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.

Canadian Military Celebrates Occupation of Haiti

Sunday was National Peacekeepers’ Day and the Canadian Forces had the temerity to celebrate the UN occupation of Haiti. Through UN missions Ottawa has contributed to major US imperial crimes.

On its Facebook page the military noted, “On this day, we honour the courage, dedication, and commitment of all Canadians who have served – and continue to serve – in peacekeeping operations around the globe. Since 1948, more than 125,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces, over 4,500 members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and hundreds of Canadian civilians have served in international peace support missions to more than 35 countries.”

The photo that accompanied the post was of two white soldiers looking at a young Black boy in Port-au-Prince as part of Operation Hamlet, which was the name for the Canadian Forces’ participation in the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) from 2004 to 2017.

After consolidating a US, France and Canada military coup against Haiti’s elected government the UN mission was responsible for countless abuses. The foreign soldiers had sex with minors, sodomized boys, raped young girls and left many single mothers to struggle with stigma and poverty after departing the country. Beyond sexual abuse, the UN’s disregard for Haitian life caused a major cholera outbreak, which left over 10,000 dead and a million ill.

500 Canadian troops were part of the UN mission that backed up the coup government’s (2004-2006) violent crackdown against pro-democracy protesters. For years Canada led the policing component of a UN force that also killed dozens of civilians directly in pacifying Cité Soleil, a bastion of support for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

It’s not just Haiti. Canada played a significant role in the UN peacekeeping force that contributed to one of the worst post-independence imperial crimes in Africa. In 1960 the UN launched a peacekeeping force that delivered a major blow to Congolese independence aspirations by undermining elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. As detailed in Canada, the Congo Crisis, and UN Peacekeeping, 1960-64, Canadian soldiers played a significant role in the Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC) force that enabled Lumumba’s assassination. Canadian troops dominated intelligence-gathering positions within the UN mission, and they worked to undermine Lumumba. After the PM escaped house arrest and fled Leopoldville for his power base in the Eastern Orientale province, Canadian Colonel Jean Berthiaume assisted Lumumba’s political enemies by helping recapture him. Kept in place by Ottawa, the UN Chief of Staff tracked the deposed prime minister and Berthiaume informed the head of the military, Joseph Mobutu, of Lumumba’s whereabouts. The elected prime minister was killed soon after.

Through UN missions in Haiti (2004), Congo (1960) and Korea (1950) Ottawa contributed directly to major US imperial crimes. Canada’s sizable contribution to UN missions in Egypt and Cyprus were largely designed to reduce tensions within NATO. In Egypt (1956) the US opposed the British/French invasion while in Cyprus (1964) NATO members Turkey and Greece were on opposite sides.

As far as I can tell, major Canadian peacekeeping missions have always received support from Washington. Still, many liberal/Left commentators ignore the power politics driving UN missions.

In recent days Rideau Institute president Peggy Mason and Royal Military College professor Walter Dorn have been quoted in major outlets complaining about the Liberals abandoning UN peacekeeping. In the CBC Dorn explicitly linked participating in peacekeeping to Great power competition with China, noting “we’re ceding more rights and more territory for China to take over leadership.”

Dorn is correct to (indirectly) highlight the geopolitical motivations driving UN missions.

It’s correct to say that Canada’s participation in UN missions has generally been less damaging than its involvement in US/NATO wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya. But, that’s not an argument for blanketly promoting peacekeeping.

The stark reality is that Ottawa has never deployed large number of troops abroad principally to promote international law or justice.

Keep reading

Masterclass: Watch Woke Reporter Get Exposed After Being Unable to Defend Her Word Salad Support of DEI

Warren Smith, a high school teacher and YouTuber renowned for his channel dedicated to critical thinking, recently spoke to a woke reporter who argued that “you can’t be racist against White people.”

Smith shared the encounter that left the reporter frazzled while she delivered an endless word salad before she ultimately bailed on the debate.

Reporter: I’m just gonna say this, and you can debate it. You can’t be racist against White people. You can be prejudiced against white people. Racism implies a power imbalance.

Smith: Where’d you learn that?

