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.

US Students Still Behind Much Of The World In Math And Reading: Global Assessment

Results from a recent global assessment indicate that reading scores for American high school students have dropped over the past three years, while math and science performance still falls behind their peers in several other developed countries.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests 15-year-olds in math, science, and reading proficiency as metrics for college and career readiness, conducted its last tests in 2025.

The initial findings, released on Sept. 8, indicate that children from Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom continue to outperform American public-school children in those three subjects.

Keep reading

Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists

Job postings and interviews with senior security officials at Anthropic show that the frontier AI lab is building out an extensive monitoring system to keep tabs on activists who oppose the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

In addition to monitoring activists in the vicinity of Anthropic executives and keeping tabs on protests near physical Anthropic assets, the firm is also implementing a “pre-crime” approach, attempting to predict incidents before they happen. In some cases, that also means reporting suspects to police before a crime occurs. Anthropic did not respond to the Prospect’s request for comment.

Anthropic’s plans to surveil dissent are at odds with the firm’s efforts to cast itself as the responsible alternative to OpenAI. At the beginning of the year, the Department of Defense and Anthropic engaged in a high-profile dustup over Anthropic’s refusal to allow the military to use its tools for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. That tension seems to have eased as Anthropic hires for “national security sales” positions, seeking to restart military contracts. The increase in threat monitoring of domestic opponents fits with a renewed focus on national security.

Keep reading

DNA analyst linked to JonBenet Ramsey case sentenced to 10 years in prison for mishandling evidence

A former DNA analyst with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation — who was employed there at the time of JonBenét Ramsey‘s 1996 murder — was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday, September 8 after pleading guilty to four charges related to mishandling or manipulating investigations.

As In Touch previously reported, an internal investigation by the CBI found that Yvonne “Missy” Woods, 66, had omitted facts, tampered with DNA results and violated lab policies in more than 1,000 cases. She agreed to plead guilty to cybercrime, perjury, attempt to influence a public servant and forgery in a deal in which 100 other charges were dropped.

“At its core, this case is about trust — the extraordinary trust placed in Ms. Woods, and her breach of that trust,” District Judge Andrew Poland said as he imposed the sentence in Jefferson County Court in Golden, Colorado, per The Denver Post.

“I know an apology cannot undo the harm or restore the trust that was lost,” Woods said during the hearing, the outlet reported. “For many years I was entrusted with evidence that could have profound consequences for defendants, victims, families and the courts. I failed that responsibility. I am deeply sorry for that failure.”

It’s unclear what involvement Woods may have had in DNA analysis following the murder of JonBénet, who was found bludgeoned and strangled in the basement of her family’s upscale Boulder home on December 26, 1996.

However, the attorney for Michael Clark — whose conviction for a 1994 murder in Boulder was overturned in 2025 because DNA testing was botched by Woods — attempted to connect the two cases ahead of his retrial. Defense lawyer Adam Frank tried to subpoena the records from the first 48 hours after the 6-year-old’s death, alleging investigators were “woefully incompetent” and “committed colossal mistakes,” according to court documents obtained by In Touch.

A judge rejected his request, according to Colorado Politics, but Woods’ plea sparked renewed interest in one of the country’s most enduring unsolved mysteries.

Keep reading

Repeat After Media: Data Centers Are Wonderful and Good

If you follow conservative media and Republican politicians, you could be convinced that any opposition to AI data centers is not due to their sprawling footprint, greed for electricity or insatiable need for cooling water. Rather, it’s the result of a Chinese Communist plot.

These data centers are dreadfully unpopular. “Seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed,” according to Gallup (5/13/26). From YouGov (9/1/26): “About half (51%) of Americans say that the construction of new data centers is a bad thing for the country. Only 20% say it is a good thing.”

The reasons for this opposition is that these centers put enormous strain on the electrical grid, need loads of water for cooling, can be extremely noisy and take up lots of space in communities. “The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world’s largest countries,” AP (6/3/26) reported.

Much like how some liberals have convinced themselves that MAGA and American nationalism are fueled by Kremlin disinformation, the right-wing line is that communities opposing these giant data centers are motivated not by their own interests or common sense, but some unseen Beijing-manufactured psychosis.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) demanded that the Justice Department “investigate foreign influence efforts targeting the buildout of American AI infrastructure,” as he suspected that a “network of foreign actors, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is attempting to manipulate US policy and public opinion on data centers.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in the words of Newsmax (9/2/26), believes “China is helping fuel opposition to artificial intelligence data centers in the United States.” “Beijing has a strategic interest in convincing Americans to slow construction of the infrastructure needed to compete in the global AI race,” the far-right outlet paraphrased.

