Woke up, it was a Conspiracy morning

A 48 year old man man from Portugal, Claudio Neves Valente, who lived in Miami, attended Brown (for a couple semesters, in a doctoral program) 20 years ago, comes to Providence, Rhode Island to kill students? 

Why?

He then, presumably, drives up here to Boston to take out MIT professor of physics and director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Nuno F Gomes Loureiro.

Why? What's his motivation?

By the by:

Fusion is the process that makes the sun burn and Loureiro’s work explored how that power could be bottled on Earth and controlled inside those reactors. If fusion ever becomes a real source of cheap, clean electricity, it will rely on the kind of physics he helped explain. (source) 

Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic program at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal between 1995 and 2000. Did they know each other? Seems likely.

Investigators believe the suspect specifically targeted Loureiro, one law enforcement official told CNN. But they do not currently believe the two people killed at Brown – where the suspect was a student in the early 2000s – were direct targets. (source) 

Franz Marc

So, what was the point, what was the reason for murdering them?

Coincidentally, Prez Pedo’s little “media” company (Trump Media & Technology, AKA Truth Toilet – CEO Devin Nunes and his cow) is now merging with a fusion power company. WHY? What does fusion have to do with social media – specifically his failing social media company?

From what I understand (and I admit it ain’t much), actual sustainable fusion power is decades away BUT this, the merged company, is a way to bilk billions in federal funding from us tax payers. Undoubtedly, federal funding for fusion research will be announced shortly.

Is there a connection between Pedo Prez’s purchase and Loureiro’s murder or is the fusion thing just another coincidence? What was Valente’s deal in all this? Was he your basic unstable, disgruntled, suicidal, loner malcontent? Did he figure he’d take out a few innocents and a former schoolmate (who he, possibly, envied horribly?) before offing himself? What was his incentive?

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Did Krazy Krash's FBI crew of incompetents find the real shooter or was the guy in the storage facility just some random, stand-in corpse?

Was there writing in the bullets? I mean, isn’t that Kash’s signature move?

And what do the murders have to do with Pedo’s $6 billion deal?

But the obstacles to making fusion real are many, and daunting. For one thing, scientists have yet to perfect a way to contain the plasma that fusion reactions create — with temperatures topping more than 100 million degrees Celsius. Scientists have said solving those problems could take decades, even though several developers are vowing to bring a generator online by the early 2030s.

