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.

Politifact Quietly Admits COVID-19 Lab Escape Not ‘Debunked Conspiracy Theory’

Last January, when China and the World Health Organization (WHO) were performing damage control for Beijing over a mysterious new coronavirus which broke out in the same town as their secretive bat coronavirus lab (with whom, unbeknownst to most at the time, a Fauci-funded NGO called EcoHealth Alliance had been working), anyone who logically suggested a link between the secretive lab and the new disease was immediately punished by Silicon Valley tech giants who protected China from those who dare speculate based on very. obvious. clues.

Twitter suspended Zero Hedge after a BuzzFeed journalist (later fired for plagiarism) accused us of ‘doxxing a Chinese scientist it falsely accused of creating coronavirus’ (with publicly available information). Five months later Twitter restored our account after mounting public pressure – saying they had “made an error.”

Facebook banned our articles – and policed COVID ‘disinformation’ based on the word of so-called “fact checkers” who insisted that the new disease couldn’t have possibly escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and must have emerged via yet-to-be discovered animal intermediaries between bats and humans. Of course, one of Facebook’s “fact checkers” worked at the Wuhan lab.

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eBay says it will let governments automatically remove listings

In a move that observers fear may represent a setback for fair moderation of product listings – and of content in general – ecommerce giant eBay has announced that it is proceeding with a project aimed at allowing government regulators to remove items they see as “dangerous listings” directly from the site, with no need to consult the company.

eBay is also letting regulators – from some 50 countries around the world – decide that there is enough evidence that a listing might pose a risk to consumers, and once eBay declares these offices as “trusted authorities” their powers to remove items from the site will be unlimited. The company has not yet revealed the criteria that will guide this selection of state authorities it trusts to be making decisions in its place.

The company said the aim is to speed up and streamline the process of removal of listings, while the ones designated as dangerous will be considered either illegal or unsafe, and authorities will be able to delete them without further interacting with eBay.

eBay is talking up the project to wash its hands off responsibility for this type of online “moderation” as something that others in the industry will adopt as well, describing at the same time collaboration with authorities as “vital.”

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Scientists Shot Tardigrades from a Gun to See If Interplanetary Travel Is Survivable

Tardigrades are one of nature’s most indestructible lifeforms. These microscopic animals can survive both freezing and boiling temperatures, pressures equivalent to those six miles under the ocean, and even the vacuum of outer space.  

But for one pair of scientists, a lingering question remained: can tardigrades survive being shot out of a gun headlong into an impact target?  

It’s a worthy hypothetical in any context, but there also happens to be a legitimate scientific reason to conduct such an experiment. For decades, scientists have speculated about the possibility that hardy organisms might be able to survive trips between planets by hitchhiking on meteorites. This theory of interplanetary cross-pollination, known as panspermia, has implications for understanding how life might have emerged on Earth and whether it is common elsewhere in the universe.

With this in mind, Alejandra Traspas and Mark Burchell, a PhD student and professor of space science at the University of Kent, respectively, sought to determine whether spacefaring tardigrades would be able to withstand the sudden impact of arrival at an alien world. 

In a study published this month in the journal Astrobiology, the researchers point out that “there is no knowledge of how [tardigrades] survive impact shocks” and so “accordingly, we have fired tardigrades at high speed in a gun onto sand targets, subjecting them to impact shocks and evaluating their survival.”

“We had no real info, only guesswork,” Burchell said in an email. He noted that past studies of tardigrade-scale seeds break apart when they impact at speeds over 2,200 miles per hour, and at shock pressures of 1 gigapascal (GPa), which suggested that it “might be an interesting regime to test” actual tardigrades in the same conditions.Tech

“The results were however a surprise in that the tardigrades seemed to recover from impacts, right up to speeds which started to physically tear them into pieces,” Burchell added.

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NYC PBS Airs Children’s Show Where “Drag Queens In Training” Learn To Swish Their Hips

Taxpayers are funding a NYC PBS show where a drag queen named “Little Miss Hot Mess” teaches “drag queens in training,” also known as children, how to shake their butts.

The program, “Let’s Learn,” is a collaboration between PBS and The New York City Department of Education aimed at children ages 3-8.

The episode “The Hips On the Drag Queen Go Swish Swish Swish” first aired March 31.

Little Miss Hot Mess, who is allegedly a founding member of Drag Queen Story Hour, is the author of the book “The Hips On the Drag Queen Go Swish Swish Swish.”

“I wrote this book because I wanted everyone to get to experience the magic of drag and to get a little practice shaking their hips or shimmying their shoulders to know how we can feel fabulous inside of our own bodies,” Little Miss Hot Mess told kids on the PBS show.

After singing and dancing along with the book, the drag queen said, “I think we might have some drag queens in training on our hand.”

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CNN acknowledges Chris Cuomo joined his brother’s strategy calls on sexual harassment accusations

CNN acknowledged Thursday that anchor Chris Cuomo joined strategy sessions with his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in the wake of sexual harassment accusations against him, through a statement to the Washington Post.

Why it matters: Although CNN said Cuomo has not been involved in the outlet’s coverage of the allegations, the calls detailed by the Post show that the anchor advised his brother’s staff on how to respond to the accusations — which “cuts against the widely accepted norm in journalism that those reporting the news should not be involved in politics,” the Post writes.

What they’re saying: “Chris has not been involved in CNN’s extensive coverage of the allegations against Governor Cuomo — on air or behind the scenes,” the network’s statement to WashPost reads. “In part because, as he has said on his show, he could never be objective. But also because he often serves as a sounding board for his brother.”

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