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 $2 Trillion Bet Is That Nothing Goes Wrong

The most revealing aspect of a $2 trillion Anthropic IPO is not the staggering valuation, but the suspension of disbelief required to justify it.

To buy into that number, investors must assume that artificial intelligence is becoming economically indispensable at breakneck speed, that a formidable moat will protect a handful of frontier-model developers, and that the exorbitant costs of computing infrastructure will not eventually crush their margins. More crucially – they must wager that the political, technical, and institutional risks inherent to an increasingly geopolitically competitive landscape will play second fiddle to the growth story. 

Reports of Anthropic’s internal projections describe a company scaling at an unprecedented clip. If it can actually bust out an annualized revenue run-rate of $100 billion while expanding its enterprise market share, a trillion-dollar valuation begins to look mathematically defensible under current tech multiples. But this arithmetic obscures a deeper structural flaw: the very capabilities driving Anthropic’s revenue growth are simultaneously engineering the risks most likely to vaporize its premium.

As frontier models become more autonomous, persuasive, and capable of executing multi-step objectives across outside systems, they cease to be conventional software. A text generator hallucinating an answer is a glitch; an autonomous agent hallucinating a cyber-attack or a rogue financial transaction is a massive liability.

The recent internal turmoil and safety-evaluation controversies at both OpenAI and Anthropic are symptomatic of this shift. Major AI labs are now diverting substantial resources to test for autonomy, deception, and loss of control. This is not merely an engineering challenge; it is a fundamental transformation of the product category. The instability roiling these companies is not a byproduct of poor management – it is a structural consequence of trying to shoehorn a potentially world-altering, highly volatile technology into the framework of a standard venture-backed corporation.

The company’s value has been all over the place in prediction markets – recently hockey-sticking following a report in FT in which six company backers said that Anthropic’s rapidly rising revenue “would enable it to more than double its current valuation in a planned autumn float.” 

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Wisconsin Election Update: At Least 1 of 5 “Human Errors” in Milwaukee Democrat Primary Caught on Camera

The City of Milwaukee has faced rightful criticism of how they conducted the 2026 Democrat primary on Tuesday evening.

As The Gateway Pundit has reported, there was a discrepancy with 5 out of 9 ES&S DS950 high-speed central scanners when election workers allegedly exported “audit logs” instead of “results,” leaving Wisconsin wondering who would be the gubernatorial candidate for the Democrats.

Francesca Hong, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, who was favored by 22 points in the last polls before voting and in five polls with an average margin of Hong +22.8 points, lost in the late-night count to the establishment candidate, David Crowley by just over 3,200 votes.

A camera crew for CBS58 Milwaukee caught at least one moment when the “audit log” was exported, rather than the results.

In the photo, you can see “Export Audit Log” written at the top of the menu and a pop-up window that says “Please Wait… Exporting Audit Log”.  Timestamps on the machine show that this occurred at 10:16 p.m. on August 11, 2026.

A separate image shows the proper menu for selecting either Configuration, Results, or Setup.

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China Sends Science Team to Iran for ‘Exploration and Processing’ of Rare Earths

The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) on Monday announced a collaboration with Iran on the “exploration and processing of rare earth elements,” presented as a series of workshops that will be mostly funded by China.

The NSFC said that it will provide about $4,200 in funding for each workshop, while Iran’s National Science Foundation will help with travel arrangements and accommodations for Chinese researchers visiting Iran, and vice versa.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) noted that Beijing chose a “particularly sensitive time” to announce a new collaboration with Iran, given ongoing hostilities between the United States and Iran.

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit the United States in September to discuss trade issues with President Donald Trump, although the meeting could already be imperiled by volleys of “tit-for-tat” sanctions between the U.S. and China. Trump is unlikely to be pleased by the announcement of a new Chinese collaboration with Iran at this uneasy juncture.

The SCMP pointed out that China seems to be taking a significant diplomatic risk for a very modest collaboration in an industry that China already dominates. China has the world’s largest known rare earth reserves and is the leading producer and refiner of the metals.

