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Author: HP McLovincraft
Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.
Anthropic’s AI Export Ban on Claude Mythos Tool Partially Lifted by Trump Administration
Mythos will get around.
Back in March, news arose that the US Donald J. Trump administration had ‘blacklisted’ AI Anthropic for being a National Security risk.
Later in May, the administration moved to forbid Anthropic’s plan to expand the Mythos AI Tool for the same reason.
Today, the US has partially scrapped its export ban on Anthropic’s most advanced artificial intelligence model.
Politico reported:
“The release clears the way for a select group of more than 100 companies and agencies to gain access to the Mythos 5 model, two weeks after the administration imposed restrictions, amid fears that the software could be used to launch cyberattacks. But a second advanced Anthropic model, called Fable 5, remains blocked.
Meanwhile, pressure from the White House led Anthropic’s leading competitor, OpenAI, to limit the release of its most advanced model this week because of similar cyber concerns.”
Doug Casey on Swap Lines, Secret Bailouts, and the Weaponization of the Dollar
International Man: While the term “swap line” sounds technical and harmless, it seems like it’s just a euphemism for a bailout.
What does it say when Washington starts extending swap lines to countries like Argentina and the UAE?
Doug Casey: First, we should define what a swap line is. It basically amounts to the US giving a foreign country X amount of currency in dollars, and the other country paying for it by giving the US the same amount in their currency. For decades, US dollar swap lines were mostly reserved for major allies and core financial centers around the world.
It’s a problem, however, with countries whose currencies have no value outside of their boundaries. A country that gets a swap line from the US is trading its paper for liquid and fungible dollars. The US may then get stuck with UAE dirhams or Argentine pesos. It’s trading real money for play money, Monopoly money.
In the case of Argentina, that swap line may never be repaid. The US might wind up being stuck with a bunch of worthless Argentine pesos.
When the US gives a foreign country a swap line, it basically creates those dollars out of nothing. They enter the banking system and debase the dollar. Doing so gives the US some leverage over a country that takes the swap.
But it’s a pretty expensive way of getting leverage.
International Man: In Argentina’s case, the US framed the swap line as a stabilizing measure. But was this really about financial stability, or was it about propping up a politically important ally at a critical moment?
Doug Casey: Since Milei is Trump’s new BFF, the swap was intended to help Argentina’s perennially weak economy, thereby helping Milei. That’s great for the moment, but now Argentina has to deal with another $30 billion of debt. I would’ve recommended Milei default on all of Argentina’s debts to the IMF, the World Bank, and the US—that might have worked during Milei’s first few months. “I’m sorry, everyone. We just don’t have the ability to pay right now. Wait until I set things straight.” I’m not sure that Argentina would’ve been punished badly for that. Third World countries default all the time.
Instead, Argentina taking the swap just indebts them by another $30 billion. The way to look at this is that future generations of young Argentines are being turned into serfs in order to repay that swap line, along with the rest of the debt.
Milei should have called a spade a spade and admitted bankruptcy instead of going further into debt to keep the Ponzi scheme going.
Argentina’s financial situation under Milei is very strange. The country theoretically owns two million ounces of gold. A million of those ounces were already sitting in London. But then, as soon as Milei got into office, he physically transferred another 440,000 ounces to London, saying that they were safer there. Which is an obvious lie; there’s no reason to think they’ll ever return.
That’s on top of buying 24 F-16s from Denmark—totally useless planes for Argentina—for another $350 million, plus $150 million per year in maintenance. And failing to abolish the central bank, which was a centerpiece of his election campaign. And worse, using the central bank to maintain the peso at ridiculously high levels, which is serving to bankrupt thousands of small businesses.
These stupidities might make the $30 billion swap seem necessary.
The great FLU ILLUSION: Bombshell study proves transmission is a myth and PCR tests are junk science
Virology misunderstood
If the flu virus is as contagious as we have been told, transmission should have been rampant. It was not. Only one recipient out of 75 became infected. That is a 1.3% secondary attack rate. The researchers expected at least 16%. They missed their target by more than tenfold.