Reporter: That’s just how it is.

Smith: There’s no way to arrive to that. You just say, “It’s just how it is.” That is.

Reporter: I’m sorry.

Smith: So would people say, “Well, black people have to use separate water fountains because that’s just how it is. I’m sorry.”

Reporter: If that’s how you want to take it, that’s how you want to take it.

Smith: You don’t think you can advance any more on that?

Reporter: I really don’t want to.

Smith breaks from the interview to add, “I wanted to get this out quickly because this is one of the most important interactions I’ve ever caught on camera. I was at a student summit speaking to students. A reporter sat down who was covering the event.

Smith: When people are talking about DEI, they’re specifically talking about trying to achieve specific outcomes.

Reporter: Yes.

Smith: So you said, I don’t think it logically works.

Reporter: Okay.

Smith cut back in, “I tried to point out to her that DEI inevitably is racist. Logically. There’s no way around it.”

Smith: Because I think it’s the only example of systemic racism anyone’s been able to provide to me.

Reporter: It’s not systemic racism against you.

Smith: How?

Reporter: Everyone deserves a chance to speak and a chance to kind of be out there. We are only as good as representing everyone in our nation. It’s not just White men. It’s not just rich people. We need every single voice there.

Smith: So it’d be equal opportunity, right?

Reporter: Yes.

Smith: Okay, but equity is equal outcome.

Reporter: Yes.

Smith: So it’s a different word. That’s why we have a different—

Reporter: Yes, but we should be focusing on— we should be fighting for equality and equity. Okay, it’s both sides of the coin.

Smith: But if equity is— am I misunderstanding equity?

Reporter: I don’t think you are. I think equity is leveling the playing field so then everyone can reach an equal opportunity.

Smith: Okay, so let’s run through an example. Like, how do we level the playing field? Um, I’m a firefighter, volunteer firefighter, so let’s use as an example. If there’s not enough of a specific skin color in the fire department, how do we fix that without being racist?

Reporter: It’s also just reaching out to demographics who don’t—

Smith: That’s advertising.

Reporter:  It’s advertising, yes, it’s making sure those people that feel comfortable joining a group like firefighters.

Smith: So we’ll put— we have, because mentally we have this column of advertising, we’re trying to put that aside and understand equity though, because you’re advocating for DEI, right?

Reporter: Yes.

Smith: Okay, so, so can you get into the DEI portion of it beyond advertising?

Reporter: Just that like everyone is equal of a— I don’t really understand what you’re asking.

The debate went back and forth with the reporter clearly not actually understanding the DEI concepts she advocates for.

Later in the interview, Smith pushed her on the specifics of DEI.

Smith: So, do you think DEI, now we look at it through this lens, do you think pushing for equal outcomes might be a flawed process?

Reporter: I still don’t think so.

Smith cut in, “Equity means equality of outcome. No one can explain to me how you’re going to achieve that without being, by definition, racist. The only response she can offer is to change the very definition of racism.”

Keep reading

The Long Road to War

If you’re wondering why the United States and Iran have been bitter antagonists for more than a half century, and why they are now at war, you won’t find the answer in today’s media coverage where the conflict is portrayed as a dispute over terrorism and nuclear weapons. To truly understand what underlies this ongoing conflict you need to look back much further to a history that has been forgotten, or ignored.

Known for most of its history as Persia, Iran is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world, with human habitation dating back more than seven millennia.  Despite this foundational history, by the early twentieth century Persia had become a semi-colonial state dominated by British and Russian influence. A rising nationalist movement arose determined to restore the country’s political and economic independence.

The 1953 Coup

A crucial turning point came in 1953. Iranian oil resources had been controlled by the British, who kept most of the vast profits and left little to the Iranians. Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, a popular reformist who resisted foreign domination, took the bold step of nationalizing his country’s oil industry in 1951. In response, the CIA working with British intelligence organized a successful coup that overthrew his government. Although most citizens of the US and UK have little if any knowledge of this event, the 1953 coup and its consequences remain deeply embedded in Iran’s national memory, even today.

