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.

New browser extension replaces Wikipedia pages in search results with Encyclosphere pages

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has announced the launch of a browser plugin that adds Encyclosphere results, while offering the possibility to remove those from Wikipedia – when performing a search using Google or DuckDuckGo.

Other search engines will be added soon, according to the plugin’s page on Chrome Web Store (also works with Brave). The description also notes that Wikipedia results are removed when there are relevant ones from the Encyclosphere.

Another feature, which Sanger admits in one of the tweets announcing the launch of the extension is likely to be “properly appreciated” only by “techies” is the inclusion of a built-in peer-to-peer encyclopedia reader, which opens articles from WebTorrent, in this way rendering the browser into a network node.

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Coca-Cola accused of paying NAACP to call soda taxes ‘racist’

TrueMedicine Care co-founder Calley Means published a thread to Twitter on Monday, where he broke down the grip that soda companies have over food regulation. Means claimed that his Twitter Blue access and his account is now under review, suggesting that this was due to Coca-Cola being a major advertiser for Twitter.

“Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp funding,” Means claimed.

“I say Coke’s policies are evil because I saw inside the room. The first step in playbook was paying the NAACP + other civil rights groups to call opponents racist. Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation – both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association This picked up in 2011-2013 – when the Farm Bill and soda taxes were under consideration.”

Means included a screenshot from a Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) report as written about in Nutrition Insight in March of 2013.


Both the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation “received grants from Coca-Cola, with the national NAACP receiving at least $2.1 million from the soda giant since 1986, including $100,000 as recently as December. The Hispanic Federation also lists Coke as a donor, and in February 2012 its president, Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, left the nonprofit group to become director of Latin affairs at the company,” Nutrition Insight wrote.

CSPI’s report noted that Coca-Cola gave the American Academy of Family Physicians a $600,000 grant in 2009 for a new website, and gave a $1 million grant in 2003 to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, which was “seemingly enough to get the president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry to suddenly hedge the group’s position on the extent to which soda causes cavities,” Nutrition Insight reported.

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A Secret War in the Making: Americans Should Not Die to Defend Taiwan

The United States might be a democracy in form, but most policies are developed without even a semblance of public participation. For instance, policymakers overwhelmingly believe that the US should go to war with the People’s Republic of China if it attacks Taiwan. President Biden has five times declared that he would back Taiwan militarily. Yet Congress has not voted.

Those predicting conflict believe the hour is late, but some imagine that a tough stance would preclude war. America’s president merely needs to wave his pinky finger, or state his demands, and Chinese Communist Party officials would run screaming back to the leadership compound of Zhongnanhai, never to be heard from again. General Secretary Xi Jinping is, however, made of sterner stuff, buttressed by the People’s Liberation Army, which is rapidly expanding to prevent Washington from treating the Asia-Pacific as coastal American waters.

Even so, many Blob members assume that if Beijing were foolish enough to fight, it would (of course) be defeated. Not so. Any war over Taiwan would be won on the seas, and the PRC is much closer and can more easily reinforce its forces. Breaking a naval blockade would be difficult and would invite full-scale conflict. Beijing now possesses a larger (based on numbers, not tonnage) navy than America. And China is able to concentrate its forces in the Asia-Pacific. Reported the Congressional Research Service: “China’s navy is a formidable military force within China’s near-seas region, and it is conducting a growing number of operations in the broader waters of the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and waters around Europe.”

Geography is a major problem: Taiwan is barely 100 miles off China’s shore, roughly the same distance as Cuba from America. The PRC could rely on two score mainland military bases and enjoy air superiority over the island. Beijing’s strategy would be anti-access/area denial, using submarines and missiles, especially, to keep the US Navy afar.

Washington would have to rely on allied bases, most notably Japan (Okinawa), the Philippines, and South Korea. However, none of America’s friends want to end up as targets of Chinese missiles. The Republic of Korea, confronting a dangerous North Korea, is least-likely to back the US in a war against the PRC. The Philippines is a semi-failed state; a former defense secretary once opined that his nation had “a navy that can’t go out to sea and an air force that cannot fly.”

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Zelensky Expands Crackdown on Ukrainian Media

President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a new bill into law which strengthens government control over public access to news in Ukraine. Zelensky has already nationalized the country’s media under martial law powers invoked after Russia’s invasion last year, stoking criticism from press freedom groups.

Signed on December 29, the law expands the Ukrainian broadcast regulator’s powers over news agencies ”dramatically,” now including both print and online sources, according to the Kyiv Independent. The measure requires publications to obtain licenses to operate, and any media org without the proper paperwork can be shut down, the outlet reported, adding that the body handing out the permits will be under Zelensky’s control. 

