completely changed as a result of the action.

Over the next year or two, some employees may not notice any changes to their 401(k) and other retirement options, but others will soon find themselves forced to choose from a small number of ESG-focused investment funds, effectively forcing some employees who want to take advantage of the tax advantages provided by 401(k) plans to contribute to ideas they disagree with.

How can you guard against being forced to invest in ESG funds? First, let them know that you are not interested in ESG investing by communicating with your employer, pension fund manager, or other fiduciaries who are in charge of your retirement accounts. The Biden rule only permits fiduciaries to offer ESG investments; it does not mandate them.

Second, under the new Biden regulation, employers are allowed to make an ESG fund the default selection for workers with 401(k) accounts. As a result, workers who typically choose certain 401(k) investments voluntarily may soon have their hard-earned money automatically invested in an ESG fund. The change won’t even be noticed by many employees. Make sure to submit your own 401(k) elections if you want to prevent this from happening in the upcoming years.

Third, if your employer or pension manager severely restricts your options, making it difficult to avoid ESG investing when making 401(k) contributions, think about other investment opportunities that would give you more control over your money. For instance, a better choice might be an individual retirement account or IRA.

The goal of Biden’s most recent regulatory change is to direct more funding—possibly trillions of dollars—toward the causes that he and other progressives support. Start preparing right away if you don’t want your money to be used to support ESG initiatives.

Sam Brinton, a senior Energy Department (DOE) official, was charged with stealing a stranger’s luggage in the Minneapolis airport in September, shortly before suspiciously taking a leave of absence.

Brinton — who serves as the DOE’s deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition — was said to have taken a Vera Bradley suitcase worth $2,325 from the luggage carousel at the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport (MSP) on Sept. 16. Brinton had traveled from Washington, D.C., to MSP that day.

After the suitcase’s owner reported it to police, officers reviewed video surveillance of the baggage claim and identified Brinton taking the luggage before disposing of its tag identifying the true owner. Law enforcement then learned Brinton used the luggage during at least two other trips to Washington, D.C.

“If I had taken the wrong bag, I am happy to return it, but I don’t have any clothes for another individual,” Brinton told the officer at the time. “That was my clothes when I opened the bag.”

Two hours after the initial phone call, Brinton called the officer back and confessed to not being “completely honest.” But Brinton claimed it was a mistake and used the excuse of being tired for taking the wrong bag.

“DEFENDANT said when they opened the bag at the hotel, they realized it was not theirs,” the court filings stated. “DEFENDANT got nervous people would think they stole the bag and did not know what to do. DEFENDANT stated they left the clothes from the bag inside the drawers in the hotel room.”

Brinton was eventually charged with felony theft of a movable property without consent, a charge that could come with a five-year sentence, $10,000 fine or both.

 

 

 

 

 

Currently speaking about the rescue, a U.S. Coast Guard diver claims that the 28-year-old “had between a minute and 30 seconds left before we lost him completely.” The man fell off the Carnival Valor cruise ship.

The person, who WWL identified as James Grimes, was found about 20 miles south of Southwest Pass, a channel that runs through Louisiana at the Mississippi River’s mouth. He went missing on Wednesday night around 11 p.m. after leaving a bar to use the restroom; he was eventually discovered around 8:25 p.m. on Thanksgiving night.

“Mr. Grimes had nothing left. He had no energy. He had nothing left to give,” said a U.S. Coast Guard aviation survival technician. “My best guess is that he had between a minute and 30 seconds left before we lost him completely.”

After giving Grimes the rescue sling, Grimes “just collapsed into it,” according to Hoefle.

While en route to Cozumel, Mexico, the cruise ship turned around to aid in the search before continuing.

Prior to receiving medical care at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, Grimes was lifted out of the water and onto a helicopter.

Before learning that Grimes had been spotted by another ship, the four-person Coast Guard crew conducting the rescue was searching a region in the Gulf of Mexico the size of Rhode Island, according to WWL.

“It’s hard to keep your mind in the right place, and then to throw that Hail Mary last couple of minutes of waving, swinging a sock around, anything to make himself more visible to us, that’s survival,” Hoefle said. “He just had an incredible will to survive. And he did whatever he had to do.”

 

 

 

 

It means downright deceitful. Manipulating. Misleading. Merriam-Webster has named its word of 2022 – “gaslighting.”

The official definition for “gaslighting,” according to Merriam-Webster, is the psychological manipulation of a person, usually over an extended period of time, that “causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.”

According to Merriam-Webster, there were 1,740% more people searching for the definition of the word in 2022 than there were in 2021.

In a world full of deepfakes, the dark web and fake news, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large Peter Sokolowski said he was surprised that there was not a single event that drove significant spikes in the curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year.

“It’s a word that has risen so quickly in the English language, and especially in the last four years, that it actually came as a surprise to me and to many of us,” said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large.