The Washington Examiner‘s Facebook page (8/30/26) featured a cartoon from A.F. Branco depicting a Chinese data center running a psy-op on Americans who oppose data centers.

The National Interest (9/1/26) said:

Chinese entities have a long history of collaborating with far-left causes, and they have again found common ground in opposing the construction of data centers. They are pushing mutually reinforcing messages that criticize a host of alleged environmental and ethical concerns as reasons to disempower American growth in a critical economic and competitive sector. Officials at the federal, state and local levels should recognize this noxious alliance as they field criticism of data centers.

Keep reading

Former DOJ Official Ed Martin Launches Gun Rights Group

Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin is launching a new gun rights group aimed at restoring firearm access to Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes, an initiative that seeks to boost conservative turnout in this fall’s midterm elections.

Martin, who left the Justice Department last week, said the group, Firearm Rights for Americans, was an idea encouraged by President Donald Trump during their final Oval Office meeting.

Trump told Martin he wanted to make sure his administration received “credit” for expanding gun access, Martin added.

“When you turn out Second Amendment voters, they vote right,” Martin said, referring to the Republican Party. “You gotta go sell that message.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Martin said the group planned to produce and distribute written and video testimonials from individuals seeking to regain gun ownership.

The strategy aims to mobilize single-issue Second Amendment voters in competitive congressional swing districts who may feel the administration has not acted quickly enough on gun rights.

He hopes the effort could help Republicans preserve their House majority this year and build momentum toward the 2028 presidential election.

In August, Attorney General Todd Blanche and Martin announced the finalizing of a federal regulation allowing individuals disqualified from gun ownership to petition for the restoration of their rights.

The collaboration between the two senior officials followed more than 30 other proposed rule changes to ease gun access, many backed by gun rights groups.

Through Firearm Rights for Americans, Martin said he hopes to ensure potential applicants and Second Amendment supporters know about the change, and as a result sway disaffected voters to go to the polls.

The group will also produce guides for eligible individuals to navigate state and federal regulations.

Keep reading

Declassified FBI notes expose discrepancies between Flynn interview, official FBI records

Two FBI agents’ long-secret handwritten notes of their 2017 interview with Mike Flynn have been declassified and highlight fresh discrepancies with the bureau’s official documents that were used to criminally prosecute President Donald Trump’s first national security advisor and pressure him to reach a plea deal nearly a decade ago.

The notes from former Special Agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka were released Wednesday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force at a time when federal prosecutors are ramping up a grand jury investigation into whether the FBI’s probe of Russia collusion amounted to a criminal conspiracy to falsely impugn Trump and his supporters during the 2016 election and its aftermath.  

The contemporaneous notes show differences between what the agents wrote down when they interviewed Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017, and what was recorded in the official typed summary of the interview, known as an FD-302, that was entered into the FBI system more than 20 days later and later used to underpin his prosecution.

Flynn was charged in federal court in Washington, D.C., in November 2017 with one count of false statements to the FBI agents investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

According to prosecutors, Flynn “falsely stated and represented” to agents that he “did not ask the [Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak] to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions the United States had imposed against Russia” for alleged 2016 election interference.

On December 20, 2016, the same day that Flynn had at least one call with Kislyak, the Obama administration expelled 35 Russian diplomats and authorized the government to respond to Russian cyber operations. 

But Pientka’s handwritten notes contain a tantalizing notation apparently attributed to Flynn in the interview about his conversation with Kislyak: “Hey, don’t do anything.”

Likewise, the FBI summary report stated that Flynn recalled making four or five calls the day he talked with the Russian diplomat from a Christmas vacation spot in the Dominican Republic. But Strzok’s notes quoted Flynn as saying: “If so, don’t remember. If so, busy place to make phone calls.”

Though Flynn initially pleaded guilty to the charges, he later filed to withdraw his plea under new representation. His new lawyer, Sidney Powell, argued that the FD-302, which formed the basis for the charges against her client, had been altered by Strzok, one of the agents who interviewed Flynn, and Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who did not attend the interview. 