The Shah’s Iron Rule

In Mossadegh’s place, they installed a brutal dictatorial regime headed by the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s monarch who ruled the country ruthlessly for the next 26 years. To protect his new-found power, the Shah condemned Mossadegh to three years of solitary confinement, then kept him under house arrest until his death in 1967. In the years following the coup, the Shah and his CIA-trained secret police, Savak, became notorious for their vicious murder, imprisonment and torture of political dissidents. Much of Iranians’ growing hatred of the Shah was focused on the United States, since the Shah was viewed as a puppet of the Americans who put him in power. 

CIA Audacity

The overthrow was considered a resounding success by the CIA, which then became emboldened to undertake a series of regime change operations in other parts of the world. This newfound bravado also influenced America’s decision to undertake its disastrous involvement in the Vietnam War starting in 1954.

A partial list of the countries destabilized and overthrown by the United States following the 1953 coup includes Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), and later Panama (1989), Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). Regime change is now considered an accepted instrument and goal of US foreign policy. Destabilizing and supporting the overthrow of unfriendly governments has become a central function of the CIA and the State Department. 

The Islamic Revolution

Resistance to the Shah and his totalitarian rule grew over the years, and finally culminated with the Islamic Revolution in January 1979. The Shah was driven into exile, eventually settling in Egypt. His government was replaced by a theocracy headed by the previously exiled religious figure Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who became Iran’s Supreme Leader. Although Khomeini was revered among religious conservatives, he was a ruthless tyrant who executed thousands of political prisoners, often hanging his victims in public from construction cranes for everyone to see. Nonetheless, his anti-Americanism resonated with many Iranians as he stirred up further hatred and a desire for vengeance, calling America the “Great Satan.”

The Embassy Takeover

When the Shah was admitted to the United States for cancer treatment in October 1979, Iranians demanded that he be returned to Iran to face prosecution for his crimes. In a dramatic confrontation in Tehran, an angry crowd besieged the US embassy. A group of militants stormed the embassy and took the American diplomats hostage, outraging American leaders. The Iranians insisted on the Shah’s return as a condition for release of the hostages. President Jimmy Carter refused and the hostages remained captive in Iran for more than a year. Carter would spend the rest of his presidency struggling to find a way to free them. His reelection depended on it.

Keep reading

MASSIVE VICTORY AGAINST THE CLIMATE CULT! Fifth Circuit SHUTS DOWN Illegal Biden-Era Energy Efficiency Standards for Stoves and Cooktops – Slams DOE for Trying to Bypass the Law!

ANOTHER MAJOR BLOW TO THE RADICAL GREEN AGENDA!

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday delivered another stinging rebuke to the Biden-era Department of Energy’s war on American appliances, setting aside energy efficiency standards for stoves and cooktops.

The court ruled on Tuesday that the Department of Energy (DOE) acted completely illegally when it refused to withdraw a controversial “Direct Final Rule” after multiple red states raised damning objections.

The radical green zealots in Washington have been waging a non-stop war on everyday household appliances. From dishwashers to ceiling fans, bureaucrats inside the Biden regime spent years pushing stringent rules designed to make basic home appliances more expensive, less efficient, and far less reliable.

When CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. let the cat out of the bag in 2023 by suggesting a total federal ban on gas stoves, the public pushback was immediate and fierce.

Unable to pass their radical climate tyranny through normal transparent channels, DOE bureaucrats tried an illegal end-run around the American public.

Rather than facing the public in standard notice-and-comment rulemaking, the DOE tried to quietly lock in new efficiency standards using a backdoor mechanism known as a “Direct Final Rule” (DFR).

Keep reading

Report: Democrats Spent $20M on Healthcare Program for Just 173 Migrants

Democrats in Washington state rushed through the approval for a new $20 million program for healthcare for migrants, but a look at the program’s expenditures finds that the fund only covered 173 migrants instead of the initial 300 of 1,200 the program was eventually meant to help.

Democrats and their NGO migrant advocates pushed the healthcare bill to cover 1,200 noncitizen residents in the Evergreen State. And the Democrat-controlled legislature was quick to vote to fund the program.

