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.

Substack Introduces ID Checks to Comply with UK Censorship Law

By now, you’ve probably realized the internet is being slowly fitted into a digital checkpoint.

Everything is being scrubbed down, sanitized, and locked behind a digital turnstile with a flashing sign that says: Show us your ID.

Substack, that cozy digital home where newsletter authors rant, muse, and argue about everything from politics to fan fiction of 19th-century philosophers, is the latest to be roped into the bureaucratic puppet show known as the UK’s Online Safety Act.

And the British government has decided that if you’re reading a mildly spicy newsletter, you must first present identification. No, really.

To access some of the platform’s content, you may soon have to upload a selfie and a government-issued ID.

What this means for readers in the UK is simple: prepare to be interrupted. You’re sitting down to read your favorite newsletter. Maybe it’s political commentary, maybe it’s a writer who occasionally uses words like “orgasmic” while referring to cake.

Either way, you click. And boom. Content blurred, comment section blocked, and your feed now behind a velvet rope manned by an algorithm with a clipboard.

Keep reading

NYC Council is Considering a Massive Pay Bump For Mamdani Before He Even Takes Office

Socialism has always enriched the political class at the expense of the people. One might even say that it does so by design.

Normally, however, the socialists at least try to make their plunder less obvious.

According to the New York Post, Democratic Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York City will receive a gargantuan pay raise if the City Council has its way.

A new bill, introduced on Tuesday by Councilwoman Nantasha Williams of Queens, and unsurprisingly co-sponsored by 32 Council members, would increase Mamdani’s salary from $258,750 to $300,500 before the new mayor has established a single state-run grocery store or purged a single enemy of the revolution.

In fairness, Mamdani might prefer not to have the political headache.

After all, as the son of two Harvard-educated parents, he enjoys plenty of privilege already. He hardly needs the extra $40,000-plus annually.

Worse yet, the bill would give hefty sixteen-percent raises to members of the City Council. Others, too, including the city comptroller, public advocate, and borough presidents, would enjoy sixteen-percent increases from their already six-figure salaries.

City councillors have not seen a pay raise since 2016.

Of course, in the real world, people who do lousy jobs tend not to receive raises. Here in the private sector, we certainly cannot increase our own salaries by a simple vote.

Moreover, as Democratic state Assemblyman and former council member Kalman Yeger noted, the current council members tried to bring the bill to a speedy vote this month so as to spare the incoming mayor a potentially difficult veto decision. But they ran into a problem when they remembered that the law prohibits them from voting themselves a raise during a lame-duck period after an election.

“The only thing is I think they are worried that the mayor-elect won’t do it,” Yeger said. “They are afraid if they pass it in January and he’d have to veto. How does the mayor-elect justify it, saying the working man can’t afford milk? He can’t sign off to give them a $20,000 raise.”

In short, Mamdani will have to decide whether to further enrich himself and his cronies or to preserve his pro-worker facade.

Like all socialists, of course, he will eventually do the former. But, for appearances’ sake, he might choose to wait.

Meanwhile, on the social media platform X, users predicted that the mayor-elect would follow the historical pattern.

Keep reading

It Turns Out DOGE Isn’t Dead — Despite The Media Hysteria

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is still up and running, despite recent reports stating the agency had quietly been disbanded, an administration official told the Daily Caller.

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor said at a recent event that DOGE as a “centralized entity” no longer exists, Reuters reported Sunday. An administration official told the Caller that DOGE is still an operational agency that will continue to execute on its mission until May 2026.

The central office of DOGE continues to have a staff that is assisting with agency projects, the administration official added to the Caller.

Some of those projects include, “improving VA appointment management with integrated scheduling, check-ins, notification and after-visit support”; “advancing responsible AI government-wide through partnership with GSA”; “transforming the non-immigrant visa process to support Olympic and World Cup travel with a more reliable, adaptable digital platform”; and “supporting 18 million students by modernizing the FAFSA system and implementing major student loan and Pell Grant changes.”

Reuters originally reported that DOGE no longer existed and OPM absorbed most of its functions. DOGE’s X account responded to the report and called it false. Acting Administrator to DOGE Amy Gleason posted on LinkedIn further confirmation that the central office is open.