To shed further doubt on virus transmission and the common measures used to protect against viral shedding, the study divided recipients into two groups. The intervention group wore face shields and sanitized their hands every 15 minutes. The control group did neither. The result? Zero infections in the intervention group and one infection in the control group. Statistically, there was no difference between the groups. This finding renders the entire mask debate moot. If face shields and constant hand sanitizer cannot stop transmission when both groups fail to get infected anyway, what exactly are we protecting ourselves from?
Virus transmission appears to be an imaginary concept, driven by fear and hysteria.
The uncomfortable truth about viral shedding
Now, forty-two of the 52 donors who were deliberately infected actually became infected after inoculation. That is an 81% infection rate through direct inoculation. And they shed virus from their noses in substantial quantities. Their viral loads were high enough to register on PCR tests with cycle threshold values in the mid-20s. Yet, remarkably, they did not pass the virus to the people sitting next to them. The researchers also measured the exhaled breath of donors using a device called the Gesundheit-II. They found that only 11 out of 42 infected donors had detectable virus in their breath aerosols. Even then, the quantities were two to four logs lower than what has been observed in naturally infected people who were selected for having fever and high viral loads.
This raises an obvious question. If the virus is so hard to transmit in a controlled setting where infected people are breathing directly onto susceptible people for days, how does it ever spread in the real world? The researchers tried to explain their failure by pointing to the building ventilation system. The proof-of-concept study was conducted in a hotel room with recirculating air, and it did have a higher transmission rate. The follow-on study used mechanical ventilation that diluted the air. They concluded that aerosols might be important after all. But this explanation is circular. If transmission depends on airtight rooms with no fresh air, then the virus is not a robust airborne pathogen. It is a fragile entity that requires extreme conditions to move from one person to another.
The fallacy of the contagious patient
The study also revealed something that should make every public health official reconsider their assumptions. Many of the directly infected donors did not get sick. Ten out of 42 infected donors were classified as asymptomatic. They had the virus in their bodies; it was confirmed through PCR; they shed it from their noses, but they felt fine. No fever, no cough, no runny nose. Yet they were placed in rooms with susceptible people and still did not transmit. The researchers admitted that their model produced donors who were “minimally contagious.” But if a person with a laboratory-confirmed infection who is breathing on you for 15 hours a day cannot make you sick, what does that say about the millions of asymptomatic cases that were used to justify lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates?
The collective pandemic protection measures were not based on science; they were only used to control people, weaponizing their virtue and their fear.
NASA Just Flew a Human Kidney, and Transplant Medicine May Never Look the Same
A human kidney flew across NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., on June 5, and the real story begins with what didn’t happen. The organ wasn’t rushed into an operating room, as no surgeon scrubbed in while a family waited outside. From Space.com:
NASA is hoping to use drones to speed up organ delivery for transplant patients.
A flight test earlier this month at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia saw a drone pick up a kidney and fly it for the first time beyond “line of sight”, or the distance from which a drone is visible by an operator. Keeping a line of sight on a drone is a typical requirement for flight safety, but NASA is developing tools that may allow these machines to fly further away from operators in populated environments more regularly.
The kidney on the June 5 flight test was not viable for organ transplantation, which is why the agency and partner United Network for Organ Sharing were able to use it, according to WTKR. If all goes to plan with future tests conducted with NASA Langley, however, UNOS aims to fly organ-bearing drones as far as 15 miles (24 km), in between hospitals for example, to allow for swift and safe delivery to waiting patients. The drone collaboration was created to “explore faster, more reliable ways to transport donor organs using advanced aviation technologies”, according to space agency materials published in April.
Drones may have a better ability than larger aircraft to navigate ground logistics or maneuver in dense or hard-to-reach delivery areas. What’s more, drones might be able to do so faster than aircraft, which is crucial: organs can only last so long during transportation.