But according to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 775, which pushed hard to get the program approved, the money is only enough to cover 173 noncitizens, a fact that the union’s secretary-treasurer, Adam Glickman, called “disappointing and frustrating,” the Washington State Standard reported.

Lawmakers are now saying that to actually cover the entire 1,200 group of noncitizens, the program will have to be refunded to the tune of tens of millions more dollars.

The initial $20 million investment was meant to cover 300 noncitizens in the 2026-27 fiscal year. But the money quickly ran out before even reaching 200. To fund the entire initial 300 migrant target, at least $100 million or more will be required. And to fund the full 1,200 migrants it will cost $100 million every year, Democrat Rep. Nicole Macri said.

Washington Democrats launched the program due to the cuts in Medicaid instituted by the Trump administration, which ended coverage for noncitizens. State Democrats say that 14,000 noncitizens will be cut off from Medicaid by October.

The failure of the state program to fund healthcare for the migrants losing federal funding has sent activists back to the drawing board and is spurring them to push state Democrats for millions more in state tax dollars to fund medical care for migrants.

SEIU 775 leaders are ramping up the pressure on state Democrats to throw tens of millions more at the program, their excuse being that unionized home healthcare workers could lose jobs after federal funding is cut.

But union official Glickman thinks it may be an uphill battle thanks to wild budget overreach and deficits already plaguing the state. “Getting the entire thing seems pretty challenging, given this budget situation. We are pushing for them to do as much as they can,” he said.

Keep reading

RFK Jr Humiliates CNN’s Dana Bash

When a massive treasure trove of Anthony Fauci’s diary entries and emails were released recently, thanks to Sen. Rand Paul, it caused a tremendous amount of embarrassment for the 85-year-old former public health official.

Fauci came across as a remarkable narcissist, someone obsessed with his own instant and surprising fame. He chronicled each and every media appearance, celebrating each instance a legacy outlet published yet another glowing, reverential profile. He spoke excitedly about his friendships with celebrities like Joan Baez and Barbra Streisand, even stating that he and Baez were made for each other.

More importantly he also said completely different things privately than he was stating publicly:

He acknowledged in his diary that the lab leak was not only possible, but likely.

He admitted that he wanted masks mandated because people were wearing them anyway and the CDC had pushed it.

He knew closures weren’t working, saying that cases were rising and falling irrespective of policy.

He even fretted about potentially contracting Covid-19 at an event that required proof of vaccination.

He then went on to demand more vaccine mandates and passports afterward anyway.

Fauci ultimately appeared to be pretty appalling, to put it mildly.

The only entity that came out looking worse? That same legacy media.

CNN Ignores Its Own Failures, Demands More Ineffective Mandates

CNN’s Jake Tapper is mentioned several times, including having shared multiple dinners with the doctor.

One was in October 2020, just before Fauci demanded that Americans shut down Thanksgiving.

I reached out to Tapper’s PR rep to see if that “friendship” impacted his coverage, and despite his public demonstrations of concern over “transparency,” they declined to comment.

Another person mentioned? CNN’s Dana Bash.

Bash, according to Fauci, had texted him to say that he was “a better man” than Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) after their heated exchange, adding that CNN compatriot Wolf Blitzer believed nobody would have blamed Fauci if he’d said “go f— yourself” in response to Jordan’s questions.

Bash has essentially ignored this, because as a highly concerned source of journalistic integrity or something, it’s important that she maintains never actually taking accountability for anything.

She also had current Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on her show Sunday. She then took that opportunity to misrepresent how poorly she, CNN, and legacy media performed their jobs during the pandemic.

When asking Kennedy if President Trump deserves the blame for the policies that Fauci recommended, Kennedy brought up that Trump almost immediately wanted lockdowns to end.

“President Trump, as you recall, wanted to end lockdowns,” Kennedy said. “I think the thing that did the most damage to our country was the lockdowns, the lockdown that shut down 3.5 million businesses in our country with no due process, no just compensation. All of our churches closed, our schools, and our children are still paying the price for that. And yet we had the worst outcome of any country in the world. We have the highest death rate from Covid of any nation on earth.”

