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.

Mystery as multi-millionaire Russian gas executive is found hanged and his wife and daughter, 18, hacked to death in their Spanish villa days after ex Gazprombank official and his family were discovered dead in Moscow flat

Spanish officials are investigating the mysterious deaths of a Russian gas executive, who was found hanged outside his Spanish villa, and his wife and daughter who were both discovered hacked to death inside the property.

Investigators are said to be working on the assumption that Sergey Protosenya, 55, killed the two women with an axe and knife, before taking his own life in the courtyard of his Lloret de Mar villa on Spain‘s Costa Brava.

However, local reports said evidence does not conclusively point towards this explanation, as no suicide note was found in the property and it appeared steps had been taken to ensure there were no fingerprints on the murder weapons.

The investigation remains open, officials have said.

The bodies of the trio were found on Tuesday, just one day after another Russian multimillionaire was found dead with his wife and daughter in their Moscow apartment, in another apparent murder suicide involving a gun.

Alongside the body of multimillionaire Vladislav Avayev, 51, was his wife Yelena, 47, and younger daughter Maria, 13. The bodies – all with gunshot wounds – were found by the couple’s distraught adult daughter Anastasia on Monday.

In both cases, the men had connections to Russian gas companies – many of which have faced western sanctions since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.

Protosenya, who had a fortune of over £330 million, was Deputy Chairman on the Board of Directors for natural gas company Novatek for seven years.

Avayev was previously a vice president at Gazprombank – a bank that was created to work for Russian gas giant Gazprom – and had also been a Kremlin official.

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Multiple Large Food Processing & Distribution Plants in US Have Recently Exploded or Burned Down

As food uncertainly lingers on the horizon thanks to US sanctions and government decimation of the economy during the past two years, there is another factor contributing to the problem. Since the beginning of the year, there have been several very large food processing facilities that have exploded or burned to the ground across the U.S.

This week, a vegetable and nut processing facility in Dufur, Oregon became engulfed in flames for unknown reasons.

“Lights flickered; They heard a pop and went up there to check it out and there was a fire,” according to a report made to Wasco County 911 records listed in the Wasco County Sheriff’s log.

The independent distributor of natural, organic and non-GMO foods which employees around 150 people burned to the ground.

One week before that fire in Oregon, a massive fire brought down a meat processing plant in Conway, New Hampshire. After burning for 16 hours, multiple fire crews finally put out the fire at East Conway Beef and Pork but the facility is completely destroyed.

That same week, in Salinas, California, a massive fire at the Taylor Farms Processing Facility led to the evacuation of residents as it burned for over 17 hours. Taylor Farms is a major agriculture company that processes and delivers many of the salad kits seen in grocery stores. The cause of this fire is currently under investigation.

Just weeks before that, a massive fire engulfed a Walmart distribution center in Plainfield, Indiana where over 1,000 employees shipped food and other supplies all over the region. The fire destroyed the massive 1 million square foot operation.

That same week, one of the largest food facilities of its kind in South Texas caught fire and burned to the ground. Prior to burning down, the Rio Fresh facility in San Juan, Texas, grew, packed and shipped a variety of Texas-grown items including Texas 1015 sweet onions, melons, greens, cabbage, and kale. The cause of the fire is currently unknown.

In Hermiston, Oregon, in February, a massive food processing facility suddenly exploded, injuring 7 of the nearly 400 employees who work at the Shearer’s Foods plant. According to reports, the cause of the explosion which originated near a boiler is still under investigation.

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An American journalist goes missing in Ukraine. The silence is deafening

My personal journey into the drama-infused existence of Gonzalo Lira began in mid-February 2022, when I appeared as part of a panel discussion organized by Joe Lauria of Consortium News (CN), which included the British writer Alexander Mercouris. 

It was just prior to the Russian “special military operation” kicking off in Ukraine. Alexander and I subsequently appeared on several CN-hosted panels to discuss the war in Ukraine, and in conversations following the broadcast he mentioned a fellow he called “Gonzo Lira” and asked if I followed him. I indicated that I did not, and Alexander replied that I should, as “Gonzo” resided in Kharkov, and had some first-hand insights into the conflict that I might find interesting. Alexander asked if he could forward my contact information to Gonzo Lira, and I agreed.

I must admit that I did not follow up on Alexander’s recommendation to follow Gonzo and had forgotten about our conversation about Mr. Lira when, sometime in late March, I was suddenly contacted by the man himself, who asked if I would agree to be interviewed by him for his YouTube channel. I did a quick Google search, and read several items about Gonzalo Lira, AKA Coach Red Pill, including a particularly unflattering article written by Mark Hay of The Daily Beast. I quickly decided that if Gonzo was making The Daily Beast uncomfortable, then I was more than happy to be interviewed by him.

The setup for the interview, which took place on March 30, was informative in its own right. Alexander’s colleague Alex Christoforou was providing technical assistance, and because of connectivity issues due to Gonzalo broadcasting from Kharkov (literally a war zone), the YouTube platform could not be accessed, and instead we shifted to Twitter Spaces (a somewhat ironic choice, given my later permanent suspension).