Critics say they are also concerned that hype about fusion will detract from other types of clean energy technologies — including wind and solar power, existing technologies that Trump has sought to cut off from federal support.
~~~
Under the $6 billion deal, TAE and the Trump Media & Technology Group — the parent company of Truth Social — said they are planning to site and begin construction of the world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant. The all-stock merger would create one of the world’s first publicly traded fusion companies and give Trump a major financial stake in its development. (source) 

Follow the money trail. Who stands to gain.

I really truly HATE that I woke up in a conspiracy theory frame of mind but C’MON, look at who’s running the country! EVERY goddamn word out of these fucker’s mouths is a lie or, at the very least, an obfuscation. 

Meanwhile, today is Trump/Epstein File Release Day AND last night I saw a some hopeful bits on Threads. A helicopter flew from the White House to Walter Reed Hospital. Naturally, I settled in for an evening of brill posts, such as:

Welcome to Is He Dead weekend.

Hearing a lot of chatter that Trump is at Walter Reed having his triannual physical and MRI right now. You know… Like everyone does.

Quiet, honey. Daddy’s getting ready for the greatest night on the Internet. Again. *Googles Walter Reed*

On the third day of Christmas 
My true love gave to me 
Three French hens 
Two turtle doves 
And a president in Walter Reed

‘Twas the night before Christmas vacation 
When all through the White House 
A helicopter was stirring 
Carrying a louse En route to Walter Reed 
Through the air up so high 
While a nation held its breath 
Hoping the fucker died 

Lucky

A totally not surprising, in any fucking way, headline:

UnitedHealth reduced hospitalizations for nursing home seniors. Now it faces wrongful death claims

Yes, this is the same UnitedHealthcare which denies 33% of all medical claims. This is the same insurance conglomerate whose monstrously overpaid CEO was under investigation by the DOJ for insider trading when he was shot on a Manhattan street.

UnitedHealthcare has expanded into the nursing home biz. Through their Optum division, nurse practitioners and physician assistants are theoretically deployed when there’s a patient need, a problem, during Monday though Friday, 9-5 hours. Weekends, at night or in the early morning? Just do your very best to avoid having any unfortunate health issues in those off hours and days…k? I mean, you can probably connect to an Optum employee on their “hotline.” Who knows where the call centers are and how long the hold times are though.

Those death claims?

Three nursing home residents died because employees of the American healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group helped delay or deny them critical hospital care, two pending lawsuits and a complaint to state authorities have alleged.

In Georgia, the family of a woman named Cindy Deal filed a lawsuit alleging that the 58-year-old died because Optum and her nursing home failed to hospitalize her for hours after she started foaming at the mouth and appeared to be having a seizure.

In Ohio, the family of a retiree named Mary Grant filed a lawsuit claiming that the 70-year-old died after Optum and Grant’s nursing home failed to send her to the hospital, though she had suffered a traumatic head injury and began vomiting.

In New York, a physician’s assistant named Christopher Bieniek alleged in a complaint to state authorities that a 63-year-old nursing home resident died due to “gross negligence” by an Optum employee. The employee refused to hospitalize the man, despite his kidney failure, according to text messages Bieniek says he shared with state investigators. (source) 

I only mention it but this is wicked personal for yurs disabled truly. Remember my surgery-a-thon years? I had five – count 'em, FIVE big fat neurosurgeries in the space of three years. After one surgery I went from hospital to inpatient rehab and then they had me go to a nursing home for further rehab. Though I’d chosen a well reviewed joint, the place was a complete horror show. From non-functioning call buttons (or aides who simply chose not to respond), beds that couldn’t be adjusted, ignored menus (they brought the food they wanted to bring regardless of what I noted on my menu – forget about me being vegetarian and lactose intolerant) and god forbid anyone remember that I’m deaf and, at the time, in a wheelchair, unable to walk to the can on my own.

The place seemed so utterly incompetent and uncaring that I was sure I wasn’t getting all my meds and, boyhowdy, I take a shitload of ‘em. They include anti-seizure pills. Without these, if I’m ignored, I’m toast. I texted Ten and Jen after a few days and told them I needed to come home. I was afraid that, if I stayed in that house of horrors, I would probably die (and they probably wouldn't notice for at least 24 hours).

I’m very lucky to have Ten, Jen, and Oni at home. VERY lucky. I found out a few months after I got home that a friend of mine had died at this same nursing home. Maybe she would have anyway – her NF2 was far more advanced than mine. I’ll never know.

Under Medicare Advantage, the government pays insurers like UnitedHealthcare a set amount of money based on the expected healthcare needs of each senior enrolled in their insurance plans for long-term nursing home residents. The less insurers spend on residents’ care, the more they have left over in taxpayer funds for potential profit.
~~~
Two of the whistleblowers, both former Optum nurse practitioners, filed declarations with Congress, alleging that company managers improperly pressured them to reduce hospital transfers for nursing home seniors, and to get residents onto medical directives, such as “Do-Not-Resuscitate” orders, that could pre-empt costly emergency room care. The declarations also allege that supervisors pushed them to creatively code patient diagnoses to increase federal payments for the company.

What do these rich, healthy fat cats care if we die? We’re just a drag on the system, right? Forget the fact that our tax buckos have been paying into the system for billions of fucking years now.

So far, I've been lucky. Not everyone is.

Cure for ICE

More of this please.

ICEholes, uninvited, climbed into the car of Rekeya Frazier and Oluwadamilola Bamigboye to “question” them about their immigration status. Bamigboye is in the U.S. from Nigeria on a student visa. Frazier is a U.S. citizen.

The FBI alleges that the HSI agents walked up, showed their badges, and said they wanted to talk with Bamigboye. One agent got into the front seat of the Jeep and tried to stop Frazier from driving off. But she put the SUV in gear and headed for the New Hope Police station.  

“The agent truly believed that he was being abducted,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Behar said at a Tuesday detention hearing, where he asked Magistrate Judge David Schultz to keep the couple in jail while their case proceeds.

The agents walked up and showed their badges…yeah, sure. As if ANYONE is naive enough to believe that piss soaked load of fairy tale nonsense.

Defense attorney Kevin Reich, who represents Bamigboye, said he disputes “about 95 percent” of the government’s narrative. 

Reich said the agents did not display their credentials when they approached the Jeep, and the government’s claim that one agent had to jump out of the way as Frazier drove off is contradicted by surveillance video. 

Bamigboye dialed 911 from the back seat as Frazier was driving and the agent was in the front passenger seat. 

Calling the government’s case “ludicrous,” Reich said his client “may be the first criminal in history to call 911 during the commission of his alleged crime.”

The agent in the front passenger seat said, in a sweet bit of karma, he "feared he was being kidnapped." (insert major fucking eye roll here) He pulled his gun on Frazier but she didn’t stop (and, smartly, he didn’t shoot) – she took that ICEhole to the cop shop. 