The test used additional radios on the drones intended to allow pilots to keep an eye on the drones even while out of sight. “What that means, more or less, is we’re going to have the pilot in command be about a mile away inside of a control room,” Kyle Smalling, an aerospace engineer at NASA Langley, told WAVY.com.
The kidneys used in the test had been donated for research after they were ruled out for transplant. Researchers still treated them like precious cargo because someday a flight like this may carry an organ that can save a life.
NASA Langley Research Center, the United Network for Organ Sharing, and LifeNet Health used a drone to transport human kidneys beyond visual line of sight. The flights lasted about 15 minutes, and researchers biopsied the kidneys and placed them on preservation pumps before and after the flights while tracking temperature, pressure, and altitude. Early results showed no evidence that the flights damaged the organs.
Mark Johnson, interim CEO of UNOS, called innovation in organ transportation essential because more than 100,000 people are waiting for lifesaving transplants. HRSA’s public organ donation data puts the national waiting list at 103,223 men, women, and children. Seventeen people die each day waiting, and another name is added every eight minutes.
Those numbers don’t leave much room for slow systems, missed handoffs, or traffic jams.
Transportation is one of the quiet pressures inside transplant medicine. A donor organ has a limited window of usefulness once recovered. Delays hurt organ function, affect outcomes, or stop a transplant from happening at all.
A kidney can travel by plane, ambulance, courier car, or handoff chain, but the weakest link often sits close to the ground, where congestion, routing, weather, and scheduling cost valuable time.
John Koelling, director of the Aeronautics Research Directorate at NASA Langley Research Center, said the project gives NASA a chance to apply Langley technology to a real-world problem that saves people waiting for transplants. The work uses NASA tools in flight planning, sensing, safety systems, and beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations.
Space-age language sounds distant, but the goal here is deeply human: get the organ where it needs to go with less delay and less risk.
The study also shows why serious medical progress frequently arrives in careful steps. Nobody should pretend drones will replace the transplant logistics network next week.
Hollywood Libs Pour Love on Beijing, Tout China as ‘First Petro-Zero Economy,’ But Facts Show Different Story
It’s hardly a new phenomenon, sadly, when Hollywood stars kiss up to China. Usually, they don’t even try to bother letting facts get in the way.
Ah, but that’s where Edward Norton and Ted Danson went wrong. The “Fight Club” and “Cheers” star decided to simp for Beijing’s energy policy on the latter’s podcast this week, with the two libs declaring that China was on its way to being the “first petro-zero economy.”
The problem there: Not only is China not there yet, it’s the world’s biggest carbon-emitter and its largest user of coal, and it’s only getting worse.
But, you know, other than that…
Norton, apparently not terribly bright without imaginary friend Brad Pitt along with him, was the one who made the “first petro-zero economy” quote in a condemnation of “American exceptionalism,” because apparently exceptionalism equals renewables, or something.
“They are going to be the first electro-superpower,” he said of China.
“Which we could have been,” Danson interjected. “And now we’re going to have to buy it from them when this [Donald Trump] goes away and we come to our senses. We won’t have that industry like China does.”
Norton agreed.
“And by the way, it’s both sides of the aisle,” Norton said. “In the state of California, we have now the most regressive policy toward residential solar, distributed solar collection, and storage… but even under Gavin Newsom.”
Of course, this is because you can’t build a millimeter of air in California without 62 different permits, and you basically can’t change a lightbulb without changing a law, but one digresses. When the People’s Republic of Sacramento is being brought forth as an argument as to why centrally planned Chinese energy policy is kicking our butts, it’s hard to take you seriously.
As Norton went on to point out, “This is a state that should be energy independent… This is a state that should have gigawatts of residential distributed solar.”
To be fair, he gives both Florida and Texas — under Republican governors — credit for getting stuff done. But then he says that “if you get to travel” to other places — assumedly like China — you get to see that stuff can get done on green energy.