Keep reading

St. Louis Sheriff’s Office reaches settlement over firing of white, older employees

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Tuesday that it had entered an agreement with the St. Louis Sheriff’s Office to resolve 13 charges of race- and age-related discrimination.

EEOC investigated the Sheriff’s Office and found that former Sheriff Alfred Montgomery used his position to terminate nearly a dozen white employees and two black employees for reasons other than their job performance. Before he was sworn in, Montgomery publicly announced that he “could not wait to get rid of these white officers” and “top-heavy” employees, a reference to older workers, the EEOC found.

Montgomery also allegedly referred to the white employees he terminated as a “racist gang.” After firing the white officers, Montgomery allegedly told his former deputy that “he needed to fire a black guy” to buck a lawsuit for discrimination against white employees.

“The EEOC is firmly committed to enforcing our nation’s civil rights laws evenhandedly, without favor or prejudice, to ensure all workers are protected,” EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said in a press release. “Race discrimination is unlawful no matter who the target is, and employers must ensure their decisions are not based on bias or stereotype.”

The sheriff’s office denied the allegations but agreed to enter the pre-litigation conciliation process, resulting in a settlement that requires the sheriff’s office to “electronically post and distribute all newly created and/or revised employment policies in compliance with Title VII and the ADEA; provide training to its employees about their rights under Title VII and the ADEA; train human resources personnel and management who exercise decision-making authority; post a notice to employees about the resolution of the case and their rights under the laws enforced by EEOC; and report to the EEOC about its compliance with the terms of the 13 conciliation agreements” for the next five years.

The agreement is part of a Trump administration crackdown on racism against white people. In July, the EEOC filed a discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a white male employee at the New York Times who was allegedly targeted because of his race and sex. The media outlet has publicly stated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, and in 2021, the outlet stated that it had enacted goals to increase non-white and female representation in leadership positions. 

As Just the News reported at the time, a white senior staff editor who had been working at the Times for more than a decade applied for a position as deputy real estate editor. The white employee had extensive experience in real estate journalism, but was left out of its final panel interviews for the position in early 2025. All candidates who were interviewed as part of the final process were non-white. Ultimately, the Times hired a non-white woman with little to no experience in real estate journalism even though the experience was a requirement for the position. The woman didn’t go through the standard interview process for the position and was rated less favorably for the position than the other two final candidates by the final interview panel.

“No one is above the law — including ‘elite’ institutions. There is no such thing as ‘reverse discrimination’; all race or sex discrimination is equally unlawful, according to long-established civil rights principles. The EEOC is prepared to root out discrimination anywhere it may rear its head. No matter the size or power of the employer, the EEOC under my leadership will not pull punches in ensuring evenhanded, colorblind enforcement of Title VII to protect America’s workers, including white males,” EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement. “Federal law is clear: making hiring or promotion decisions motivated in whole or in part by race or sex violates federal law. There is no diversity exception to this rule.”

A spokesperson for the Times told Politico in July that “the EEOC deviated from standard practices in highly unusual ways. The allegation centers on a single personnel decision for one of over 100 deputy positions across the newsroom, yet the EEOC’s filing makes sweeping claims that ignore the facts to fit a predetermined narrative.”

Keep reading

Top researcher quits: ‘Men building AI think it could kill humanity – and they’re racing to build it anyway’…

Every once in a while, somebody standing inside the machine decides they’ve seen enough and drops a nuke.

AI researcher Jacob Coxon just did exactly that.

Coxon spent the last three years doing pre-training research at two of the biggest AI companies on earth, OpenAI and Anthropic. Then, on Tuesday, out of nowhere, he resigned from Anthropic and publicly accused both companies of racing toward self-improving “superintelligence” while gambling with humanity’s future.

That sounds dramatic, right?

Then you read what he actually wrote… and it’s kinda spooky.

Every once in a while, somebody standing inside the machine decides they’ve seen enough and drops a nuke.

AI researcher Jacob Coxon just did exactly that.

Coxon spent the last three years doing pre-training research at two of the biggest AI companies on earth, OpenAI and Anthropic. Then, on Tuesday, out of nowhere, he resigned from Anthropic and publicly accused both companies of racing toward self-improving “superintelligence” while gambling with humanity’s future.

That sounds dramatic, right?