A very brave young woman. She is, by the by, the sister of Darnella Frazier, the teen who recorded George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police in 2020. 

Bad news – Bamigboye is now in ICE custody. I’m glad he has a lawyer and that this is already in the news. Maybe this will keep him alive.

In local news, MIT Professor Nuno Loureiro was shot multiple times and killed in his home Monday night. There’s absolutely no other info about it to be had beyond the fact that he was the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and a professor of nuclear science, engineering and physics. Also, he was from Portugal. 

Was this an ICE hit job? Did a neighbor, in his quiet, well-to-do area, just snap about how Nuno set out his weekly recycling? Is there high level academic politics and intrigue involved? Have I been reading too many mystery novels lately?

Why…yes. Yes, I have.

As for the shooting at Brown University in Providence, the search for the killer is starting to look bleak. Authorities are hinting that the window to catch a suspect is closing. The pic of the new person of interest is a white guy. Hard to tell with his winter cap and jacket but he looks like your basic schlub – pasty, overweight, under the hat he’s probably balding. Eh, who knows.

What I’d like to know is – what gives with all the violence and killing? I mean, I get it with the ICEholes. Their lords and masters – Prez Pedo and his faithful Repedocans – are ALL about whipping up their cult of rabid thugs to the old ultraviolence. Like Rome’s emperor and his inner circle at the Colosseum, Pedo and his cabinet of incompetents enjoy nothing more than an afternoon of watching brown and black skinned people being shredded.

Trump is a viral disease.

We tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away.
~ Albert Camus, The Plague 

Hopefully we will be cured of him and his kind before it’s too late.

Stuff

Drew Sheneman

Jesse Duquette

Greg Perry

Science Distractions

Let's talk about metamorphosis and migration. Specifically in monarch butterflies.

Once a caterpillar encases itself in a cocoon, its entire being liquefies – breaks down to molecules. It re-forms into butterfly. It retains the memories of its existence as a caterpillar. WAY cool, eh? Dunno 'bout you but I'm envious.

Monarchs are the only butterfly known to make a two-way migration like birds. They fly as much as 3,000 miles, from as far north as Canada, all the way to Mexico. Who knew – monarch butterflies are Snowbirds!

Here’s the thing though. This isn’t a short trip and they only go, mebbe, 50 or so miles a day. Given that your average adult monarch only lives two to six weeks, that’s, at most 2,100 travel miles. Mind you, that’s non-stop flying – no bathroom breaks, no food stops, no nap time. Realistically, Mindy and Marvin Monarch aren’t going more than 1,000 or so miles before they croak.

What makes the monarch migration so unique is that it requires an inter-generational relay team to complete its annual migration to Mexico.

During the migration north, the monarch flies, mates, lays eggs, and ultimately dies as it passes the baton to the next generation.  It’s up to their children and grandchildren to continue the journey. (source) 

It takes three to four generations to travel back from Mexico to the northern United States and Canada. 

Me? Given how fucked up the U.S. is right now, I’d just stay in Mexico or Canada.

Did you know – sharks have been around longer than trees. Truth! They evolved around 450 million years ago!!! This means they’ve been around the galaxy more times than James T. Kirk…probably.

Just as the Earth rotates around the Sun, the Sun (with all the planets in tow) rotates around the center of the galaxy. We're moving at around 828,000 kilometers (514,500 miles) per hour, at a distance of about 28,000 light-years from the galactic center. We'll save you the trouble of trying to recite the exact figure of Pi from memory and performing your own calculations and reveal that this means we take around 230 million years (estimates put it somewhere between 225 to 250 million Earth years) to complete an orbit around the galactic center of the Milky Way. (source) 

Also, they get to be a lot older than Dick Van Dyke. Look at the average Greenland shark, whose lifespan is estimated to be anywhere between 300 and 500 years old. That’s a fuckton of candles on the birthday cake, mes amis. Better put the fire department on speed dial.

… modeling revealed the average lifespan to be at least 272 years, though the biggest ones were estimated to be nearer to 335 and 392 years old. The team also estimated their age at sexual maturity to be 156 years old, making for a seriously long adolescence. (source) 

I’m feeling some serious sympathy for shark parents right now.

The first trees? The best preserved specimens discovered by by scientists are from 393 million to 372 million years ago. They were found in the Xinjiang province of China. 

Okay, this last one blows my brain – the water in our oceans is older than the sun. HOW can that be?!

What Is the Age of Water?
The age of water on Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, as old as the Solar System itself. It started off in space, forming on tiny dust particles. 