Keep reading

Homeschooling Hits Record Numbers

Whether called homeschooling or DIY education, family-directed learning has been growing in popularity for years in the U.S. alongside disappointment in the rigidity, politicization, and flat-out poor results of traditional public schools. That growth was supercharged during the COVID-19 pandemic when extended closures and bumbled remote learning drove many families to experiment with teaching their own kids. The big question was whether the end of public health controls would also curtail interest in homeschooling. We know now that it didn’t. Americans’ taste for DIY education is on the rise.

Homeschooling Grows at Triple the Pre-Pandemic Rate

“In the 2024-2025 school year, homeschooling continued to grow across the United States, increasing at an average rate of 5.4%,” Angela Watson of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Homeschool Hub wrote earlier this month. “This is nearly three times the pre-pandemic homeschooling growth rate of around 2%.” She added that more than a third of the states from which data is available report their highest homeschooling numbers ever, even exceeding the peaks reached when many public and private schools were closed during the pandemic.

After COVID-19 public health measures were suspended, there was a brief drop in homeschooling as parents and families returned to old habits. That didn’t last long. Homeschooling began surging again in the 2023-2024 school year, with that growth continuing last year. Based on numbers from 22 states (not all states have released data, and many don’t track homeschoolers), four report declines in the ranks of homeschooled children—Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Tennessee—while the others report growth from around 1 percent (Florida and Louisiana) to as high as 21.5 percent (South Carolina).

The latest figures likely underestimate growth in homeschooling since not all DIY families abide by registration requirements where they exist, and because families who use the portable funding available through increasingly popular Education Savings Accounts to pay for homeschooling costs are not counted as homeschoolers in several states, Florida included. As a result, adds Watson, “we consider these counts as the minimum number of homeschooled students in each state.”

Recent estimates put the total homeschooling population at about 6 percent of students across the United States, compared to about 3 percent pre-pandemic. Continued growth necessarily means the share of DIY-educated students is increasing. That’s quite a change for an education approach that was decidedly not mainstream just a generation ago.

“This isn’t a pandemic hangover; it’s a fundamental shift in how American families are thinking about education,” comments Watson.

Keep reading

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Says Trump to Blame For Killing of National Guardsmen, ‘Pretty Disgusting’ He Won’t Accept Responsibility 

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has said that President Trump is to blame for the assassination of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C.

The two guardsmen were murdered on Wednesday in cold blood just steps away from the White House.

Law enforcement agencies have since confirmed the suspect as 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

Lakanwal entered the United States on September 8, 2021, under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome, following his regime’s disastrous and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

During an interview with CNN on Friday, the Florida Congresswoman said that the president needed to look at the consequences of his own policies rather than

This is a deeply concerning situation, but, you know, it’s one that I think we have to.. it begs the question, would an individual have flown across the country to target law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.? And, I mean, the answer is likely no.

So why wasn‘t the president‘s first thought, ‘Wow, you know, maybe I should reconsider deploying military troops in the nation‘s capital or in any city?’

Particularly not when they haven‘t coordinated closely with the leadership of these cities and when we have law enforcement that are quite capable of handling the criminal justice issues that are — that we need law enforcement to focus on, and not our military.

I just think, you know, the president looks everywhere except inward to blame his own policies.

We need to make sure that we don‘t have our military deployed in our cities, doing — handling law enforcement responsibilities. And we need to make sure that we address gun violence.

We certainly need to make sure we always have the proper and appropriate and tight, tight vetting processes, and those should be reviewed.

But it‘s never the president‘s fault or his policies when it comes to his reaction, and it’s pretty disgusting.

Keep reading

Trump Slammed Biden’s $52 Billion CHIPS Act. Then He Used It To Buy a Federal Stake in Intel.

In March, President Donald Trump blasted the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022. He called it “a horrible, horrible thing.” Passed under President Joe Biden, the CHIPS Act was essentially a $52 billion industrial policy slush fund intended primarily to bolster domestic production of computer chips.

When the law passed in 2022, the Biden administration said it was a “smart investment” that would “strengthen American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, and invest in research and development, science and technology” while bringing thousands of “good-paying manufacturing jobs back home.”

There was never much reason to believe in the previous administration’s industrial policy boosterism. Early grants largely went either to factories that were already in development and would have been built anyway or to facilities of questionable economic value that might not be completed even with the additional taxpayer funding.