But the most interesting aspect of the pre-interview technical discussions was a to-and-fro between Gonzalo and Mr. Christoforou about Mr. Lira’s safety. Beyond the obvious reality of broadcasting from a city under attack (air-raid sirens were sounding in the background during this time), Gonzalo expressed a clear concern that he was being sought out by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). I opined that perhaps broadcasting from Kharkov might not be the wisest decision under these circumstances, a concern echoed by Mr. Christoforou, but this was dismissed by Gonzalo. “I’m taking precautions,” he said, without further elaboration.

The Twitter Spaces session was enjoyable, with Gonzalo asking relevant questions and, in the true spirit of the journalist/interviewer, allowed me to answer without any undue commentary from his end – something so-called “professional” journalists in the mainstream media should do more often. According to Mr. Lira, it was “well received” by his followers.

Gonzo reached out to me again, on April 11, for a follow-up interview on his YouTube channel. This time, Mr. Christoforou was successful in surmounting the technical challenges surrounding Mr. Lira’s geographical realities, and the interview went off without a hitch. When we finished, Gonzo thanked me, and in the subsequent conversation, he relayed his concerns that the authorities in Kiev were not only displeased with what he had to say but were actively looking for him.

Gonzo’s pinned Tweet from March 26, in which he listed the names of eight Ukrainian politicians, journalists, dissidents, and human rights figures who had either been killed, arrested, or gone missing since the war with Russia had broken out, jumped out at me. The idea of having just completed a live-streamed interview lasting more some 77 minutes at a time when the Ukrainian SBU, which undoubtedly possesses considerable cyber skills sufficient to geolocate a lengthy online presence such as the YouTube broadcast we had just finished, bothered me – especially in light of Gonzo’s own self-expressed concerns, and I said as much.

Gonzalo Lira was fatalistic about his future. “I know the risks,” he said. “And I take precautions.”

Gonzo’s last tweet was posted on his account (@realGonzaloLira, 54,400 followers) at 7.07am on April 15, 2022. “New Patrick Lancaster,” he wrote, referring to a US Navy veteran-turned war correspondent who has been actively reporting from the frontlines in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. “Must watch.”

“Only the guilty fear judgement,” Gonzo had written in his Twitter bio. “Only liars need stifle the truth.”

Gonzo posted Mr. Lancaster’s report on his Telegram account (over 89,000 subscribers) at 7.16am. The post has more than 130,000 views at the time of writing.

“Here I talk about whatever’s on my mind,” Gonzalo noted in his Telegram introduction. “Unvaxed – and if that makes you angry and makes you hope that I die soon, I want you to know that I have no such wish for you.”

No soldier believes that he or she will be shot until the bullet strikes home. And no political dissident or free speech advocate believes he or she will be silenced until the knock comes at their door.

I received a telephone call on Sunday, April 17 from a producer for George Galloway’s The Mother of all Talk Shows (MOAT). Gonzalo Lira was scheduled to appear as a guest, and he had gone missing. George wanted to know if I had heard from Gonzalo. Sadly, I had not.

On the same day, Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy, writing for The Grayzone, published an article titled “‘One less traitor’: Zelensky oversees campaign of assassination, kidnapping and torture of political opposition” which, in light of Gonzalo’s disappearance, was not only timely but deeply disturbing.

Citing war-time necessity, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared martial law and banned all real opposition parties (the neo-Nazi parties and organizations, however, remained untouched.) “The activities of those politicians aimed at division or collusion will not succeed, but will receive a harsh response,” Zelensky stated.

“As he wiped out his opposition,” Blumenthal and Krishnaswamy wrote, “Zelensky ordered an unprecedented domestic propaganda initiative to nationalize all television news broadcasting and combine all channels into a single 24-hour channel called ‘United News’ to ‘tell the truth about war.’”

The order directing this action was signed on March 18, 2022.

Zelensky, The Greyzone authors noted, had ominously warned that “there would be consequences for collaborators.”

And now Gonzo Lira had gone missing.

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Justice Sotomayor: People Who Know FBI Crime Stats Must Be Banned From Capital Case Juries

Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent on Monday arguing that anyone who is familiar with FBI crime stats must be banned from Capital case juries for “racial bias.”

She was backed in her dissent by Justice Kagan and retiring Justice Breyer.

Steve Sailor posted highlights from Sotomayor’s dissent as shared by the Supreme Court:

Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 1
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
KRISTOPHER LOVE v. TEXAS
ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS
No. 21–5050. Decided April 18, 2022
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and
JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting from the denial of summary vacatur.

[…] The seating of a racially biased juror, therefore, can never be harmless. As with other forms of disqualifying bias, if even one racially biased juror is empaneled and the death penalty is imposed, “the State is disentitled to execute the sentence,” Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U. S. 719, 729 (1992).

In this case, petitioner Kristopher Love, a Black man, claims that one of the jurors in his capital trial was racially biased because the juror asserted during jury selection that “[n]on-white” races were statistically more violent than the white race. […]

“You’ll notice that Justice Sotomayor capitalizes ‘black’ but uses lower case for ‘white,’ which proves she’s not racially biased,” Sailor commented.