According to Ukraine’s Institute of Mass Information, under the law, the media regulator is likely to be controlled by the incumbent authorities because its members are appointed by Zelensky and the Ukrainian parliament, where his party has an absolute majority.

In March, Zelensky issued a presidential decree which nationalized Ukraine’s broadcast media, stressing the need for a ”unified information policy” to combat Russian disinformation and voices critical of the government. Around the same time, he also banned a long list of opposition political parties with alleged links to Russia, and has since taken punitive action against Orthodox churches also said to have ties with Moscow, effectively quashing all dissent under martial law powers.

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You Now Need a Government ID to Access Pornhub in Louisiana

A new law makes porn sites liable for content deemed “harmful to minors” if it doesn’t install age verification technology for anyone accessing them in Louisiana—and it’s already affecting how people in the state access Pornhub. 

The law, which was signed by Louisiana’s Democratic governor John Bel Edwards in June, became effective on January 1, 2023. 

The law, passed as Act 440, states: 

“Any commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material shall be held liable if the entity fails to perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material.”

A “substantial portion” is 33.3 percent or more material on a site that’s “harmful to minors.” 

Material that’s harmful to minors, according to the act, is defined as appealing to prurient interests, and that consists of “pubic hair, anus, vulva, genitals, or nipple of the female breast; Touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, anuses, or genitals; Sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation; flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions, or any other sexual act,” and lacks “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” for someone under 18 years of age. 

It also states that any commercial entity in violation will be liable “to an individual for damages resulting from a minor’s accessing the material.” 

Motherboard confirmed, through a virtual private network, that Pornhub is showing people visiting the site from a Louisiana-based IP address a page that requires identity verification before entering. “Louisiana law now requires us to put in place a process for verifying the age of users who connect to our site from Louisiana,” the page says.

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19 Senior Experts Of China’s Top Academic Bodies Died In December

In December, 19 experts of China’s top academies, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), died of unspecified “illness,” a statistic that is six times higher than the average number of deaths in the past years.

Official reports avoid mentioning the cause of these deaths, in what appears to be an attempt to cover up deaths  caused by COVID-19.

But Airfinity, a UK-based Health Data Agency, updated data on Dec. 30, saying that roughly 11,000 people in China are dying every day from COVID, bringing the total number of deaths from the disease to 110,000 in December.

According to obituaries published by China’s official media, in the 12 days from Dec.15 to Dec.26, 13 members of CAE passed away due to “illness.” They are fiber optic communication expert Zhao Zisen (91), environmental engineering and environmental water quality expert Tang Hongxiao (91), rare earth metal smelting and separation expert Zhang Guocheng (91), laser technology expert Zhao Yijun (92),  inorganic non-metallic materials expert Gu Zhenan (86), civil engineering and structural mechanics expert Long Yuqiu (96), ecologists and foresters Li Wenhua (90), wildlife scientist Ma Jianzhang (86), pediatric surgery specialist Zhang Jinzhe (102), thermal impeller machinery expert Wang Zhongqi (90), architect and professor at Tsinghua University Guan Zhaoye (93), welding specialist for aerospace manufacturing engineering Guan Qiao (87), and petroleum engineering expert Li Qingzhong (92).

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Another FAKE FACT-CHECKER Identified – Politifact’s Jeff Cercone “Fact-Checks” on COVID Despite Zero Credentials

Another fake “fact-checker” has been identified.  Politifact’s Jeff Cercone joins the army of the biased and unqualified in telling us what the truth is and what it is not. 

The “fact-checker” scheme invented by the far-left is a means to discredit the truth.  Fake “fact-checkers” are used to proclaim that the truth is a lie.  This is an effort to keep the American people in the dark about the reality of the world around them.

The left feels that if they discredit the truth overwhelmingly, then Americans will begin to believe that boys are girls, kids should be taught porn in grade schools, there is global warming, and Joe Biden won the 2020 Election.

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State Power and Covid Crimes

The three major controversies over pandemic management for the past three years have been lockdown measures, universal masking recommendations and mandates, and Covid vaccines. 

The last was a pharmaceutical intervention using revolutionary new technology. The first two were radical departures from the existing scientific and policy consensus as encapsulated in official documents from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and in several national pandemic preparedness plans. They established the willingness of the state to dictate every aspect of people’s lives, down to the most ridiculous and absurd details. 