So Trump was on solid ground when he told Congress, “You should get rid of the CHIPS Act, and whatever’s left over…you should use it to reduce debt, or any other reason you want to.” Yet in the months since, Trump has made use of CHIPS funding not to reduce the debt, but to pursue his own questionable industrial policy. His version is even less accountable and may well be even worse for taxpayers.

Among the recipients of CHIPS funding was computer chipmaker Intel, which was set to receive $11 billion to help fund the construction of semiconductor fabs in several states. By late summer, the company said it had already received more than $5 billion of the funds. But Intel struggled to fulfill those commitments, falling behind on factory construction in some places and laying off workers as it suffered from ongoing financial and managerial problems. By the middle of 2025, Intel looked very much like a failing business.

In theory, the CHIPS Act provided a mechanism for the federal government to retract the grant and get all or part of its money back should Intel fail to meet its obligations. It’s not clear whether the federal government would have exercised its option to take the money back, but it was an option—until Trump stepped in.

As the company flailed, Trump met with its CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. Trump first called for him to resign. Then in August, the Trump administration announced that the federal government would just take partial ownership of Intel. Essentially, the U.S. government would purchase a roughly 10 percent stake in the chipmaker, partially nationalizing the company. And funds from CHIPS would be used to do it.

Trump bragged about the deal, saying he planned to “do more of them.” The company’s stock price rose on the news, suggesting that investors liked it. But that’s probably because it was a good deal for the company, at taxpayer expense.

According to public financial filings, the federal government would disburse the remaining funds, about $6 billion, while clearing any obligations for the company to actually complete work on new domestic semiconductor fabs.

In exchange, the federal government would gain partial ownership—as well as all the financial risks stockholders usually have when they invest in companies. Those risks will now be borne by taxpayers. As Carnegie Endowment fellow Peter Harrell pointed out in a social media post, the move came with “a lot of downside risk.”

Fundamentally, Trump gave Intel a federal bailout, removing the company’s public obligations and accountability while loading more financial risk onto the public.

Keep reading

Israeli troops caught on camera executing unarmed Palestinians in West Bank’s Jenin

Video footage from 27 November showed Israeli troops executing two unarmed Palestinian resistance fighters in the occupied West Bank, where Tel Aviv has recently escalated raids and attacks as part of a new operation against resistance factions in the territory. 

The two men who were executed were killed as they were surrendering themselves to the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday, the footage showed. In the video, the two lift up their shirts and hold their hands up to show they are unarmed.

An Israeli soldier is seen kicking one of the Palestinians in the footage. Both are then lined up and shot dead at the entrance of the storage facility, where they were initially surrounded by the Israeli army. 

After the execution, an army bulldozer is seen demolishing the facility over their bodies. 

The two were members of the Jenin Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Quds Brigades. They were killed as they surrendered following a clash with Israeli troops.

They have been identified as 37-year-old commander Yusuf Ali Asasa and 26-year-old fighter Al-Muntasir Billah Mahmoud Abdullah. 

The Quds Brigades released a statement mourning the resistance members, “who ascended to the highest ranks after a journey filled with jihad and resistance, following a field execution carried out by the Nazi enemy army … after their ammunition ran out during an armed clash with enemy forces that besieged them.”

The Israeli army admitted in its own statement that the two men were shot during a joint operation by the military and border police around Jenin city. 

It added that the shooting “is under review by the commanders on the ground and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies.”

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has been pushing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, defended the execution, saying that “terrorists must die.”

“We must put an end to investigations targeting our soldiers who open fire on terrorists,” the minister added. 

Israeli Army Radio reported that three soldiers from the undercover ‘Mista’arvim’ unit are being investigated.

“The extrajudicial killing of two unarmed Palestinians in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, who posed no threat, constitutes another link in the chain of extrajudicial killings targeting Palestinians throughout occupied Palestinian territory. This is a grave violation of international humanitarian law … amounting to war crimes that warrant international criminal prosecution,” said Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. 

Keep reading

The Covid Inquiry Has Failed to Ask the Most Basic Question: Why Were People Dying?

The explosion of mainstream media headlines following the release of the Hallett Inquiry module two report has concentrated on the conclusion that 23,000 deaths occurred as a result of governmental delays in enforcing lockdowns. While I admire the precision (not 22,000, not 24,000) the 23,000 figure is, as the inquiry states, an estimate based on modelling.