“We have this enduring narrative of American exceptionalism, like of, America’s ‘alpha,’ of America’s cultural superiority,” a rambling Norton said.
“And the question is, and I don’t think people fully grasp the degree to which we’re going to ghettoize ourselves as an energy state, in terms of education, in terms of health. We’re not anywhere near the top of what other people are experiencing. And if we embrace this idea of pride in regression, where is that going to take us? It’s not going to take us into a place that we’re happy about for our kids.”
A Million Obamacare Users Enrolled Without a Social Security Number
Obamacare is expensive, unconstitutional, socialist, and bloated. It is also — surprise, surprise — riddled with fraud.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz revealed the stunning number of Obamacare users who never provided a Social Security number, raising serious questions about the scope of fraud in the government healthcare insurance program.
In a Saturday video, Kennedy and Oz updated the American people on efforts to uncover and root out fraud. The HHS secretary began, “The Obamacare marketplace is plagued by fraud, in large part because the Biden administration dismantled basic program integrity guardrails. [And] partisan lawfare blocked common sense efforts to protect taxpayers. Today, Dr. Oz and I are exposing one of the latest examples of fraud that we’ve uncovered — more than a million people enrolled in Obamacare without Social Security numbers on file. That is a glaring warning side of fraud. If even a single person was on Obamacare with no Social Security number, we should have found out. Why are we paying people we don’t know if they actually exist?” Why indeed. Probably because Democrats love to redistribute money no matter how many criminals benefit.
Oz picked up the thread of the explanation. “Shady insurance agents and other bad actors have been getting paid to enroll unsuspecting Americans in health plans they never signed up for,” he exclaimed. “These rogue agents have been flooding into healthcare.gov. That’s the Obamacare marketplace. They submit applications for fake people, enroll stolen identities, all to collect millions of dollars, improper fees, from insurance companies for selling plans they never legitimately sold. Some of these agents refuse to follow basic rules like providing their clients’ Social Security number. That, my friends, is a huge red flag.”
Under the current administration, HHS and CMS are actually paying attention to red flags. As Kennedy said, “These fraudsters deliberately pick plans with no premiums. No premiums means no bill. No bill means most people never know that they’ve been enrolled in a plan that you and I are paying for with our taxpayer dollars. The only people who benefit are the fraudsters.”
But the current administration has a zero tolerance attitude toward fraud, Oz emphasized. “So here’s what we’re doing about it,” he said. “In May, we took swift action to block this fraudulent behavior directly on healthcare.gov and to our marketplace Call Center. If an agent wants to be paid, [he] must follow the rules. No ifs, ands or buts. They are gonna have to provide government-verified information for their clients to be enrolled.”
This effort is bearing fruit, Kennedy stated. “Thanks to this aggressive enforcement strategy, we’ve already eliminated thousands of fraudulent policies, and we’re just getting started. We’re also working with insurers to cancel every policy that should never have been issued and recover every taxpayer dollar that was fraudulently paid out,” he assured Americans.
Oz agreed, “We’re also scaling up our enforcement efforts to prevent these bad actors from finding new ways to manipulate the system ahead of the open enrollment system this fall, because we know that bad actors don’t simply stop when you cut off one vulnerable area. The Biden administration let healthcare fraudsters run wild. Thanks to President Trump, those days are over.” The battle is ongoing, but there have already been victories.
Kennedy warned, “To every unscrupulous insurance agent and fraudster exploiting the American people, here is our message. If you steal from the American taxpayer, or if you defraud American families, HHS will find you, and we will hold you accountable.” Oz chimed in, “If you’re a fraudster, here’s our advice to you. Do not walk away from us, run, because we are gonna find you.”
Secretary Kennedy stated that his priority is protecting Americans’ health and Americans’ money, now and always.
