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.

Omnibus Spending Bill: $410M for Border Security — in the Middle East

The $1.7 trillion year-end omnibus spending bill uses hundreds of millions of dollars of American taxpayer money to fund border security initiatives overseas as the United States, at its own border, is projected to set illegal immigration records next year.

The spending bill includes $410 million “for enhanced border security” in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman. At least $150 million of the funding is to be used to help Jordan secure its borders.

The hundreds of millions of dollars for border security thousands of miles away from the U.S. comes after Republicans and Democrats negotiated a similar plan in March that saw about $370 million go to border security initiatives in the Middle East and North Africa.

In June of last year, Congress authorized nearly a billion dollars in border security initiatives for Middle Eastern and North African countries.

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Biden Admin Funds AI To Police Online Language

Government spending records have revealed that the Biden Administration is dishing out more than half a million dollars in grants to fund the development of artificial intelligence that will censor language on social media in order to eliminate ‘microaggressions’.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that the funding was part of Biden’s $1.9 trillion ‘American Rescue Plan’ and was granted to researchers at the University of Washington in March to develop technologies that could be used to protect online users from ‘discriminatory’ language.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton compared the move to the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to “censor speech unapproved by the state,” calling it a “project to make it easier for their leftist allies to censor speech.”

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‘Super’ mosquitoes have now mutated to withstand insecticides, scientists say

One of the most vilified pest species on the planet continues to outsmart the ways in which humans attempt to get rid of them.

“Super” mosquitoes have evolved to withstand insecticides, according to new research — and the most “sobering” finding is the high rate in which a species known for carrying disease has developed mutations.

Researchers at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Japan studied mosquitoes in dengue-endemic areas in Vietnam and Cambodia and found that they harbor mutations that endow them with strong resistance to common insecticides, according to a study published in Science Advances on Wednesday.

One of the most concerning mutations appeared in about 78% in collected specimens of Aedes aegypti — one of the most infamous species of mosquito and a major vector of dengue, yellow fever and Zika virus, according to the study.

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‘Power Run Amok’: Madison Square Garden Uses Face-Scanning Tech to Remove Perceived Adversaries

BARBARA HART WAS celebrating her wedding anniversary and waiting for Brandi Carlile to take the stage at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 22, when a pair of security guards approached her and her husband by their seats and asked for the couple to follow them. At first, Hart tells Rolling Stone she was excited, thinking it was some sort of surprise before the concert started. Her excitement turned to anxiety soon after, however, as she spoke with security and gathered that she’d been identified using facial-recognition technology. Then they escorted her out of the venue. 

Hart was initially confused, having no idea why she was flagged. She says security informed her that she was being ejected because of her job as an attorney at Grant & Eisenhofer, a law firm currently litigating against Madison Square Garden’s parent company in a Delaware class-action suit involving several groups of shareholders.

Madison Square Garden Entertainment, owned by James Dolan (who has been known to kick out fans who anger him), confirms to RS that it enacted a policy in recent months forbidding anyone in active litigation against the company from entry to the company’s venues — which include the New York arena that gives the company its name, along with Radio City Music Hall, Beacon Theatre, and the Chicago Theatre. The company’s use of facial recognition tools itself dates back to at least 2018, when the New York Times reported on it; anyone who enters the venue is subject to scanning, and that practice now seems to coincide with the policy against opposing litigants.

“This is retaliatory behavior of powerful people against others, and that should be concerning to us,” says Hart, who also spoke of the incident in a sworn affidavit last month, as Reuters reported. Hart recalls that she declined to give MSG security her ID, but that they were able to correctly identify her anyway; she says security mentioned her picture appearing on Grant & Eisenhofer’s website, leading her to the conclusion that facial recognition was involved. “It was a very eerie experience to be on the receiving end of at that moment.”

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Scientists Develop Gelatinous Robots to Crawl Through Human Body to Deliver Medical Payloads or Diagnose Illnesses

Scientists have developed miniature gelatinous robots that can crawl through the human body to deliver medicine or diagnose illnesses.

The “gelbot” is powered by little more than temperature changes, and its innovative design, which resembles an inchworm, is one of the most promising concepts in the field of soft robotics, according to Jill Rosen of John Hopkins University.

“It seems very simplistic, but this is an object moving without batteries, without wiring, without an external power supply of any kind—just on the swelling and shrinking of gel,” said David Gracias, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and a senior project leader.

“Our study shows how the manipulation of shape, dimensions, and patterning of gels can tune morphology to embody a kind of intelligence for locomotion.”