Keep reading

France bans unsolicited telemarketing calls, threatening large fines for those who don’t comply

France has implemented a law banning unsolicited telemarketing calls, shifting the country from an “opt-out” registry system to an obligatory prior consent (“opt-in”) framework.

The law reportedly took effect Tuesday after it was adopted by the National Assembly and the Senate — France’s two chambers of Parliament — on June 30, 2025, and formally promulgated by French President Emmanuel Macron.

France has replaced its former opt-out system, a national registry called “Bloctel,” which operated similarly to the U.S. National “Do Not Call” Registry, with a prior consent “opt-in” framework. The change was made after years of consumer complaints regarding non-compliant call centers that routinely ignored the opt-out list.

Under the new law, companies are prohibited from making unsolicited marketing calls to consumers who have not explicitly given prior consent to be contacted.

However, this restriction does not apply across the board: companies remain permitted to call existing customers with whom they have an active contractual relationship, provided the call relates directly to their existing contract or related services and the customer has not previously requested to opt out.

“Peace and quiet is a right,” stated Marie-Amandine Stévenin. President of leading consumer advocacy group, Que Choisir Ensemble. “This observation holds true both online and on the street, where we are inundated with calls to consume.”

Frédéric Billon, head of the trade association Fédération de la Vente Directe, claims that the law will strain local businesses accustomed to casually calling their customers. He added that this could put French companies at a disadvantage against foreign competitors operating outside the law’s reach.

Keep reading

DISGUSTING! Hillary Clinton Melts Down Over Trump Beautifying America — Vows to Tear Down His Arch and “Make a List” of Monuments to Destroy, Then Compares Oval Office to Saddam Hussein’s Palaces

Failed 2016 candidate and perennial sore loser Hillary Clinton is at it again. This time, Hillary Clinton is openly fantasizing about ripping down the very monuments and improvements President Donald Trump has brought to Washington, D.C., to restore beauty, pride, and American greatness.

During an appearance on Kara Swisher’s Pivot podcast, Clinton declared that Democrats will have to undo Trump’s work the moment they get the chance.

“We will have to take down the Arch. We will have to worry about the Reflecting Pool. I’m making a list,” she said, referring to the President’s ambitious Independence Arch project near Arlington and the ongoing efforts to restore the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

After Swisher remarked that the gold ornamentation felt like Saddam Hussein, Clinton eagerly embraced the comparison.

Recalling meetings she attended in Baghdad as a senator following Hussein’s fall, Clinton said his palaces were “quite reminiscent of what we are seeing in our own White House. It’s just insane.”

Clinton went on to criticize the gold trim and interior detailing added to the White House, calling the aesthetic “tacky” and labeling the President “narcissistic.”

She also complained about plans for a new White House ballroom, questioning what future administrations would do with the space.

Keep reading

The War on Drugs Has Come to the Maternity Ward

At first glance, a new mother taking part in a drug screening seems reasonable. For the sake of the mother and child, a doctor performs a clinical test to rule out any complications or signs of risks to the newborn.

But the story quickly takes a dark turn. If there’s a positive test result, it doesn’t stay between the doctor and the patient. In 24 states and Washington, D.C., a positive test alone is enough to initiate a child welfare report, according to a report by the Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association. Depending on the state, that test could land the mother on a child abuse registry. Worse still, the mother may be notified the test has occurred only after the fact.

This seems to run afoul of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ferguson v. City of Charleston (2001), where the Court found it unconstitutional to drug test pregnant women without consent solely for “law enforcement purposes.” 

However, Enrima Ukoha, an obstetrician-gynecologist and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, tells Reason this practice—known as “test and report”—is “common” and “often happens in non-consensual ways.” In fact, over six years, The Marshall Project found “at least 70,000 cases in 21 states” where parents were referred to law enforcement after a positive test for drug or alcohol use.

Ukoha says a lot of medical professionals are influenced by “stereotypes and stigma” associated with people who use substances in pregnancy, leading them to make “false assumptions about their ability to parent.”