 As the Solar System was being formed, this water went through cycles of turning into gas and then back to ice, eventually becoming part of planets like Earth, as well as asteroids and comets. The fact that we find a special kind of water, known as heavy water, both on Earth and in these space objects, tells us that much of our water came from these early space processes.

Is the Water on Earth Older Than the Sun?
Yes, water on Earth is older than the sun. In 2014, researchers determined the age of our solar system’s water by focusing on its ratio of hydrogen to deuterium, called “heavy hydrogen” because it has an extra neutron. Interstellar ice has a very high ratio of deuterium to hydrogen because it formed in very cold temperatures. Scientists already knew this from looking at the composition of comets and asteroids. (source) 

HOLY FUCK!  Well, I don’t know about all of you but I’ve found my wild rabbit hole for today. Reading about the age of water, trees, the sun, and monarch butterfly migration beats the hell out of reading the news. I’m taking taking today off from that shit.

It's the Guns

By now you’ve head about Saturday’s two mass shootings.  

In the huge terrorist attack at the Chanukah by the Sea celebration on Bondi Beach – Sydney, Australia, at least 12 people are dead (including one of the two gunmen) and 29 people have been sent to area hospitals in serious condition. 

In addition to shooting, apparently these despicable fuckers placed a bunch of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the area too.

Some hero tackled one of the gunmen. He has two bullet wounds, one in his arm and one in his hand, but is alive, recovering, and will likely never have to buy his own pint again – EVER.

MUCH closer to home, down in Providence, Rhode Island (42 miles from Valhalla), at least two people were killed and nine more were wounded. The suspect has NOT been caught.

All that’s known at this point is that it’s a man who may have been in his 30s. He was dressed in black and may have been wearing a camouflage mask. ICE?

In remarks to reporters at the White House, Donald Trump said he’d been “fully briefed” on the situation. 

“What a terrible thing it is. And all we can do right now is to pray for the victims and for those that were very badly hurt it looks like,” he said. “We’ll inform you later as to what’s happening. It’s a shame. It’s a shame. Just pray.”

US attorney general Pam Bondi said on X that the FBI and ATF agents “are on the scene of the tragic shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island. Please pray for all involved.” (source) 

Pedo Prez said he’s been fully briefed? Oh please. He’s probably referring to his latest diaper change. Does he even know where Rhode Island is, let alone Brown University? He’ll inform us later as to what’s happening? Yeah sure. As IF he remembered the shooting five minutes after speaking of it. 

Also, pardon me for feeling absolutely ZERO increased confidence now that I know that the astoundingly incompetent Krazy Kash Patel and Trump’s faithful lapdog, binbrained Attorney General Bondi are on the case. The killer is basically home free at this point.

Anytime a politician, especially a Republican and MOST especially Trump – the embodiment of the seven deadly sins plus a few the devil hadn’t come up with yet – urges the public to pray (versus doing something useful, like voting) after a tragedy, I roll my eyes so hard, I break the sky.

My ties with Providence and Brown? Jen graduated from Rhode Island School of Design (AKA RISD –fellow, earlier, grads include Talking Heads) whose campus is half a mile from Brown. Plus, my father got one of his master's degrees from Brown. We lived in a small apartment near campus. It was 1965 – the year of the Great Northeastern Blackout, the year the Beatles' movie Help came out. I was in second grade at Saint Sebastian’s School. 

The last time I was in Providence was for a Free Leonard Peltier protest/sit-in. That was, probably, 20 years ago.

I was about to post and just rechecked the news. A person "of interest" is in custody, for what that's worth. If Patel has anything to do with it, it's probably some innocent rando who had the misfortune to walk by at just the wrong moment.

Wildlife

Here in Massachusetts, if some fucker cuts down or otherwise damages trees on my, or someone else’s, property, they can be sued for three times the value of the damage under M.G.L. c. 242, § 7. 

Good to know. Over the years we’ve planted quite a few trees. Mind you, our immediate neighbors are decent, reasonable sorts and wouldn’t come hacking at our arboreal babies willy-nilly. 

You never know when a MAGAt will snap though. Those execrable beasties do exist here in blue, blue Massachusetts, just in smaller numbers.

Related, I need (NEED) to pick up The Hidden Life of Trees by German forester Peter Wohlleben. In it he argues that to save the world’s forests we must first recognize that trees are “wonderful beings” with innate adaptability, intelligence, and the capacity to communicate with — and heal — other trees. 

Yeah, I can totally, fer real get behind this.

Have you heard? Orca and dolphins are now teaming up to hunt salmon. Together! How brilliant and crafty are they?

The research, published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, shows interactions between northern resident orcas (also known as killer whales) and Pacific white-sided dolphins are not just chance encounters while foraging.