Whose modelling? If that of Neil Ferguson, who had previously been alarmist to the point of hysteria over a foot and mouth outbreak, then the model is fit for the dustbin. Garbage in, garbage out. But Baroness Hallett may not be so wrong – indeed the 23,000 may be an underestimate, but not for the reasons she has wrongly adduced.

SARS-CoV-2 was a novel virus. We now know, but not at the time, that it was accidentally released in China, but the exact mechanisms leading to that need not bother us. What mattered was that it appeared to be both very infectious and potentially fatal. However the fatality numbers are missing something (ignoring whether the figures were of deaths from Covid or deaths with Covid but from something else). Why was it fatal, leading to the acute syndrome of respiratory and other organ failure we now know as COVID-19?

I have read the lengthy report published on November 20th. It is a remarkable catalogue of governmental goings-on, but there is a glaring omission: there is nothing about medicine. There is science, epidemiology, statistics, models, but the fundamental question should have been: what is happening when people get suddenly sick, and how do we treat them if they do? If an infection does not kill people it is usually unimportant: we don’t go berserk over the common cold. If it does we need to know why and fix it. This is not an investigation for epidemiologists, scientists, statisticians, public health doctors, politicians and others who have no experience of managing acute medical emergencies. It is for clinicians – front-line doctors who see an illness, do investigations and arrange treatment.

Where were they? And why has this report completely failed to ask the question – where were the clinical experts?

Keep reading

Rosie O’Donnell Admits She Has Given Her Autistic Son TDS — Says He Slams the Table in Anger at Trump’s Name

Rosie O’Donnell’s far-left politics appear to be rubbing off on her son.

In an interview with former CNN host Jim Acosta, the exiled comedienne admitted her 12-year-old Clay, who is both autistic and transgender, would often bang his hands on the table in frustration when talking about President Trump.

“My daughter is now saying, ‘D*mn him, d*mn Trump,’” O’Donnell remarked, referring to her son as a girl. “And smashing her hand on the table.”

“And I said, ‘Wow, honey, what are you thinking?’ And she said, ‘He made us move in order for our own safety! And it’s now he’s destroying the country!’”

“She lives here, she hears what I’m saying to you. Not that I go around speaking like this every day if it is not an interview. But I think to myself, ‘You don’t want to give this to her.’”

”Whatever this thing is, of me thinking that I somehow have to stand in defiance of him,” she continued. “I don’t, somebody can tap me out. I did 22 years, I don’t really need to do anymore.”

Keep reading

An MIT Student Awed Top Economists With His AI Study—Then It All Fell Apart

Aidan Toner-Rodgers, 27, sprung to the upper tiers of economics as a graduate student late last year from virtually out of nowhere.

While still taking core classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he wrote a paper on artificial intelligence’s workplace impact so rapidly influential it was cited in Congress. He appeared in the pages of The Wall Street Journal in December as the very picture of a wunderkind, in faded jeans with tousled hair, in between two of his mentors, including Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu. Toner-Rodgers’s work offered a surprising and even hopeful revelation about our high-tech future. He concluded that AI increased worker productivity and spurred innovation. Also, people didn’t like using it very much.

Within weeks, those mentors were asking an unthinkable question: Had Toner-Rodgers made it all up?

By the spring, Toner-Rodgers was no longer enrolled at MIT. The university disavowed his paper. Questions multiplied, but one seemed more elusive than the rest: How did a baby-faced novice from small-town California dupe some of academia’s brightest minds?

“There is no world where this makes any sense,” said David Autor, one of the MIT professors who had previously championed his student’s research. MIT, Autor and Acemoglu declined to comment on​ the specifics of the investigation into the research, citing privacy constraints.

Toner-Rodgers’s illusory success seems in part thanks to the dynamics he has now upset: an academic culture at MIT where high levels of trust, integrity and rigor are all—for better or worse—assumed. He focused on AI, a field where peer-reviewed research is still in its infancy and the hunger for data is insatiable.Expand article logo  Continue reading

What has stunned his former colleagues and mentors is the sheer breadth of his apparent deception. He didn’t just tweak a few variables. It appears he invented the entire study.

Keep reading