The practice developed as part of the response to the opioid crisis roiling the nation. Each year, nearly 10 percent of births in the U.S. are affected by drug or alcohol use. 

To deal with the issue, Congress amended the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 in ways that made it easier for these nonconsensual tests to occur. The 1974 law ties federal grant funding to state-level development of “plans of safe care” for infants “born and identified as being affected by substance abuse or withdrawal symptoms.” It also requires healthcare providers involved in the “delivery or care” of affected infants to “notify the child protective services system”; however, it also states that nothing in the law should be read as requiring “prosecution for any illegal action.”

In 2016, Congress passed an amendment changing the requirement to include infants affected by all substance abuse by striking the word illegal from its substance abuse clause. In 2018, lawmakers passed another amendment that put money behind the idea, authorizing grants to assist state agencies with “developing, updating, implementing, and monitoring” their plans of safe care. And in 2019, the law was again amended to provide “civil and criminal liability” to anyone who makes a “good-faith report of child abuse or neglect.”

There is no federal definition for child abuse or neglect. Left to their own devices, each state has adopted different standards for reporting and treatment. Ukoha says the process “varies across providers, institutions, and states,” but the result is that “individuals are tested in pregnancy without their knowledge or consent.” 

Apart from potentially being separated from their newborns, mothers risk placement on child abuse registries—which would prevent them from holding certain jobs or participating in school activities—or incarceration. In the case of Idaho mom Nicole Hamann, one positive test for THC got her 10 years on the state’s child protection registry, according to a joint report by CBS News and The Marshall Project. 

But moms can find themselves facing criminal charges even when the substances are legal. In South Carolina, Ayanna Harris-Rashid was arrested and faced a 10-year felony sentence after testing positive for THC. Harris-Rashid admitted to using CBD, which is legal in the state and can contain trace amounts of THC, to “relieve cramping and nausea.” Her charges were dropped a year after her arrest. 

Keep reading

Texas Locked a Foreign Company’s Domain Over Missing Digital ID Checks

In Travis County, Texas, a judge has frozen motherless.com, the .com domain of a foreign pornography operator, taking it down worldwide until it posts a $9.14 million bond and builds an age verification digital ID system to the state’s own specification.

Kick Online Entertainment is a foreign corporation, and the order admits so, which is the reason the writ went somewhere else. A state court cannot summon a company overseas, but it can order the American firm that keeps the registry of every .com name, and that registry is what makes a domain resolve at all.

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

The case turns on HB 1181, Texas’s age-verification law for adult sites. That firm is Verisign, a nonparty to it, and Judge Maya Guerra Gamble signed the writ of attachment on June 4, 2026, filed four days later in State of Texas v Kick Online Entertainment.

The order directs Verisign to place motherless.com on “a registry lock, hold, or similar status until replevied by Defendant,” the legal term for the operator posting a bond to get its domain back.

The domain is frozen rather than taken, though the difference means little here. What Verisign actually applied on was serverHold plus server-level prohibitions on deleting, transferring and updating the name. A hold pulls motherless.com out of the .com zone file, so it resolves for nobody.

Kick must post a bond of $9,140,000, and that bond is “conditioned on Defendant’s implementation of age verification that conforms with Texas Civil Practice and Remedies code chapter 129B,” together with an affirmation that it will satisfy the civil penalties entered against it on September 30, 2024. A company outside the state’s reach is being made to both pay and obey a Texas statute before its property comes back. This is specific performance of a state law, pulled from a foreign operator by holding an asset hostage at the registry.

Among the court’s stated reasons the writ is “appropriate and justified” is the finding that “Defendant is not a resident of this state and is a foreign corporation,” which turns the state’s inability to reach a company into a ground for taking its property.

The order then pre-authorizes more of the same, closing with the line that “as many writs as the State deems necessary shall issue,” so the count of future seizures is set by the attorney general and not by a judge weighing each one. And Texas was excused from the security these writs normally demand, because the order says “the State of Texas is not required to post a bond prior to the issuance of the Writ of Attachment.”

The party taking the asset posts nothing. The party losing it posts $9.14 million.

Keep reading