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Another Moderna booster trial, another death

Participants in Moderna’s clinical trials for its mRNA booster Covid shots keep dying.

And Moderna keeps obscuring their deaths.

Last week, Moderna disclosed a death in its newest booster trial in a single chart on page 49 of a 53-page report, while elsewhere in the report inaccurately claiming the trial had “no fatal events.”

Today, a reader pointed out another death in an earlier Moderna booster trial, this one from cardiac arrest in a 72-year-old man. The victim had received his third or “booster” dose nine days before.

The death appears to have occurred in August 2021, at least six weeks before the Food and Drug Administration held a hearing in October to discuss authorizing a Moderna booster at a dose lower than the one used in the August trial.

But the death was not mentioned at the hearing.

Instead, Moderna quietly disclosed the death last month in a report on the trial it published on a “preprint” server. Almost no one appears to have seen the report. The full-text version of the report, where a description of the death can be found, had been viewed online fewer than 70 times as of this morning.

The report also discloses a stroke suffered by another participant in the trial.

Of note, both victims were men in their early seventies, although only about 50 of the trial’s 305 participants were men over 65. The stroke occurred only four days after the booster mRNA dose.

The company said that its investigators believed the booster had caused the stroke but not the cardiac arrest; it did not offer details as to how they had reached that conclusion. No outside investigators appear to have reviewed either case.

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Obama is expected to call for more internet censorship in Stanford speech

President Barack Obama is today attending Stanford University to give a speech about censoring “misinformation” online. He has delivered such speeches multiple times over the past year.

According to The Chicago Tribune, Obama “is expected to add his voice to demands for rules to rein in the flood of lies polluting public discourse.”

“In private meetings and public appearances over the last year, the former president has waded deeply into the public fray over misinformation and disinformation, warning that the scourge of falsehoods online has eroded the foundations of democracy at home and abroad,” the New York Times said.

Recently, Obama talked about censorship at an event organized by the Atlantic and the University of Chicago. He said social media companies should censor what is not good for society.

“I think it is reasonable for us as a society to have a debate and then put in place a combination of regulatory measures and industry norms that leave intact the opportunity for these platforms to make money,” Obama said. “But say to them that there’s certain practices you engage in that we don’t think are good for society.”

In a tweet Tuesday, Obama promoted censorship, arguing misinformation is a threat to democracy.

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‘I know this sounds crazy’: NBC medical expert says carry extra masks on planes, coerce your neighbors to wear them

Physician Dr. Kavita Patel, an NBC News medical contributor, says that you should bring extra face masks with you when flying and essentially demand that the people sitting next to you on the plane wear them.

During a recent interview on MSNBC, Dr. Patel advised airplane passengers to self-enforce the travel mask mandate that a federal judge vacated this week.

Admittedly, Patel said her idea sounded “crazy.”

“If people want to stay safe, the best thing they can do — high quality mask. And that when possible carry some extra masks,” she said.

“I know this sounds crazy, but if you tell someone next to you on a plane — N95 mask or surgical mask and just say, ‘I’ve got an elderly mother at home. I’ve got a child with cancer at home, please do me a favor.’ Having the people at least closest to you in that row protecting yourself and them can be the best safety,” she continued.

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Federal government spent $22M studying invisibility cloaks, anti-gravity, and moon tunnel

The federal government has spent years investing millions into funding research projects straight out of a sci-fi movie.

The projects dating back to 2009 include those focused on invisibility cloaking, traversable wormholes, negative energy, anti-gravity, high-frequency gravitational wave communications, and a proposal to tunnel a hole through the moon. Research into the projects was done to assess the military and defense capabilities of the new technologies.

The Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program, through the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, received $10 million in the 2008 Defense Supplemental Appropriation Act and $12 million from the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act for the research, according to documents obtained by Vice‘s Motherboard.

“None of these technologies ever seem to have gotten remotely close to being a reality, as far as we know,” the outlet claimed Tuesday.

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Mystery surrounds Chinese jet crash a month after all 132 people were killed as report reveals NO faults in the plane, NO suspicions about the crew and NO sign of bad weather

One month after a China Eastern passenger jet crashed mid-flight, killing all 132 people on board, investigators say they have not determined a cause.

A report issued Wednesday by the Civil Aviation Administration of China said no abnormalities had been found in the plane, its crew or external elements such as bad weather.

The report said investigators are still attempting to extract data from the heavily damaged black box flight data and voice recorders that might offer insight into the plane’s condition and the crew’s actions in the final minutes of the flight.

The US National Transportation Safety Board is helping download information from the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.

Both black boxes are being analyzed by US experts at a government lab in Washington, DC.

The China Eastern Boeing 737-800 went into a sudden nosedive, appeared to briefly recover, and then slammed into the ground in a mountainous area on March 21.

The crew made no report of problems before losing contact with air traffic control.

The crash left a 65-foot-deep crater in a mountainside, shattered the plane and set off a fire in the surrounding forest.

More than 49,000 pieces of plane debris were found. It took two days to find the cockpit voice recorder and six days for the flight data recorder, which was buried 5 feet underground.

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