Fun facts!
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.
Was Shinzo Abe’s Killer Just Another Lone Nut? Look Closer.
In a familiar pattern following the assassination of a public figure, the worldwide media is showing little inclination to dig deeper into the recent shooting of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The brazen daylight attack on Abe — captured on video during a campaign stop, in a country with virtually no gun homicides — shocked the world. Japan’s rates of gun violence are preposterously low by any standard: Just one shooting fatality was recorded in all of 2021.
But why Abe, and why now? The first prime minister to serve multiple terms since 1948 and the longest-serving PM in Japanese history, Abe was a powerful and controversial figure in Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, the party that has controlled the country for nearly 70 years.
He was a nationalist reactionary, an apologist for World War II war crimes who denied the rape of Nanjing, and a supporter of rearmament and of doubling Japan’s defense budget (he also nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize). But despite looming large in domestic politics, he did not wield any direct power on the day he was killed.
As paeans from conservatives around the world poured in, praising Abe’s deft diplomatic skills and vision, police settled on a puzzling motive behind confessed killer Tetsuya Yamagami’s actions: Possibly based on internet rumors, Yamagami concluded that Abe was connected to the “Moonies,” or the Unification Church, the worldwide movement founded by Sun Myung Moon (that also owns the conservative Washington Times). Yamagami allegedly believed the church defrauded his mother and bankrupted his family.
The leader of the church’s Japanese congregation confirmed that Yamagami’s mother is a member and attends services once a month — but said there was no record of the church soliciting or receiving a donation. Neither Yamagami nor Abe were members, he added.
Here’s Why The Media Don’t Want You To Know About The Massive Protests Going On Around The Globe
If you skim the front pages of major corporate news outlets, you’ll find no mention of the economic protests raging in Spain, Morocco, Greece, and the United Kingdom.
On The Washington Post homepage these days, you’ll find headlines such as, “How To Deal With A Chatty Coworker Who Won’t Get Out Of Your Office,” but you won’t find mention of the more than 100,000 people protesting in Madrid. You’ll find the story of a gay union entitled, “What’s Two ‘Yentas’ Plus One Senator? A Lifetime Together” at The New York Times, but you won’t see a single heading on the more than 10,000 protesters in Athens. Corporate media has largely glossed over the tens of thousands of farmers in the Netherlands who clogged up roadways and distributions centers by holding Canadian-trucker-convoy-style demonstrations to protest radical climate policies.
According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which records protests worldwide, 11 countries are currently seeing protests of more than 1,000 people in response to the rising cost of living and other economic woes in 2022. As of July 5, Carnegie had recorded protests of more than 120,000 people in France, 100,000 in Spain, 10,000 in Greece, 10,000 in Kazakhstan, 10,000 in Sri Lanka, 10,000 in India, 5,000 in Iran, 5,000 in Peru, 1,000 people in Argentina, 1,000 in Morocco, and 1,000 in the U.K.
‘Net Zero’ Global Warming Alarm Based on Temperatures Measured Next to Airport Runways With Hot Jet Engines and Tarmac
About one half of all land surface temperature measurements used to show global warming and promote the command-and-control Net Zero agenda are taken near or adjacent to airport runways. This amazing fact from research by Professor Ross McKitrick casts further serious doubt on the validity of three major global temperature datasets, including the one compiled by the Met Office, which continue to show higher global temperatures compared with other reliable measurements made by satellites and meteorological balloons.
Airports are arguably uniquely unsuitable for providing an insight into global temperatures. Many of them are major industrial complexes spread over miles of heat-radiating tarmac and concrete, containing industrial buildings and subject to constant super-heated jet exhausts measuring hundreds of degrees centigrade.
There are three major global surface datasets. HadCRUT is compiled by the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit in collaboration with the Met Office, NASA runs the Goddard Institute for Space Studies GISS record, while NOAA is compiled by the U.S. national weather service. All three global averages depend on the same underlying land data from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN). As I have noted on numerous occasions, all three datasets have made significant adjustments, which has had the effect of increasing recent warming and cooling the historical record.
Feds withholding info about deletion of Covid genetic data
The watchdog group Empower Oversight is taking action against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for evading accountability in its legal obligations to disclose “requested” documentation under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
According to Empower Oversight’s court filing, NIH improperly withheld information gathered in response to questions from Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Roger Marshall (R-Kansas).
Last year, the Senators asked about the agency’s decision, the request of Chinese researchers, to delete coronavirus genetic sequence information from an NIH database.
NIH has already admitted in the lawsuit that it failed to meet deadlines required by FOIA in responding to Empower Oversight’s request.
The Mysterious Death of Stanley Meyer And His Water-Powered Zero Emissions Car
Since the advent of the automobile, manufacturers have designed different engines to limit the environmental impact posed by the millions of pounds of carbon emissions cars generate annually. Among these are ethanol, natural gas, electricity, and even propane. But perhaps the least-known of these is the car that was said to run on water. And that may be because its inventor, Stanley Meyer, was murdered shortly after he patented his breakthrough.
Meyer’s invention promised a revolution in the automotive industry. It worked through an electric water fuel cell, which divided any kind of water — including salt water — into its fundamental elements of hydrogen and oxygen, by utilizing a process far simpler than the electrolysis method.
Despite scepticism about the legitimacy of a car that runs on water, Meyer was able to patent his invention under Section 101 of the Subject Matter Eligibility Index, meaning he proved to a patent review board that his invention worked reliably.
