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.

Israel-Lebanon Deal On Life Support: Israel Won’t Withdraw, And Lebanon’s Christians Are Split On Whether It’s A Lifeline Or A Trap

The US-brokered “Trilateral Framework” signed in Washington on June 26 — sold as a “first step toward peace” — is fraying within days. The 14-point deal ties any Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon to the “verified disarmament of non-state armed groups,” a plain reference to Hezbollah. A now-public security annex states: further IDF pullbacks are conditioned on “results, not time” — on “successful completion of agreed upon and verifiable disarmament,” with no withdrawal timeline at all. Israel can therefore stay indefinitely and call it legal.

Netanyahu, visiting troops in the self-declared “security zone” alongside Defense Minister Israel Katz, said Israel “will not leave southern Lebanon until the threat has disappeared”; Katz added they “will not withdraw a millimeter” until Hezbollah is disarmed. Since disarmament is the precondition for a withdrawal Israel refuses to start, the sequencing seems circular by design. Israeli strikes have continued across the south, the Bekaa, and Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem branded the deal “null and void,” a “humiliation,” and vowed to keep fighting until Israel leaves — a rejection driven by the Iran-backed militia’s determination to keep its weapons and its war, not by any concern for the Lebanese state.

The Christian angle is where Western coverage flattens a real divide — and it’s worth getting right, because Israel has a documented history of cultivating Lebanese politicians.

On one side, Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces cheered the pact as “the most significant political step taken by the Lebanese state in half a century.” But Geagea is the most Israel-friendly voice in Lebanese politics — so his enthusiasm should be weighed accordingly, not taken as the Christian consensus.

The Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon’s second largest Christian party, founded by former President Michel Aoun and led by Gebran Bassil, did not celebrate but seems open to finding a way forward. Bassil’s verdict: the agreement “is beneficial if we regain all our rights, and dangerous if it is a recipe for strife,” demanding “responsible engagement.” The party said it backs “a comprehensive and lasting peace” but that peace “cannot be achieved through surrendering to Israeli demands or sacrificing Lebanese rights,” warning the framework “lacks guarantees for Israeli withdrawal” and that its use of “redeployment” instead of withdrawal leaves “the door open for the continuation of the occupation.”

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They Told You Your Dishwasher Could Spy on You

Back in 2012, Wired published an article titled “CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher.” That was not some wild theory. That was based on remarks from then-CIA Director David Petraeus, who was speaking about the so-called Internet of Things at an In-Q-Tel summit, the CIA’s own venture capital arm. Petraeus called these technologies “transformational,” especially for their effect on “clandestine tradecraft.” In plain English, the intelligence world saw your home appliances, television, car navigation system, light switches, phone apps, and connected devices as the next great surveillance frontier.

Petraeus said that “items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled” through RFID, sensor networks, embedded servers, and internet-connected devices. That is the quote everyone should remember. They were not hiding it. They were telling you directly that the smart home would become the spy home. Once upon a time, they had to bug your chandelier. Now they simply wait for you to buy the device, install the app, connect it to Wi-Fi, and sign away your privacy in some user agreement nobody reads.

Wired correctly noted that these devices would produce tagged, geolocated data that could be intercepted in real-time. The dishwasher quote was not really about dishwashers alone. It was about the entire home becoming a listening post and tracking station. Your television, thermostat, lighting system, refrigerator, phone, PlayStation, car, smartwatch, and now even your pet’s microchip become pieces of a surveillance net. This is precisely how tyranny advances, not with a knock at the door, but with convenience, entertainment, and a monthly subscription.

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Supreme Court Rules Police Conduct a Fourth Amendment “Search” When Grabbing Your Google Location History Data Through Geofence Warrants

The U.S. Supreme Court held Monday that law enforcement officers conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain cell phone users’ precise Location History data from Google using a geofence warrant.

In a 6-3 decision in Chatrie v. United States, the Court ruled that Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell phone location information, even when that data is stored by a third-party technology company such as Google. The ruling represents one of the Court’s most significant digital privacy decisions since its 2018 Carpenter decision involving historical cell-site location data.

Justice Elena Kagan authored the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Jackson separately concurring.

Justice Neil Gorsuch concurred only in the judgment, while Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined in part by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Barrett also filed a separate dissent.

This builds directly on the landmark Carpenter v. United States (2018) decision, which already required warrants for cell-site location information (CSLI).

The Court made clear that Google’s even more precise and sweeping Location History data — which logs a user’s location every two minutes or so, within about 20 meters, and can even reveal elevation and which floor of a building someone is on — deserves at least the same protection.

The case, Chatrie v. United States (No. 25-112), arose from a May 20, 2019, armed robbery of a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. Police had surveillance footage and witness statements but no suspect. On June 14, they obtained a Virginia magistrate’s geofence warrant directed at Google.

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New Zealand vaccination records show 50% higher-than-expected all-cause mortality after vaccination; Health New Zealand refuses to investigate

I just independently validated Barry Young’s standardized mortality rate (SMR) analysis in my github. I used independent methods and came out with an SMR of 1.5, slightly less than Barry’s numbers (1.65).

