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.

International Atomic Energy Agency Digs TONS of Nuclear Material Buried in Clandestine Site in Syria! al-Sharaa Regime Reverses Plan and REFUSES To Hand Over the Findings

A former al-Qaida terrorist is now sitting on a treasure trove of nuclear material that can be weaponized.

A United Nations team has excavated a ‘previously undisclosed site’ in Syria and found several tons of nuclear material from the days of the Bashar al-Assad rule.

The agreed plan was for the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove the material from Syria – but that’s not what’s going to happen, anymore.

Syria is now holding the nuclear material, and refuses the handover, saying ‘it will remain under IAEA safeguards for peaceful civilian use’.

The Telegraph reported:

“Rafael Grossi, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Tuesday that ‘tons of nuclear materials that could be put to bad use’ had been found at the site, dating from the time of Syria’s authoritarian Assad government.

‘After your courageous decision to inform us that there was another place, another site where nuclear material had been stored, we were able to access this place’, Mr. Grossi said during a press conference with Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria’s foreign minister, in Damascus. ‘We are talking about a few tons of nuclear material that could be put to bad use’.

The IAEA had previously said it was preparing to remove the nuclear material, left over from the era of dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown by a coalition of rebels in 2024. They now form the Syrian government.

However, Mr. Shaibani said the nuclear material was not dangerous and would remain in Syrian custody, subject to IAEA guarantees, adding that Syria had the right to use it for civil and ⁠peaceful purposes.”

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Rubio Announces Sanctions Against International Criminal Court President & Top Lawyer

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday new sanctions against International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane and Senior Trial Lawyer Abdoulaye Seye as tensions flare between the court and the Trump administration.

“These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction,” his statement said.

The ICC, he added, has attempted to “assert authority over” over U.S. citizens and nationals of other nations that have not consented to the Rome Statute that set up the court.

The United States is not a party to the ICC.

“Our whole of government campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to national sovereignty will be sweeping and we expect more countries to join our campaign by ending their funding and participation in this politicized and unaccountable court,” Rubio said, suggesting that “additional measures” may be taken against the Hague, Netherlands-based body.

As Jack Phillips reports for The Epoch Times, the sanctions against Akane and Seye were issued ​under a Trump executive order last year authorizing sanctions against the court, according to Rubio.

In July, Rubio said that the Trump administration would seek to dismantle the ICC by using visa revocations, sanctions, the targeting of individuals, and diplomatic pressure on countries to withdraw from the body.

“The American people never agreed to any of this, and they never will,” Rubio said last month.

“Read the words of our Declaration of Independence. We fought a revolution against a foreign power, transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses. Independence is our birthright. We will never let foreign bureaucrats take that away from us.”

The court, which was established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute, has been adopted by more than 120 countries. Countries that do not recognize the court’s authority include the United States, China, Russia, Israel, India, Saudi Arabia, and more.

However, the ICC has argued that the Rome Statute ​gives the court power to prosecute war crimes committed on the territory of member states by nationals of non-member states.

The Trump administration imposed targeted sanctions last year on several ICC officials such as prosecutors and judges, citing the ICC’s 2024 decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime ​Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over what the court alleged were improper actions carried out by the Israeli government during its war in Gaza.

Earlier this year, three sitting ICC judges sued Trump and his administration over the sanctions, arguing that they were unlawful.

And earlier this month, multiple human rights groups sued the administration over the sanctions, describing the actions and Trump administration order as unconstitutional.

“The plaintiffs are seeking an end to this sanctions regime, which transgresses the president’s authority and violates international and U.S. law, including the rights to freedom of expression and religion,” said lead counsel Andrew Loewenstein in a statement carried by Human Rights Watch, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The ICC did not immediately respond to an Epoch Times request for comment.

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Police: NJ High School Athletic Director Identified as ‘Peeping Tom’ Who Targeted Young Girl

A high school athletic director in New Jersey has been accused of peeping into a young female neighbor’s bedroom window in the dark of night.

The suspect was identified as Winfield “Trip” Becker, who is the athletic director at Hopewell Valley Regional School District in Mercer County, ABC 6 reported Tuesday.

He was accused in an August 6 incident in Plumstead Township, Pennsylvania, after the girl’s family installed a camera to catch a person who allegedly kept knocking on her window and fleeing the scene.

School officials placed Becker on leave and prohibited him from entering school property during the investigation. Authorities charged him with loitering, prowling at night, and summary harassment, Central Bucks Now reported Saturday.

“Plumstead Township Police said officers were dispatched at about 10:41 p.m. Aug. 6, 2026 to a home on Split Log Drive for a report of an adult man looking through a bedroom window,” the outlet said. “The homeowner’s surveillance system allegedly captured the incident. Police identified Becker as a Cabin Run resident and a neighbor known to the complainant.”

