Bombshell allegations by FBI Special Agent Steve Friend contained in a whistleblower complaint filed late Wednesday with the Department of Justice inspector general reveal a politicized Washington, DC, FBI field office cooking the books to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism, and ­using an "overzealous" January 6 ­investigation to harass conservative Americans and violate their constitutional rights.

Friend, 37, a respected 12-year veteran of the FBI and a SWAT team member, was suspended Monday, stripped of his gun and badge, and escorted out of the FBI field office in Daytona Beach, Fla., after complaining to his supervisors about the violations.

He was declared absent without leave last month for refusing to participate in SWAT raids that he believed violated FBI policy and were a use of excessive force against Jan. 6 ­subjects accused of misdemeanor ­offenses.

Introduction

For background, the Boston school system had for many years grappled with the problem of how to assign students to Boston's public schools that could both let children attend one of the few good schools in the system while also finding one close to their homes. They also wanted to ensure that students from poor neighborhoods had the same chance of attending good schools as those from more affluent neighborhoods. The school system was divided into zones where many students were bused far from home but still attended the lower-quality schools. A newly-appointed 27-member committee tried yet again to find a solution but after months of examination and debate became hopelessly entangled in what were largely irrelevancies, and again could find no solution. But a 24-year-old Chinese student named Peng Shi who was in a Ph.D. program at MIT and who was looking for a thesis topic, attended the meetings, asked a few questions and gave them the obvious solution of eliminating their school zones and applying a different model for selection. After some study, the committee voted overwhelmingly to adopt Shi's model, calling it "a breakthrough moment" for Boston's school system.

According to an NYT article reporting on the event: "That it took a dispassionate outsider with ... no political agenda to formulate the model is a measure of the complexities facing urban school districts today", but that is a baldly dishonest statement. Yes, it took a 'dispassionate outsider with no political agenda' to solve the problem, but the problem was not "a measure of the complexities facing American school districts" but one more indication that (a) creativity, independent thinking, problem-solving and all the other good words do not in fact exist in the US educational system, and (b) adult Americans really are dumber than the average human.

After multiple repeated attempts over many months, the solution was not only not obvious but non-existent, to the 27 adult American "educators" who "lead the world in innovation and critical thinking". But after only 30 minutes the solution was obvious to Shi, a 24-year-old Chinese kid, a rote-learning robot whose educational system taught him only to memorise and not to think, who knew only how to produce high scores but not to apply any knowledge, someone with no creativity and no imagination. (2) (3)

We know all the criticisms. China's children are taught only to memorise and not to think or question. They are rote-learning robots without capacity for original thought. They know only how to produce high scores but not to think. They have no creativity, no imagination, no concept of innovation. The classes are too large; there is no individual attention paid to students. The entire Chinese educational system is corrupt and failing. But this is all nonsense, yet one more foolish myth propagated by the Americans. There has never been any evidence to document such claims which, like so many others, are fabricated solely on an imaginary moral superiority.

Popular conservative political commentator Jordan Peterson has tried to get into Russian President Vladimir Putin's head and predict how Russia's conflict with the West in Ukraine will unfold. Peterson said that if he were the Russian president he would leave the EU without energy supplies in the winter.

"I know what I'd do in his shoes," he said on the Piers Morgan Uncensored show on Thursday. "I'd wait till the first cold snap and shut off the taps."

Peterson was referring to supplies of Russian natural gas to EU nations. He argued that Moscow indirectly warned that a full shutdown would happen when Russian gas giant Gazprom started curtailing deliveries through the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, citing maintenance issues.

The political commentator declined to endorse a notion popular in the West that Putin resembles Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin in his thinking, calling the claim "foolish" and not backed by any actual evidence.

Putin "is a lot more like everybody else than anyone thinks," Peterson argued. He added that "there is a bit of Hitler and Stalin in everyone," before going into an explanation of how accepting government-imposed lies under pressure was part of human nature.

Gays Against Groomers lost their ability to conduct commerce through PayPal, while pedophile-advocacy group Prostasia remains open for business.

A gay rights organization was deplatformed by PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo, only to discover on Thursday that pro-pedophile organization Prostasia continues to be on good business terms with the multinational financial technology company.

Gays Against Groomers, an organization comprised entirely of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and even transgender people, launched in 2022 and has had meteoric success at attracting followers to their cause exposing the harms done to children by some radicals hiding behind the LGBTQ banner. Gays Against Groomers wrote early on Tuesday that PayPal and Venmo had dropped them for "violating" their user agreement.