Meyer’s water-powered engine was the result of 20 years of research and dedication, and he claimed it was capable of converting tap water into enough hydrogen fuel to drive his car from one end of the country to the other. His invention was mind-boggling and promised a future of non-polluting vehicles that could be refuelled with a garden hose.
‘Scrubs’ co-executive producer Eric Weinberg arrested on multiple sexual assault charges
Eric Weinberg, a Hollywood producer who worked as a co-executive producer on hit shows such as “Scrubs” and” Californication,” was arrested in Los Angeles on alleged sexual crimes committed over the past decade, police said.
Weinberg was picked up by cops at his home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles around noon on Friday for a number of sexual assaults he’s accused of committing in LA between 2012 and 2019, the Los Angeles Police Department announced on Thursday.
According to police, the producer and writer would prey on women in their 20s and 30s in “grocery stores, coffee shops and other public places,” where he would approach them and tell them he was a photographer and invite them to his home for an alleged photo shoot.
Once the unsuspecting victims arrived at the residence, he would sexually assault them, cops said.
Police said they believe there are additional victims that could date back as late as the early 1990s. Cops urged any other possible victims to reach out to the department.
He’s currently being held on a $3,225,000 bond.
The case is expected to be turned over to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Deadline reported.
Mysteries & Dark Conspiracies of The Vatican’s Forbidden Archives
Secretive places closed off to the world invite rumour, intrigue, and mystery. These are places where anything could be lurking within their halls, and they attract conspiracy theories like moths to a flame, fluttering about bashing up against them but never gaining access and never finding the answers they seek. One such place that has long been a wellspring of strange theories and speculation lies squarely within Vatican City, and besides being one of the most forbidden places in the world is also one of the most mysterious.
Comprised of approximately 53 miles of labyrinthine aisles of shelving harbouring rows upon countless rows of texts, books, and scrolls ranging from the more modern to fragile, time-worn manuscripts reaching back 12 centuries into the shadows of time, the Vatican Archives, officially known as the Archivum Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum, was originally constructed in 1612 by Pope Paul V and is a truly a huge treasure trove of information collected by the Church over hundreds of years. This vast repository of knowledge holds state papers, Holy See paperwork, papal correspondence and personal letters, and countless historical records, documents and texts accumulated by the Vatican from every corner of the known world that date back to the 8th century, all housed within a massive, carefully climate-controlled structure adjacent to the Vatican Library that is designed more like a fortress than a library, replete with impenetrable underground bunkers and with only one known heavily guarded entrance.
The list of known contents of the archives is far too long to completely cover here, but includes a wealth of historical documents including handwritten letters to the Pope from such important figures such as Mary Queen of Scotts asking for a pardon before her execution, King Henry VIII, Michelangelo asking to be paid for his work on the Sistine Chapel, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Grand Empress Dowager Helena Wang of China in the 17th century, one written on birch bark by the Canadian Ojibwe tribe in 1887, and many, many others. Here there are official edicts by Popes through the centuries, including excommunications such as that of German religious heretic and founder of Lutheranism Martin Luther, official papal decrees such as the one made in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI that split the entire known world among Spain and Portugal, as well as personal communications from popes throughout history. Here one can also find such gems as a nearly 200-foot long scroll containing details of the trials of the Knights Templar for heresy and blasphemy dating to 1307, as well as a handwritten transcript detailing the trial of astronomer Galileo Galilei in the 17th century, as well as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which states that Mary was conceived without sin, scrawled out on a piece of parchment dating to 1854.
The Vatican Archives are often referred to as the Vatican Secret Archives, mostly due to a mistranslation of the Latin words secretum, which is actually closer in meaning to “personal” or “private” rather than “secret” or “confidential” as many think, but it could also have to do with the archive’s history of strict inaccessibility and reclusiveness from the outside world. They had been for centuries practically completely forbidden and closed off from nearly everyone, even Church officials, with not even Cardinals allowed access to their treasure trove of information, and it was not until 1881 that Pope Leo XIII allowed limited access to outsiders, yet this does little to dispel the secrecy surrounding the archives and it is still no small feat to enter this inner sanctum of all of the Vatican’s knowledge.
Average American worker down $3400 in annual income since Biden took office
The average American worker has lost $3,400 in annual income since Biden took office in January 2021.
Since Biden’s inauguration, the cost of living, including prices at the grocery store and prices at the gas pump have steadily risen. While Biden seeks to blame the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian President Vladimir Putin for the state of the economy, Americans enduring hardship have had little to fall back on.
Biden’s economic challenges were compounded even further with the release of this month’s Consumer Price Index report, which surged to 9.1% year-over-year in June.
The increase was significantly higher than previously predicted by economists, marking the CPI at its highest level since November 1981, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday.
Biden Just Said He’s Willing To Go To War With Iran, Mainstream Yawns
US President Joe Biden said in an interview aired Wednesday that he would be willing to go to war with Iran to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a position that drew condemnation from advocacy groups and foreign policy analysts who questioned the moral, strategic, and legal bases for such a stance.
Biden also reiterated in the sit-down interview with Israeli broadcaster N12 that he is committed to keeping the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, even if it means sinking the prospects of a deal to revive the nuclear accord that former President Donald Trump violated in 2018.
While acknowledging that Trump’s decision to abandon the seven-country deal was a “gigantic mistake,” Biden said he would not delist the IRGC to advance nuclear talks that have hit a wall in recent weeks.
Biden offered a one-word answer—”yes”—when asked whether he would keep the IRGC on the terror list “even if that means that kills the deal.”
The US president went on to say that he’s prepared to use military force “as a last resort” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran has repeatedly said it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon and that its nuclear energy program is designed for peaceful domestic purposes.
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