The word was brought to light more than 80 years ago with “Gas Light,” a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton.

Later, mental health professionals used the term “gaslighting” to clinically denote a prolonged form of coercive control in abusive relationships.

Based on data, Merriam-Webster selects its word of the year.

 

 

 

 

 

Actor Will Smith said he would understand if some of his former fans are not willing to see his new film, “Emancipation,” after he assaulted comedian Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars earlier this year.

Since he smacked Rock in the face in March, Smith hasn’t released a new film until “Emancipation.” In response to a joke that Rock had made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and her alopecia, an autoimmune condition that results in hair loss, Smith had slapped the comedian.

Smith has issued numerous apologies and resigned from the Academy since the incident.

The actor stated that he would comprehend if people were not prepared to see his film as a result of his slap at the Oscars in a recent interview.

“I completely understand that, if someone is not ready, I would absolutely respect that and allow them their space to not be ready,” Will Smith said. “My deepest concern is my team – [director Antoine Fuqua] has done what I think is the greatest work of his entire career.”

He claims that his team has done “some of the best work of their entire careers” and that his only “hope is that my actions don’t penalize my team.”

“I’m hoping that the material – the power of the film, the timeliness of the story – I’m hoping that the good that can be done would open people’s hearts at a minimum to see and recognize and support the incredible artists in and around this film,” Smith added.

 

On Wednesday, the body of a college student who had vanished during a weekend hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire was discovered.

The body of Emily Sotelo, of Westford, Massachusetts, was discovered around 11 a.m. on the northwest side of Mount Lafayette in Franconia, according to New Hampshire Fish and Game.

Sotelo was reportedly dropped off by her mother early on Sunday morning at a campground close to Franconia Notch with the intention of finishing a solo hike.

After she hadn’t arrived home by late afternoon, her mother contacted NHFG.

The following days were spent by more than a dozen search and rescue teams, including Fish and Game officers and volunteers, looking for Sotelo using aircraft and scent-tracking canines.

At Lafayette Brook’s headquarters on Tuesday in the late afternoon, tracks and personal items belonging to the missing woman were discovered. Authorities reported that by that evening, crews were engaged in a recovery effort rather than a rescue operation.

An Army National Guard helicopter assisted in transporting her to the Cannon Mountain ski resort after her body was discovered.

According to the Associated Press, Sotelo planned to hike all 48 of New Hampshire’s peaks over 4,000 feet before turning 20. On Wednesday, the day her body was discovered, she would have turned 20 years old.

Even though Sotelo’s family claimed she was an expert hiker, they claimed she had little experience hiking in the winter.

Walsh emphasized the significance of being prepared for the unexpected and stated that her passing should serve as “a warning to all hikers.”

“Know the weather conditions, dress for the weather conditions, have extra clothes, have extra food, water, a headlamp, a map and compass,” said Walsh.

Sotelo was a sophomore studying biochemistry and chemical biology at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. According to the AP, she had recently transferred from the College of William & Mary to the Nashville school.

 

Republicans are rejecting a list touting President Biden’s “accomplishments” that the White House suggested as talking points “for when chatting with your Uncle at Thanksgiving.”

“Using White House talking points to try and gaslight your own family as to the realities of this administration seems like a miserable way to spend Thanksgiving,” said Rep. Ralph Norman.

Bring the receipts to the Thanksgiving dinner, White House deputy communications director Jennifer Molina tweeted in response to President Biden’s accomplishments earlier on Wednesday.

Bring the receipts to the Thanksgiving dinner! pic.twitter.com/LUSH6uXj1G

— Jennifer Molina Archived (@JenMolina46) November 23, 2022

The list of Biden’s accomplishments included, “10 million jobs created” and “no taxes on people making above $400,000 – he kept his promise.”

“Gas prices are down by $1.35/gallon since June and inflation is moderating,” the list said.

“Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are extreme,” it continued. “Proposing a national ban on abortion, planning to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block, [and] trying to raise costs on Americans by repealing the Inflation Reduction Act.”

The claim about gas prices was emphasized by the Republican National Committee on Twitter.

According to a recent report by the American Farm Bureau Federation, Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings is anticipated to cost 20% more this year than it did last. This is due to inflation.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn from Tennesse said that now is not the time for Biden to take a victory lap.

“Nearly every family sitting around the Thanksgiving table can agree: prices, from the gas pump to the grocery store, are out of control and hurting the pocketbook,” Blackburn said. “While President Biden takes another victory lap, inflation remains at a 40-year-high, more than half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and Thanksgiving dinner is expected to cost 20% more than last year.”

“The only thing this cheat sheet accomplishes is showing the American people how out of touch the Biden White House is with reality,” she added. “[White House chief of staff] Ron Klain and his staff should respect the fact that ‘that Uncle’ will be with you long after they leave the White House. Some bridges are not worth burning.”