This story, while HUGE all by itself, is even bigger when considering what else is going on today. First of all, let's start with the story itself. Michael Wayne Martin was arrested with what the Fresno County Sheriff's office called an "astonishing amount of child pornography." According to a May 2021 media relations post to their website,

"Detectives contacted the suspect, Michael Martin, at his home on the 2600 block of E. Andrews Ave. in Fresno. They arrested him after executing a search warrant and finding more than a thousand DVDs containing videos of children being raped. Additionally, detectives seized electronic devices and books containing explicit photos and videos.

Detectives consider this to be one of the largest collections of child pornography they have ever come across in an investigation."

Martin is now 57 and was just sentenced to 180 days in jail, in addition to two years of formal probation and registry as a sex offender under California Law.

Two suitcases full of human body parts were discovered in an apartment in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn on Wednesday by the building's superintendent after neighbors reported a wafting malodorous odor.

According to local news, authorities believe they are the remains of a 22-year-old woman, a resident who had not been seen for several days. A neighbor, Lindsey Vena, said, "This neighborhood is not the best neighborhood, to be honest with you, but this is outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. It makes me scared to even be around here. I'm just sick."

After reports of the fetid smell, security tried to enter the woman's residence but encountered her 23-year-old boyfriend, who purportedly lived at the location on occasion.

Approximately one year ago, I wrote about the Bangladesh mask study - the only randomised control trial of community masking since the start of the pandemic. (The well-known Danish study examined the effect of masking on the wearer; not the effect of community masking on community-level outcomes.)

While the Bangladesh study did find significant differences between the treatment and control arms, I described it as a "missed opportunity". That's because it wasn't an RCT of mask-wearing per se, but rather of mask promotion campaigns. And the latter may influence transmission through mechanisms other than mask-wearing - such as by changing people's behaviour.

Now there's a new critique out claiming the study's original conclusions may be wrong. It's a bit technical - let me explain.

In a typical RCT: 100 patients get the drug, another 100 get a placebo, and you compare how many in each group get sick. But the Bangladesh study had a much more complex design - as shown in the figure below.

A former Kansas teacher will serve up to 30 years in prison after he was found guilty of sexually exploiting 80 children, according to the Department of Justice.

Jeffrey Pierce, a former teacher and coach at Seaman High School in Topeka, Kansas, convinced children to send him sexually explicit photos by pretending to be a female teenager on social media, according to a Department of Justice press release. In addition to 30 years in prison, Pierce must pay $55,100 in special assessments and serve five years of supervised release.

"Pierce, an educator and coach, used deception, manipulation and threats to exploit the most vulnerable victims and those he was entrusted to protect, our children" Special Agent in Charge Charles Dayoub said in a press release. "The investigation into his actions and today's sentencing demonstrate the unwavering dedication of law enforcement to seek justice for our most innocent victims and those who are unable to defend themselves."

A North Dakota man was released from jail this week on a $50,000 bond, despite facing homicide charges after he told investigators that he intentionally ran down a "Republican extremist" teenager over a political argument. Conservative pundits and lawmakers are furious, claiming rhetoric from President Joe Biden spurred the man on.

Shannon Brandt was released from Stutsman County Jail on Tuesday. He has been arrested on Sunday and charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal crash. According to police reports and court documents published by Fox News, the 41-year-old suspect had been drinking at a "street dance" in McHenry, North Dakota, when he got into a "political argument" with 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson.

Brandt said he believed that Ellingson and his friends were "coming to get him," so he struck the teen with his SUV. Brandt claimed that the 18-year-old was "part of a Republican extremist group."

Ellingson died of his injuries in the hospital shortly afterwards, and Brandt was arrested at his home later that evening.

Rostech - the Russian state-owned defense industry giant - has vowed to enhance its production capabilities to keep up with the growing demand for military hardware amid the partial mobilization, the corporation announced on Wednesday. Certain management decisions have already been taken, it added.

"Today, many Rostech enterprises have already introduced special operating conditions: The employees are working overtime and often on weekends as well," Rostech said in a statement, adding that it would "further increase its production capacities to meet the goals" set by Moscow. The corporation also expressed its hope that "its contribution to the common cause would help Russia prevail and come out as a victor."

The statement came as Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded the defense industry speed up their work under the state defense procurement and acquisition program. Rostech is responsible for 40% of all defense acquisition contracts, the corporation said. The defense industry giant produces warplanes, artillery systems, high-precision weapons, communication devices and radio electronic warfare systems among others.