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.

Two-Thirds of Americans Now Live Paycheck to Paycheck Due to Inflation

The U.S. economy is strained to the point of breaking Americans’ budgets, and this week’s releases of consumer and producer inflation data showed that the pain being felt by American families and U.S. companies isn’t going to ease up soon. 

As a result of steadily rising inflation that kicked off just after President Biden took office and has so far reached and stayed in 40-year high territory — including repeated all-time records set for fuel prices — Americans’ budgets are being stretched to the breaking point and then some. 

That’s because, even as wage growth is trending higher — around five percent over last year — the eight-plus percent consumer inflation means Americans’ real wages are actually three percent lower than twelve months ago.

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I Criticized BLM. Then I Was Fired.

Until recently, I was a director of data science at Thomson Reuters, one of the biggest news organizations in the world. It was my job, among other things, to sift through reams of numbers and figure out what they meant.

About a year ago, I stumbled on a really big story. It was about black Americans being gunned down across the country and the ways in which we report on that violence. We had been talking nonstop about race and police brutality, and I thought: This is a story that could save lives. This is a story that has to be told.

But when I shared the story with my coworkers, my boss chastised me, telling me expressing this opinion could limit my ability to take on leadership roles within the company. Then I was maligned by my colleagues. And then I was fired.

This is the story Reuters didn’t want to tell. 

I had been at Thomson Reuters for over six years—most recently, leading a team of data scientists applying new machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to our legal, tax and news data. We advised any number of divisions inside the company, including Westlaw, an online legal research service used by most every law firm in the country, and the newsroom, which reaches an audience of one billion every day around the globe. I briefed the Chief Technology Officer regularly. My total annual compensation package exceeded $350,000.

In 2020, I started to witness the spread of a new ideology inside the company. On our internal collaboration platform, the Hub, people would post about “the self-indulgent tears of white women” and the danger of “White Privilege glasses.” They’d share articles with titles like “Seeing White,” “Habits of Whiteness” and “How to Be a Better White Person.” There was fervent and vocal support for Black Lives Matter at every level of the company. No one challenged the racial essentialism or the groupthink.

This concerned me. I had been following the academic research on BLM for years (for example, here, here, here and here), and I had come to the conclusion that the claim upon which the whole movement rested—that police more readily shoot black people—was false. 

The data was unequivocal. It showed that, if anything, police were slightly less likely to use lethal force against black suspects than white ones. 

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10yo Girl Calls 911 to Report Her Police Officer Dad for Sexually Abusing Her, Fellow Cops Covered It Up

In March, a 10-year-old girl called 911 and told dispatchers that her father, a veteran Chicago cop, had sexually abused her.

“The victim was scared and called 911,” responding officers would later report, according to the Chicago Sun Times, adding that the actions she described “were sexual in nature.”

The officer’s arrest started out normal and it appeared that he would be held accountable. He was taken into custody, according to the arrest report, for “aggravated criminal sexual abuse by family member” — a serious felony charge.

But after spending several hours in jail, he would be released on zero bail with new charges of “domestic battery” — a misdemeanor.

When someone with an actual conscience inside the department learned about the officer’s special treatment, a red flag was raised sparking two separate investigations. An internal investigation is now underway as well as another by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

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San Diego County Passes Ordinance to Change Definition of ‘Woman’

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has adopted a new definition of “woman” that would reportedly allow male-to-female transgender residents to demand inclusion as women in jails, homeless shelters, and domestic violence shelters.

The ordinance, passed by a 3-2 vote on April 26, and ratified on May 10 by the same margin, adopts the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international treaty adopted in 1979.

The treaty was signed by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980, but it was never brought to the Senate for ratification.

But the ordinance goes further, expanding the definition of “woman” to include those who simply identify as women:

F. “Women and girls” shall mean those who identify as women and girls, including transgender women and gender non-conforming, and those assigned female at birth who include non-binary, transgender men and intersex communities.

G. “Gender” shall mean the characteristics of women, men, girls, and boys that are socially constructed. As a social construct, gender can vary among cultures and can change over time.

H. “Gender equity” shall mean the redress of discriminatory practices and ensuring equitable conditions that enable women and girls to achieve full, substantive equality with men, recognizing that needs of women and men may differ, resulting in fair and equitable outcomes for all. This includes the redress of discriminatory practices and ensuring equitable conditions for persons identifying as transgender, nonbinary, and/or gender non-conforming to achieve full equality and equity.

I. “Intersectional” shall mean the interconnected nature of social categorizations and individual characteristics that overlap as interdependent and compounded systems of discrimination. These categorizations and characteristics include, but are not limited to, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, education, language, and disability.

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US Democrats use Ukraine biolab profits for campaign funding – Russia

Democrats in the US have partnered with Big Pharma companies and friendly foundations led by George Soros and Bill Gates to set up biological research in Ukraine, using the project to generate additional funding for elections, the Russian military claimed on Wednesday in its latest briefing. 

“It needs to be said that the ideologues of US military biological research in Ukraine are leaders of the Democratic Party,” said Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Force.

The US government set up a way to fund the military bio-research directly from the federal budget, but also used government guarantees to raise funds from “non-governmental organizations controlled by the leadership of the Democratic Party,” Kirillov added.

As an example of such organizations, he showed a slide with the names of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the [Bill and Hillary] Clinton Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society and investment funds, the Rockefeller Foundation, EcoHealth Alliance, and Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca Partners.

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Police Are Purchasing Armored Tanks For Extremist Protests, Mudslides And Avalanches

During the pandemic, police departments across the country decided that now would be a great time to acquire armored tanks. And the reasons they use to justify those purchases are infuriating.

What started out as a ludicrous reason by police in Juneau, Alaska to justify purchasing a Lenco Armored Vehicle BearCat G3, has turned into a dubious campaign used by police across the country.

Eight days ago, the Juneau Empire reported how city officials thought that if the Juneau Police Department changed the paint color of their armored tank, the public would be more willing to accept it.

“It can’t look like what we see in these pictures here,” Assembly member Christine Woll said. “It’s a small thing, but I think it helps people understand what’s coming toward them in that moment,” Woll said.

After receiving startled reactions from the public, the police department claimed that they needed a tank to protect the public from extremist protests.

“The BearCat is a customizable all-steel armored vehicle that accommodates up to 12 fully-equipped officers, and used by police departments and other agencies for everything from rescues in difficult-to-access remote areas to ‘extremist’ protests where gunfire and other threats are present.”

Using the threat of “extremist” protests as a reason to purchase an armored tank is about as absurd as it gets. Or so I thought.

The Juneau police also claimed to need an armored tank to respond to landslides and avalanches.

“The Juneau Police Department envisions using the BearCat to respond to natural disasters such as landslides and avalanches where road access is impossible for existing vehicles, as well as high-threat situations such as evacuating people from neighborhoods while under gunfire.”

Which excuse is more preposterous? I am not sure, but I think it is probably the first: protecting the public from extremist protests.  A close second, is needing tanks to respond to landslides and avalanches which stretches law enforcement’s credulity to absurd lengths.

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