Texas Supreme Court Blocks Harris County from Spending Taxpayer Dollars on Illegal Immigrants’ Deportation Defense
The Texas Supreme Court has temporarily blocked Harris County from spending taxpayer dollars on legal services for individuals facing federal deportation proceedings, marking a significant victory for state officials seeking to curb what they view as the misuse of public funds.
The order, issued Friday, halts further spending from Harris County’s Immigrant Legal Services Fund while litigation continues over whether the program violates the Texas Constitution. Although the court has not issued a final ruling on the merits, it concluded there is “serious doubt” about the program’s constitutionality and ordered the county to suspend additional disbursements until further notice.
The decision sends a clear message that local governments cannot use taxpayer money to advance politically driven immigration policies without constitutional scrutiny.
Harris County’s Deportation Defense Fund
Harris County established the Immigrant Legal Services Fund in 2020 with an initial $2 million appropriation to provide free legal representation for individuals in federal immigration proceedings. Since then, county leaders have continued funding the program, including a recent $1.34 million allocation to nonprofit organizations representing individuals facing deportation.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton challenged the latest expenditure, arguing that using public funds for this purpose violates the Texas Constitution’s prohibition against granting public money for private purposes. The Texas Supreme Court agreed that the constitutional questions raised are substantial enough to justify immediately halting the spending while the lawsuit proceeds.
Gay Pride Parade in Providence, RI Features Float With RAINBOW GUILLOTINE and Other Violent Imagery Aimed at City’s Gay Mayor
A float in the Providence, Rhode Island gay pride parade featured a rainbow-colored guillotine, as well as a steamroller covered with blood, chasing an effigy of the city’s gay Mayor Brett Smiley.
The makers of the float are going after Smiley for not being far left enough for their liking.
This is not unlike what happened to gay state senator Scott Weiner in California this week. The left has begun going after their own as traitors to the revolution.
This is the same city where leftists claimed that a mural of murdered legal immigrant Iryna Zarutska was too divisive for the community. Smiley sided with the left.
RI Pride to ‘strengthen’ parade rules after float depicts violence against Providence mayor
Rhode Island Pride says it will be “strengthening” its parade entry requirements after a float in last weekend’s Illuminated Night Parade depicted violence against Mayor Brett Smiley.
The organization’s president, Rodney Davis, told 12 News that the nonprofit was conducting its own review of the matter to determine what was presented, what details were provided during registration, and “whether any material information was omitted that would have affected the approval process.”
Photos of the float posted on social media showed what appeared to be a representation of Smiley hanging in front of a bloody steamroller, while the back of the float featured what looked to be a rainbow-colored guillotine. The float had a logo for the Providence Worker’s Defense.
“Rhode Island Pride has always recognized that Pride is rooted in protest, advocacy, visibility, and the right of community members to raise concerns about public issues,” Davis said. “At the same time, we want to be clear that any entry or display that depicts or suggests violence is not consistent with the standards of our event and will not be permitted.”
Here’s an image of the bloody steamroller with the effigy of Smiley.
Zelensky Telegraphs 40-Day Pressure Offensive On Russia, Fueling Fears Of Slide Toward WW3
The Ukraine war is quite obviously escalating, especially regarding Ukrainian leaders seeking to “bring the war” to Russian soil, amid nightly drone attacks which have come in the hundreds and even thousands of late.
President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking to seize on the momentum of repeat drone hits on Russian refinery and energy infrastructure – a reality Russia has suffered over many months, leading to a current fuel crisis spanning dozens of cities and regions, and especially Crimea, which has temporarily halted fuel sales to common citizens altogether this week.
Ukrainian media is touting a new Zelensky plan to ramp up the pressure on Russia over the next 40 days, aimed at “pressuring Russia to end its war”.
He has ordered Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) to launch a new 40-day operation, which also includes “plan for long-range sanctions, medium-range sanctions, and the results achieved by the SBU,” Zelensky said on X. He’s further calling it an “influence operation.”
Hellbound and Down 
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