Iran might have significant rare earth deposits in its central region, but it has not developed the technology to confirm those deposits exist, or exploit them. All that is certain for now is that central Iran boasts the sort of iron and phosphate formations that could harbor rare earth deposits.

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Five Current and Former Texas City Officials – Including the Mayor – Arrested For Fraud

Five current and former Refugio, Texas, city officials were arrested on Wednesday for fraud after they allegedly mishandled hundreds of thousands of dollars that spanned 19 transactions.

Refugio Mayor Wanda Dukes was charged with misapplication of fiduciary property, a first-degree felony, for misusing funds from the Refugio Economic Development Corporation between October 2023 and October 2025.

City Secretary Callie Shreckengost was also charged with misapplication of fiduciary property.

Current City Council Ixtlazihuatl Vasquez, former City Council Frank Hosey, and former City Council Michael Rocha were all hit with third-degree felony charges of abuse of official capacity.

According to the indictment, the state claimed that more than $1 million was misapplied to payments, audit services, garbage collection, and festivals.

KRIS TV reported:

Five current and former Refugio town officials face felony charges after a Refugio County grand jury returned indictments this week following a Texas Rangers investigation.

Mayor Wanda Huff Dukes and Town Secretary Callie Gray Shreckengost turned themselves in at the Refugio County Jail on Wednesday and were later released. Both are charged with misapplication of fiduciary property, a first-degree felony. Bond for each was set at $25,000.

The indictments accuse both officials of misusing funds from the Refugio Economic Development Corporation between Oct. 3, 2023, and Oct. 29, 2025. According to the charging documents, Dukes exercised control over EDC funds as mayor, while Shreckengost had authority to authorize and sign disbursements as town secretary.

The indictments list 19 transactions totaling more than $1 million that the state says were misapplied, including payments for windstorm insurance, garbage collection, water main maintenance, audit services, a police department holiday event and Fourth of July festivals.

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Cyberattack Cripples California City’s 911 System, Forces Emergency Shutdown

A Northern California city of roughly 30,000 residents was forced to shut down its entire computer network Friday after a cyberattack knocked out its 911 system, the latest sign of how vulnerable American municipalities remain to digital assaults.

Suisun City, located about 45 miles from San Francisco, declared a state of emergency Saturday after malicious software infiltrated its network shortly before 6 p.m. Friday, the California Post reported.

“Officials shut down the entire network to stop the threat from spreading and protect evidence for a federal investigation,” the outlet reported.

City officials scrambled to prevent the outage from endangering residents, rerouting 911 calls through the Solano County dispatch center. Police and fire personnel remained active and able to respond to calls for service despite the loss of the city’s own systems.

The breach reached well beyond emergency dispatch.

City services including building permits and other municipal records were rendered inaccessible, and residents were unable to pay bills online while the network remained offline.

The Suisun City Council voted unanimously to pull the plug on the network and declare a state of emergency during a special meeting Saturday morning, an extraordinary step that underscores the severity of the threat local officials believed they were facing.

The incident lands amid heightened concern over foreign cyber threats to American infrastructure since the outbreak of the Iran war.

U.S. authorities issued an “urgent warning” in April that hackers linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were actively working to disrupt critical American computer networks, a threat national security officials have long cautioned could extend to local governments with limited cybersecurity resources.

It remains unclear whether the Suisun City attack is connected to Iran-backed hacking operations.

Investigators are still working to determine how the malicious software breached the network and who is responsible, according to news reports.

City officials have not said when full network functionality is expected to be restored.

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul BRAGS About Spending Millions of Tax Dollars on Legal Bills for Illegal Immigrant Children

The New York Post just did a story about how New York’s Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul is spending upwards of $7 million in taxpayer dollars on the legal bills of illegal immigrant youths in the state.

When the Post promoted the story on Twitter/X, Hochul jumped in and bragged about it.

Why is it that every single Democrat is so determined to let the public know that they care more about people in the country illegally than they do about American citizens?