In short, people in New Zealand who were vaccinated should be dying at a lower rate than average (SMR <1) due to the healthy vaccinee effect, not at a rate >50% higher than normal.

The refusal to investigate

The fact they are dying at >50% higher than normal rates after their vaccine should trigger Health New Zealand to investigate what is causing the excess deaths.

They refuse to do so. They don’t even want to analyze their own data.

Instead, they are trying to throw their former database administrator, Barry Young, into jail for seven years for exposing the truth about the mortality in New Zealand for those who were vaccinated.

Easy to replicate

Anyone can replicate Barry’s results. It took me only about 15 minutes. All the data is in my github.

An SMR of 1.5 doesn’t mean that the COVID vaccine killed these people. But the health authority refuses to identify what caused the excess deaths. It can’t be COVID because the health authority says that if you get the shots, you can’t get COVID or die from COVID.

And it couldn’t be any of the mitigation measure is recommended by the health authority because we all know that those decrease deaths.

So the excess deaths Barry calculated were all in the vaccinated who were protected against the COVID death.

So why were they dying 50% higher than normal?

Silence from Health New Zealan

It appears that we’re never going to find out the answer to that question because the health authorities are keeping the records under wraps and they refuse to investigate to find the cause of the excess deaths.

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Pentagon Launches Investigation into Data Breach at Peter Thiel’s Exclusive Dialog Network

The Pentagon is conducting an operations security review following a significant data exposure at Dialog, a highly secretive private events organization co-founded by tech investor Peter Thiel, that compromised personal information of senior U.S. national security officials and active-duty special operations personnel.

The incident, first reported by WIRED, occurred after a misconfigured website left sensitive registrant files publicly accessible, prompting concerns over potential operational security risks for individuals involved in intelligence and military activities.

According to reports, the exposed database contained records for 222 participants scheduled to attend Dialog’s upcoming retreat outside Dublin, Ireland, in August. Among those affected were current and former high-ranking U.S. and allied military and intelligence officials.

Notable cases include an active-duty U.S. intelligence officer embedded with a Tier 1 special operations unit and a senior National Security Council official who advises President Donald Trump and previously served with the CIA. Both individuals were listed as first-time participants for the event, reported Clash Report.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll (sometimes referred to with slight name variations in early reporting, such as Diane Driscoll) appears in the leaked membership and registration records for Dialog.

The files reportedly included highly personal details such as dates of birth, home addresses, mobile phone numbers, headshot photographs, private authentication tokens, and emergency contact information listing spouses and family members.

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Colorado Supreme Court Blocks Democrat Redistricting Effort

The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday blocked the Democrats’ effort to redraw its congressional map.

The proposed map would have added three more Democrat seats in the US House of Representatives.

Colorado’s high court unanimously struck down two attempts at redistricting.

Colorado’s Congressional map will remain at 4D and 4R.

Politico reported:

Democrats just suffered a major setback in their plans to counter Republican redistricting gains before the 2028 elections.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that all five proposed redistricting ballot measures in the state — three led by Democrats and two led by Republicans — violated the state’s constitution, preventing either party from implementing new maps by undoing the independent commission that currently controls the process.

Colorado’s eight House seats are currently split evenly between both parties, and one of Democrats’ most ambitious redraw efforts would have created a map where seven of the districts favor the party.

Because Democrats would have needed a measure on the ballot this fall in order to redraw for 2028, the timing of the ruling makes it all but impossible to redraw.

The court issued two opinions on the redistricting measures Monday, and both were unanimous decisions against proposed remapping efforts.

Meanwhile, Republican-led states have successfully eliminated racially gerrymandered districts going into the midterm elections.

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New Study Strongly Links Merck’s Gardasil HPV Vaccine to POTS, but Authors Downplay Signal

A new analysis of adverse events reported to the federal vaccine safety surveillance database after the HPV vaccine detected a strong safety signal for POTS, an autonomic nervous system disorder, in some people who received the shots.

The authors of the study, published last week in PLOS One, analyzed 77,909 reports associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) between 2006 and 2024.

They concluded that the signal for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) warranted further investigation. However, they downplayed the significance of their findings, according to experts who spoke with The Defender.

Their discussion section dedicated only two sentences to POTS, even though the condition was the strongest signal identified by the analysis.

The authors underscored that a signal for POTS does not prove that it was caused by the shot, and said that a strong signal “does not necessarily translate into a large clinical or public health impact.”

Warning that when people hear about serious adverse events, it affects their “perception” of safety, the authors framed their paper as part of a process of identifying and addressing potential risks that “is crucial to maintaining high vaccination coverage.”

Cynthia Nevison, Ph.D., said this approach led the authors to be dismissive of their own results. “I always object in principle to papers that start out with the motivation of reducing vaccine hesitancy,” Nevison told The Defender.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker said the attempts to downplay POTS as a side effect of the HPV shot are “criminal and the paper is expertly crafted to hide this very obvious signal in order to repeat the default ‘safe and effective’ lie.”

He added that given VAERS underreporting, “we know that the pesky result they’re downplaying could represent 68,000 POTS cases nationwide and over 1 million serious adverse events total.”