Then you read what he actually wrote… and it’s kinda spooky.

READ MORE: Amazon plane crash mystery takes a dark turn for Miami Airport…

Coxon says the people building these systems privately fear AI could kill us all by the end of the decade, yet the race continues because nobody wants to be the lab that slows down while somebody else gets there first.

Many people are taking this seriously, because this isn’t some anti-AI blogger with a grudge. This is a legit researcher who worked inside both companies.

And his resignation is already blowing up online.

The most important part is that he’s not saying outsiders are misunderstanding the danger.

He says the people inside these companies understand it perfectly.

Business Insider:

Jacob Coxon announced his resignation from Anthropic on Tuesday, saying he had spent the past three years doing pre-training research at the two AI giants.

“Neither company is acting responsibly,” Coxon wrote on X. “They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”

Coxon was a member of OpenAI’s technical staff from 2023 until July 2026, when he moved to Anthropic as a researcher. His research at OpenAI included work on GPT-4o.

In Tuesday’s post, Coxon said the two labs have not been transparent about their fears regarding AI.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt,” he wrote. “If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately.”

Coxon is saying there’s a gap between the calm public language coming from AI companies and what some of the people building these systems say privately.

Then he went much further on an X post.

Coxon said the race toward “superintelligence” is a reckless endgame being pushed forward by companies that know exactly how dangerous this could be.

His post is long, but it’s worth reading in full because the argument builds.

Keep reading

Nancy Pelosi Disclosed a Multi-Million Dollar AI Investment Just Weeks Before the Stock Blew Up

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi disclosed a multimillion-dollar investment last month in an artificial intelligence company whose stocks exploded in value soon after.

Pelosi’s husband Paul invested in Bloom Energy, a California-based company that provides fuel-cell technology and power systems aimed at meeting the enormous electricity demands of AI data centers.

According to a financial transaction report Pelosi signed Aug. 21, her household made several Bloom Energy purchases in late July.

The transactions included 10,000 shares purchased July 24, along with 100 call options, according to reporting from the New York Post. Another 5,000 shares and 100 additional call options were purchased July 28.

The disclosed value ranges put the combined transactions at a minimum of roughly $3 million, although the actual amount could have been as much as $12 million, because congressional financial disclosure forms use broad dollar ranges.

The July 24 purchases came after Bloom Energy’s stock had suffered a significant decline.

Then came July 28.

That was the same day Bloom Energy reported extremely strong earnings, with annual revenue growth of 165 percent, according to the Post.

Bloom Energy’s stock subsequently took off.

Then, on Sept. 4, another major development arrived: Bloom Energy was announced as a new addition to the S&P 500.

The company is scheduled to join the benchmark index Sept. 21, alongside Everpure and Illumina.

Bloom Energy shares surged following the announcement, with the stock gaining nearly 40 percent over a five-day period, according to the Post.

By Tuesday, Bloom Energy shares were trading around $282.50, compared with $184.89 on July 24, the day of the first Pelosi household purchase.

That’s a striking move in a matter of weeks.

And it makes the timing of the disclosure noteworthy.

Pelosi’s office has said the former speaker does not own stocks and had no knowledge of or subsequent involvement in the transactions.

The trades were made by her husband and reported through the congressional disclosure system as transactions involving a spouse.

In an article about the transactions, financial writer Rich Duprey of 24/7 Wall Street  dubbed Pelosi “the queen of capital gains.”

“Pelosi’s trading record in Congress has consistently outpaced the S&P 500 and even Warren Buffett over comparable stretches, fueling suspicion that lawmakers with committee-level oversight enjoy an informational edge,” Duprey observed.

The New York Post said Pelosi “has faced heated blowback for her family’s trading activity — racking up a 65% return on her portfolio in 2023 while her venture capitalist husband made $38 million worth of stock trades in the weeks leading up to President Trump’s inauguration.”

Duprey noted that multiple bills to ban stock trading by members of Congress have been introduced, but they’ve all stalled.

The Democratic former House Speaker’s trades have been so notable that in 2023, GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced one such bill that he dubbed the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act – or the PELOSI Act.

Hawley later met with Democrats and agreed to change the name of the bill to the HONEST Act — Halting Ownership and Non-Ethical Stock Transactions — which allowed enough Democratic support to advance the bill out of committee in July 2025.

Keep reading