This is the story from the New York Post:

Hochul shells out over $7M to cover legal bills for 1,400 migrant children in NY

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the Empire State will be shelling out over $7 million to cover the legal bills for more than 1,000 unaccompanied migrant children across New York.

The $7.25 million in funding will cover an estimated 1,400 migrant kids facing removal proceedings, including about 250 in detention, the governor said at a press conference in Manhattan alongside Mayor Zohran Mamdani and state Attorney General Letitia James.

The announcement came after the Trump administration let its contract with a network of about 100 providers working with migrant kids nationwide lapse in July.

“It’s cruel. It’s illegal. And for nearly two decades our federal government required by law that these children be protected when they cross the border,” Hochul railed.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, passed during President George W. Bush’s tenure, required the US government to provide legal representation for kids in deportation proceedings.

Children caught crossing into the US alone are generally entrusted to the federal government and placed in the care of an adult sponsor, typically a parent, relative or family friend by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

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Courage for Peace, Not for War

In September of 2025, during a Saturday vigil in Stockholm’s Odenplan Square, Isak Hernández, age nine, asked if he could recite a poem he wrote. Deeply troubled by images he saw, day and night, from Gaza, he resolved not to be silent. “Their lives are not numbers,” Isak declared. “Their dreams are not ashes.” His refrain repeated: “I won’t be silent,” and he begged the world, “Listen to me.”

Isabella Lundgren, a Swedish jazz vocalist, heard Isak deliver his poem. She felt his words had reverberated throughout Sweden. No one could possibly turn away. Everyone, she said, bore the responsibility of witnessing. She and Isak collaborated to turn his poem into a song entitled “Their dreams are not ashes.”

Their witness is crucial for counteracting decisions on the part of countries which have newly decided to enter NATO.

We should acknowledge that NATO has done nothing to stop the U.S. provisioned Israeli genocide or to restrain Israel.

On the contrary, NATO seeks fuller integration of Israel’s “security” into NATO strategies. What’s more, trade between Israel and European countries continues.

The Swedish government ought to argue that NATO must force Israel to end their genocide of Palestinian people.

We should note that Israel possesses at least ninety-one thermonuclear weapons which it refuses to declare. Each of these weapons would cause the death of at least six million people – a Holocaust – in a can, waiting to be opened on human civilization’s last day. A planetary omnicide comprising every conceivable genocide, military analysts agree, is almost certain to occur days, hours, or even minutes after any of these weapons are ever again used.

Sadly, Sweden’s hurried entry into NATO in 2024, alongside the rise of armaments industries and even support for nuclear weapons acquisition, compromises Sweden’s historic capacity to resist the rush into unimaginable genocides.

What are the major threats we all face? Surely, the list must begin with the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Next, we must reckon with possible ecological collapse. Following this, we must prepare for outbreaks of new pandemics. And, achingly, we must oppose genocide. War is not the answer. Militarism exacerbates each of these threats.

Now, as corrupt political leaders extract the hard-earned resources of people throughout Europe and pour those resources into bulging coffers of, primarily, U.S. military contractors, it’s crucial to hear Isak Hernández’s pledge not to be silent. We also can learn from the legacy of Sweden’s heroic diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte.

As Vice President of Sweden’s Red Cross, during World War II, he witnessed first-hand how prisoners in concentration camps suffered. He resolved to negotiate with SS leader Heinrich Himmler for the release of prisoners. Bernadotte collaborated with Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian relief groups to create the White Buses campaign. Ultimately, they managed to free over 17,000 thousand prisoners from concentration camps.

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REPORT: After Billions Upon Billions in Spending, California’s High Speed Rail Program May Run Out of Money by the End of 2027

The high-speed rail program that California has been working on for years and which has already cost billions of dollars, may run out of money as early as the end of 2027, according to new reports.

Has there ever been a greater example of the inefficiency of government to build things?

They have been at this for years and hardly any tracks have even been laid. At what point to they just give it up already?

The New York Post reports:

Gavin Newsom’s bullet train barreling toward financial cliff as cash could run dry in 2027

California’s bullet train could have a new end point: Brokeville, USA.