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Chilling Report Finds Israel Deliberately Targeting Children As Genocide In Gaza Continues

Tension over Israel continues to grow within US political discourse. From both sides of the aisle, people’s attitudes towards the Zionist settler-colonial project are souring. Israel is the most disliked it has ever been, with a recent survey from the Pew Research Center finding that the majority of people across 36 countries hold unfavorable views of Israel and Netanyahu, with the number as high as 60% among Americans.

Support for Israeli war crimes continues to drive a rift between both parties. Just this week, opposition to Israel played a key role in the outcomes of New York’s congressional primaries, with anti-Zionist candidates receiving sweeping victories over candidates backed by establishment Democrats. Meanwhile, on the right, conservative firebrand Tucker Carlson officially announced he was leaving the Republican Party specifically due to its continued support for Israel.

These sentiments will likely only continue to grow in light of a new report recently released by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. From the very beginning, the report is unambiguous in its findings with the headline reading “the essence of childhood has been destroyed.” In it, the inquiry found conclusive evidence that Israeli forces have consistently and deliberately targeted children in Gaza, as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and including within protected refugee camps, resulting in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 since October 7th, 2023.

According to the report, among those killed, 5,031 were under the age of five, while more than 1,000 were under one year of age. Most disheartning, the inquiry found that approximately 420 of those killed were newborn babies.

The commission noted the actual number of child casualties is “certainly higher”, due to the amount of unaccounted child victims who are missing or buried under rubble, estimated to be roughly an additional 5,160.

The commission interviewed 17 medical professionals who had worked at hospitals across Gaza. Among them, one doctor attested that many of the injuries they documented were akin to “a game of target practice”, with Israeli snipers targeting different body parts of teenage boys on different days. With other doctors documenting similar acts of deliberate depravity.

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Study Claiming COVID Vaccines Benefit Heart Health ‘Hopelessly Flawed,’ Scientists Say

A new study linking COVID-19 vaccines to a significantly lower risk of heart attack and stroke joins “the latest in a growing body of research about the vaccine’s benefits for heart health,” according to The Washington Post, which reported on the study.

But Dr. Vinay Prasad, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, called the study “hopelessly flawed.”

Prasad, the former director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research before stepping down in April, and other scientists said the study’s methodological flaws skewed its findings.

“Not only should it not be in the news, the paper should not be in print,” Prasad wrote on Substack.

Canadian researcher Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., called the paper “outright bad science” that “should not be used whatsoever to ‘help inform clinical and public health discussions’ as they propose.”

The study, published last week in JAMA Internal Medicine, tied COVID-19 vaccination to a 37.7% lower risk of serious cardiovascular conditions, particularly among people 75 and older or people with comorbidities.

The authors also found that the vaccinated had a 6.2% lower risk of serious heart conditions overall and a 6.6% reduction in all-cause hospitalizations.

“Extrapolating these estimates to a population of 1 million people, vaccination could plausibly be associated with averting approximately 2370 [major cardiovascular] events and 1580 deaths over an 8-month period,” the study claims.

However, the researchers acknowledged that “the absolute benefit” of COVID-19 vaccination “was modest for the general cohort.”

Heart conditions such as myocarditis are widely associated with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, with reports of deaths connected to the vaccines, particularly among teenage and young adult males.

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Erin Brockovich Launches Plan to Take on AI Data Centers Around the Country

Erin Brockovich, who secured a historic $333 million settlement against PG&E in 1993 and was immortalized by Julia Roberts on the silver screen, has launched a new battle against the proliferation of AI data centers across the United States and beyond.

The Guardian reports that the environmental activist who became a household name after her work on the Hinkley, California, groundwater contamination case has identified what she describes as a threat on par with that scandal, only larger in scope. After receiving thousands of emails from concerned citizens, Brockovich has turned her attention to the rapid construction of massive AI data centers happening with minimal public input or environmental oversight.

The campaign began when Brockovich noticed an unusual pattern in her inbox. She received 30 emails from people in the same town, all expressing concerns about data centers. In April, she issued a public call on her website asking anyone with concerns about data centers near them to contact her. Within a month, 3,862 people responded. Brockovich characterizes the situation as “Hinkley on steroids.”

Using the information gathered from these emails, Brockovich created an open-source map documenting AI data centers across the United States. As of June 24, the map shows 33 AI data centers that are operational, 68 under construction, and 41 proposed. More than 7,000 reports have been submitted through her online form, revealing a pattern of construction happening largely without public knowledge or consent.

AI data centers are enormous in scale. Some stretch over hundreds of acres, and in May, Utah approved a center twice the size of Manhattan. According to Brockovich, many communities learn about these facilities only after construction has already begun, or in some cases, months after they have been approved by local officials.

A major concern for Brockovich is the secrecy surrounding the approval process. Data center developers often enter into nondisclosure agreements with local officials, making it impossible for residents to understand why projects were approved without environmental impact assessments or public input. Brockovich reports receiving emails from people whose local leaders are changing zoning laws to accommodate these facilities. “If data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?” reads one headline on her Substack blog.

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