Extensive documentation, including drone video, acoustic recordings and underwater footage, led scientists working with the University of British Columbia, the Leibniz Institute and the Hakai Institute, to conclude the two species are working as a team.
~~~
Video footage in the research shows the dolphins – which Fortune said act as “scouts” – cutting seamlessly through the glassy waters of the Pacific in pursuit of the salmon, which can reach nearly three feet in length. The orcas follow closely behind.

When the whales catch their prey and break them apart at the surface to share with other orcas, the dolphins scavenged the leftovers. (source) 

How long before the deeply intelligent octopuses and squids join in? Not to hunt salmon mind you but to take back dominion of Mother Earth from us profligate, degenerate, planet poisoning humans.

We really don’t stand a chance against these righteous heroes of the deep. They’re much smarter than us. People will be properly vanquished and we’ll deserve it for all our crimes against this planet.

Elsewhere in the Big Blue...

Humpback whales create nets in order to confuse and trap fish – their din-din. How do they do this? They blow bubbles.

The netting works like this: first, a humpback swims into a cloud of krill. Then, it starts swimming in a circle, blowing bubbles from its blowhole. The bubbles rise, creating a cylindrical shape with walls of air.

The krill avoid the bubbles, becoming trapped inside the net. The humpback keeps blowing bubbles, but in tighter circles.

"The circle is getting smaller and smaller and smaller so it's creating a series of rings inside the net," Szabo says. "They're perfect nested rings within each ring.”

Finally, the humpback lunges upwards, gulping the krill in one big bite. The technique confines the krill into a much smaller space, increasing the density of the prey by about seven times, Szabo says. (source) 

Why just eat when you can create art first?

You see what I’m getting at here don’t you? Humans are destroying the planet and we do NOT play well with others – not even ourselves. Maybe the whales, trees, orcas, octopuses, and all the rest of the beings who are obvs much smarter than humans will rise up and take over? They'll do it with grand style too.

An old broad can dream, eh?

Getting Exorcised

I get Karoline Lievitt and Erika KKKirk mixed up sometimes. They could be the same person – I mean, have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time? For that matter, has anyone ever seen Puppy Killer with these two at the same time? If all three are on stage at one time will we reach hair extension/eye makeup critical mass? What happens then? A catastrophic chemical incident akin to the Love Canal debacle? Killer gas leaks like the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India? Who can say?

Just one of my favorite parts of yesterday’s House Homeland Security hearing was when a protester, dressed as a priest, interrupted the session, yelling “Stop ICE raids! The power of Christ compels you! End deportations, the power of Christ compels you!” 

“The power of Christ compels you!” is a line from The Exorcist. Exorcising Ice Barbie? Appropriate, no?

Next:

Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) : How many veterans have you deported?

Noem: We have not deported US citizens or military veterans

Magaziner: We are now joined on Zoom by a combat veteran you deported to Korea.

Park was taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection agents at an airport in Honolulu and placed on a one-way flight to South Korea in June. Park, a green-card holder and a Purple Heart recipient, self-deported after he was placed on a deportation list. (source)  

We are now joined on Zoom by...absolutely cinematic!

Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez (Ill.) also gave the the Mar-a-Lago faced twat a solid flaying for lying under oath.

"Secretary Noem, you lie, and you lied to the American people. I will be including into the record an article by ProPublica from October 16th, 2025, entitled 'We found that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents,'" Ramirez said. (source) 

Noem insisted they abide by all court orders. Yeah Twatzilla, just like you’ve never deported a veteran or detained U.S. citizens. Ice Barbie’s about as believable as KKKirk and Lievitt.

In other insanity and Cruelty-is-theWhole-Purpose-of-this-Administration:

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is compiling a report on all non-US citizens “employed by or affiliated with” the government agency that will then be shared with other federal agencies, including ICE.
~~~
The VA operates the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system, serving 9 million veterans annually across 170 hospitals and more than 1,000 outpatient clinics. It employs 450,000 workers and enjoys relationships with most major medical schools.

“It is obvious that the VA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are conspiring to illegally intimidate, imprison, and deport individuals who perform duties at the VA in service to our nation’s veterans,” the lawmakers wrote. (source)  

Actual recent pic of Stephen Miller

Donnie Demento may, or may not, throw Embarrassment Barbie under the bus but remember, Stephen Miller’s the ghoul behind the throne. The next Secretary of Homeland Security will be cut from the same cruel, ruthless, Nazi mold. They’ll just be less obviously clownish, more polished about it.

People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky 

Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things
~ Terry Pratchett

All cruelty springs from weakness.
~ Seneca