The state’s beleaguered high-speed rail line is once again careening toward a financial cliff, as a new report — delivered last month to Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators — says the project could run out of cash by the end of next year.

The Office of the Inspector General warned that the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s funds could dry up as soon as December 2027 unless it secures financing — and the authority would need to borrow as much as $9.5 billion over five years just to keep construction on schedule.

Inspector General Benjamin Belnap’s report noted that high-speed rail officials have “obscured basic facts about the project, hindering lawmakers’ ability to provide effective oversight of the project.”

State Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach), who previously called the bullet train “the most wasteful government project in probably world history,” said on Tuesday that the warning of empty coffers by the end of 2027 was “no surprise.”

“During the informational hearing this spring, both the nonpartisan [Legislative Analyst’s Office] and the Inspector General were unable to identify a reliable funding source for high-speed rail,” Strickland told The Post.

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Ontario’s free-spending politicians are nowhere to be found

The Doug Ford Progressive Conservatives are currently mired in an expense scandal. And that stench isn’t going away any time soon…

Here’s the skinny: several MPPs who live within a short driving distance from Queen’s Park were staying at ritzy downtown Toronto hotels rather than bothering to commute home. Hey, we get it: nothing beats room service and maid service.

But the thing is, all these MPPs charged these hotel stays to the ever-beleaguered Ontario taxpayer and/or party donors.

One of the worst offenders is Stan Cho, MPP for Willowdale. Cho’s north Toronto residence is just a handful of subway stops away from the legislature, about 12 km in total. And yet even he had the audacity to stay at swank hotels! Why?

Predictably, there has been much blowback. And so it was that Doug Ford – whose polling numbers are currently plummeting – rightfully punished these big spenders.

In the case of Cho, he lost his cabinet position. And he’s been ordered to pay back the more than $13,000 he squandered on hotels.

But Ford himself is certainly not leading by example. The province’s chief cherry cheesecake connoisseur was scrummed on this matter late last month. A journalist asked him if he plans to pay back the $200,000 his aborted private plane purchase cost the Ontario taxpayer. Ford’s answer? When he’s on the road, he eats at McDonald’s. We’re not making this up…

In any event, we paid a visit to Cho’s constituency office as well as a couple of other MPP big spenders – Paul Calandra in Markham and Hardeep Grewal in Brampton. And a trend emerged: all of the constituency offices were in lockdown mode, as if we were still living in the dark days of Covid-19. Either that or nobody would answer the door (it was impossible to see inside these offices, so we had no idea if anybody was home.) The question arises: what is the purpose of maintaining an office in the first place if MPPs and their staffers are not going to be accountable to the people they allegedly serve?

We then visited Mel Lastman Square in Cho’s riding to see what constituents had to say about the various spending sprees on the taxpayer dime. Predictably, they were not amused.

It is all so perversely ironic given that once upon a time Ford ran on the election slogan, “Respect for Taxpayers.”

To quote the late, great Fred Willard: “Hey! Wha’ happened?!”

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“It Sounds Like a Wild Conspiracy Theory”: Jeffrey Tucker Reveals the Real Reason for the Lockdowns, School Closures, and Masking

Author and Brownstone Institute founder and president Jeffrey Tucker sat down with computational biologist Dr. Jessica Rose for an hour-long conversation about some of the most shocking revelations from the COVID response.

During that discussion, Tucker shared what he says top FDA and NIH officials told him about the real purpose of the lockdowns and other restrictions.

The purpose, according to Tucker, was “to delay the onset of natural immunity… until after the shots were online.”

Tucker admits it “sounds like a wild conspiracy theory.” But he says multiple sources who were actually there, working inside the agencies and companies, have confirmed it “without a shadow of a doubt.”

The lockdowns that wiped out small businesses. The school closures that sent children’s reading scores back to 1971. The plexiglass, the masking, the stay-at-home orders. None of it was about keeping us safe. “It was exactly the opposite,” as Tucker put it.

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