The 3D-printed robot, which is made out of gelatin, is intended to replace pills or intravenous injections, which could cause problematic side effects.

The prototype was announced in the journal Science Robotics, on Dec. 14.

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Biden greets Zelensky at White House

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, greeted by President Biden and first lady Jill Biden for the start of an unprecedented first trip to Washington since the Russia war began.

Zelensky pulled up in a black SUV, featuring an American flag and a Ukrainian flag, that let him out on the South Lawn entrance.

The Ukrainian president, who was wearing his signature green long-sleeve sweater, shook hands with the Bidens, and the three stood for a photograph for a few seconds in front of the South Lawn entrance. They then turned and entered the White House, where the president put his arm on Zelensky’s shoulder. 

Upon entrance to the Oval Office, President Biden told Zelensky, “I’m delighted you could make the trip.”

During remarks at the top of a bilateral meeting between the two leaders, President Biden addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was “escalating his assault on civilians” and that he was trying to “use winter as a weapon.”

Zelensky, who said he wanted to come to the U.S. sooner, said he offered “all my appreciations from my heart and from the heart of all Ukrainians.” He also thanked the president, Congress and “ordinary people” for the support from the U.S. toward Ukraine. 

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US Military Thanks And Praises Retiring CNN “Journalist” For Her Service

The US military has been showering CNN’s retiring Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr with effusive thanks and praise for her lifetime of service, giving some insight into the cozy working relationship between the media and the war machine inside the US empire.

“Today closes a remarkable career for CNN’s Barbara Starr, a leader in the Pentagon Press Corps,” reads a post by the Twitter account for US Central Command. “Her aggressive reporting and tireless commitment to the truth brought this Nation closer to its military. She will forever be missed.”

Starr received a standing ovation at a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday after Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder sang her praises and thanked her for two decades on the job.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to say farewell to our media colleague, Miss Barbara Starr,” Ryder said. “Barbara has reported for CNN for over 20 years, and has been a fixture in the Pentagon Press Corps, and today marks her final day with CNN after a storied and fully-impressive — excuse me — truly impressive career.”

“So Barbara, on behalf of Secretary of Defense Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley and the entire Department of Defense, I would like to extend a special congratulations and thank you for your many years of timely, insightful and important reporting on our nation’s most pressing defense issues,” Ryder continued. “And as someone who has worked with you for many of those last 20 years and someone who has had to take your late-night phone calls and emails and answer your tough, but fair questions, I can say from personal experience that the U.S. public and audiences worldwide have been well served by your in-depth reporting from the Pentagon, your journalistic integrity and your determination to tell the stories of service members worldwide, and to ensure the government and DOD remain transparent and accountable to the taxpayers and the American public they serve. Congratulations again, and we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.”

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6 Ancient Sites Aligned With the Solstice and Equinox

Across time, people have marked the changing of seasons—sometimes in dramatic ways! In honor of the solstice on December 21, let’s look at six amazing and ancient sites aligned with the solstices and equinoxes.

Did you know that the equinoxes and solstices happen at the same moment around the world? Even though we all have different time zones, these are astronomical events based on our planet’s orbit around the Sun and tilt on its axis.

Our ancestors lived amidst nature more than most of us do today. They observed the universe, marveling in its rhythms. They used the Sun and the Moon as a sort of calendar, tracking the Sun’s path across the sky. Here are some examples of the ancient sites and monuments that were built to align with the solstices or equinoxes.

Our ancestors built the first observatories to track the sun’s progress.

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Room goes SILENT when CEO says parents ‘don’t have the right’ to know about child’s sex change

On “The Rubin Report,” BlazeTV host Dave Rubin shared a video clip from a recent House of Representatives hearing in which CEO and executive director of Inside Out Youth Services, Jessie Pocock, skirted around the question of whether parents have the right to know if their child is seeking “gender-affirming care” before finally admitting that “parents don’t have the right” — at least not in her home state of Colorado.

Asked by Texas Rep. Michael Cloud (R) if she believes parents have a right to be involved in “these sorts of discussions,” Pocock first answered that “anyone can be a trusted adult” to a child facing the “difficult problem” of gender identity. Pressed again, she said there are “about 100 parents who participate in our programs to support their young people … at Inside Out.”

“But do parents have a right to know, is my question,” Cloud stated.

“Do parents have a right to know what?” Pocock asked irritably. But when Cloud again repeated the question, she began to talk about children in abusive homes.

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