For example, people were told when they could shop, the hours during which they could shop, what they could purchase, how close they could get to others and which direction they could move in by following arrows on the floor. Governments also stepped into nations’ bedrooms at home to dictate with whom people could and could not be intimate: a ukase that notoriously turned Professor Neil ‘Lockdown’ Ferguson himself into Professor Pantsdown.

Lockdowns thus proved the extent to which people would comply with state directives without deploying independent critical thinking and, like frogs in boiling water, their almost total lack of concern about the gradually increasing degree of infringements of civil liberties and personal freedoms. 

Compliance with often idiotic rules was ratcheted up to another level still with mask recommendations-cum-mandates, with one additional notable feature. Governments were able to mobilise members of the public to exert peer pressure and societal coercion to enforce compliance, backed by often brutal police coercion against pockets of resistance and protest. 

In retrospect, it’s doubtful if the degree of state and social coercion deployed to increase vaccine uptake would have been possible without the ground having first been prepared with lockdowns and masks.

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10 Scandals To Keep Your Eye On In 2023

The new year is upon us and with it a fresh start for more corruption. But 2023 also offers the opportunity to bring closure to some long-running scandals. Here are 10 to track in the upcoming year.

1. Government’s Puppeteering of Big Tech and Media

The ongoing release of the “Twitter Files” closed 2022 with a new scandal, as the internal communications of the tech giant exposed extensive coordination between the government and Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other big players controlling the flow of information. While conservatives have known — and complained — for years of Big Tech’s censorship and shadowbanning, by purchasing Twitter and giving independent journalists access to corporate emails, Elon Musk provided indisputable confirmation that Twitter both censored and blacklisted conservatives.

The censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story and the silencing of scientific criticism of the government’s heavy-handed Covid regime, both at the prompting of federal agents, proved the most appalling. 

As Musk continues to provide access to internal communications, a watchful eye is warranted in 2023.

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Guns for Me but Not for Thee

It’s 2023, and two of America’s deep-blue governors are still having conniptions over the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association vs. Bruen that threw out the need for a justifiable reason to receive a permit to carry a concealed weapon (CCW). While bound to follow the Bruen decision, both are doing everything they can to sidestep the ruling through legislative and executive fiat.

New Jersey, New York, and California are America’s triumvirate of extremely gun unfriendly states.  They are led by Democrat governors and legislatures that march to a progressive drumbeat, promote economic and social policies onerous to businesses large and small, and force their overtaxed, working residents to subsidize sanctuary policies that have turned their states into strongholds for illegal immigrants and vagrants.

All three governors have retained their emergency powers into the post-pandemic era, reviving them as needed to invoke programs and policies that regulate many aspects of their constituents’ lives.  Above all, they harbor an intense hatred for a citizenry under arms, in keeping with their dim view of the Founding Fathers who understood in framing the Second Amendment that to “disarm the people was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

One month after the Bruen decision, New York acting Governor Kathy Hochul thumbed her nose at the Court by signing a gun law that designated when and where you could carry a concealed weapon.  The new rules created a list of “sensitive locations,” prohibiting weapons at government facilities, parks, churches, schools, public transportation, and entertainment venues.  Intruding on private property rights, Hochul banned weapons in all establishments serving alcohol and ordered that commercial businesses of all shapes and sizes must post signage in plain view giving explicit approval to carry weapons on the premises, going so far as to provide a downloadable sign for posting on a government website.  Absence of a storefront notice would be taken as a presumptive gun prohibition lacking the proprietor’s express consent.  In the stroke of a pen, all of New York City had become a gun-free zone, as well as anywhere else in the Empire State where constituents go about their social and professional lives.  Legal challenges immediately followed, as the law is patently unconstitutional in its scope and severity, but a federal judge refused an injunctive stay pending an appeal.

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy is a garden-variety progressive Democrat of privilege who has freely admitted to his ignorance of the Bill of Rights and has often adopted the disastrous policies of his New York counterparts rather than think through the consequences to his own state; for example, the COVID nursing-home scandal, emptying jails, and free money and welfare programs for illegal immigrants. In December, Murphy latched on to Hochul’s post-Bruen CCW restrictions, enacting the same list of barred locations that add on to an already existing regulatory burden of multiple background investigations and approvals, mandatory training, ammunition limits, waiting periods, and storage requirements for home and transport that puts locked and unloaded weapons out of an owner’s reach during a critical need for self-defense.  Permit fees are now skyrocketing in the Garden State, and new liability insurance requirements will have a disparate impact upon low-income residents, creating for them an economic deprivation of their Second Amendment rights in populated areas and urban settings where self-defense against violent crime sees its most acute need.

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