Superintendent Rosetta Treece notified students’ families of the situation on Friday, noting that the case did not involve any students in her district.

“In keeping with Board of Education policy, the employee will be on a leave of absence and will not be permitted on school property pending the outcome of the investigation,” Treece added. “The employee is also entitled to a presumption of innocence pending final resolution of the charges.”

A similar instance happened recently in Alexandria, Virginia, when a man was accused of repeatedly looking through a woman’s bedroom window. The woman caught the suspect on camera and he was arrested and charged, according to ABC 7.

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Comcast Turns Millions Of Routers Into Motion Sensors – The Same WiFi Signals Can ID You With 99.5% Accuracy

Dear Comcast customers: The internet gateway in your living room is now a motion sensor. It’s free of charge, and the data can go to law enforcement without further notice. What’s more, researchers have already shown that these same signals can identify exactly who is in the room.

On Tuesday, Comcast unveiled Xfinity Shield, a home security platform built entirely around the WiFi network. Its centerpiece, WiFi Motion, turns the leased gateway into a motion detector at no extra charge. According to Comcast, a typical customer has roughly 36 devices connected to their WiFi.

WiFi Motion works because a human body moving through a room disturbs the signal field between the gateway and stationary connected devices, like a printer or a game console. While the feature is opt-in and – according to Comcast’s rollout materials – does not track phones or reach through WiFi extenders, those limitations are choices Comcast made in software, not limitations of the technology itself.

Comcast says WiFi Motion works “without recording video, capturing images or identifying individuals.”

The company is not shy about identification as a product. The $15-a-month tier, Xfinity Shield Select, adds AI-powered cameras that identify people, pets, packages and vehicles. The free tier’s restraint is a line drawn one product SKU away.

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Robot Reportedly Runs Faster Than Usain Bolt, Jumps Higher Than Any Human Athlete

It’s the fast-approaching dawning of the robot era.

We live in a race to produce the stronger, faster, and more useful robots on the planet – and the Chinese seem to have gathered some pace.

Robot firm Unitree has unveiled a ‘super-humanoid’ that – they are claiming – is faster than Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest sprinter.

The droid also performs other athletic tasks.

The New York Post reported:

“They unveiled the abilities of the cybernetic specimen, dubbed ‘Superman’, in an X video with nearly 950,000 views.

According to Unitree, the robot was developed in just three months but can already high jump 2 meters (6.56 feet) and achieve a top speed of 12.66 m/s (28.3 mph), allegedly eclipsing ‘the records of all humans around the world’.”

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Battle Over Ten Commandments Arrives At Supreme Court

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 17 to review a federal appeals court decision that upheld a Texas law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit cleared the way in April for the Texas law to take effect.

The state law known as Senate Bill 10, or SB 10, requires that public elementary and secondary schools conspicuously display in classrooms an easily readable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments with no additional commentary.

The Fifth Circuit’s 9–8 ruling in Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District raised questions about freedom of religion and how the Supreme Court had ruled on these issues in the past. If the justices agree to hear the case, their potentially landmark ruling could change the legal landscape for how governments deal with religion.

The Fifth Circuit said that the law complied with the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

The Texas law “looks nothing like a historical religious establishment,” because it does not tell houses of worship what to believe, how to worship, or whom to employ, the appeals court said. It does not punish people who reject the Ten Commandments, impose taxes to support the clergy, or require churches to carry out civic functions, the court said.

“These are the kinds of things ‘establishments of religion’ did at the founding. [The Texas law] does none of them,” it said.

The Fifth Circuit also held that a 1980 precedent, Stone v. Graham, which struck down a nearly identical classroom display law, is no longer binding.

The circuit court ruling upholding the Texas statute came after a federal district court preliminarily blocked it, finding the law likely violates both the Constitution’s establishment clause, which forbids the government from favoring one religion over another, and the free exercise clause, which prohibits the government from infringing on worship and other activities. The district judge also found the displays would coerce students and interfere with parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing.

The challenge in the district court was brought by a group of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Baha’i, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families. The families argue in the petition that the Texas law violates the Constitution by forcing religion on students, and that the Fifth Circuit misinterpreted Supreme Court precedent.

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Polling Firm Showing Karen Bass, Francesca Hong in Lead Admits Fake Polls: ‘Short-Term Social Experiment’

A fake polling firm projecting Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Wisconsin Democrat socialist gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong with leads over their opponents admits these were fake polls as part of a “short-term social experiment.”

In a statement posted to the website for Median Strategies, the fake polling firm explained it “has concluded its polling project and will not publish additional polls.”

The statement from Median Strategies goes on to say, “All previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data.”

“Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification,” the statement continued.

The statement from Median Strategies comes as the firm released a fake poll which showed Karen Bass with a 12-point lead over her opponent Nithya Raman prior to the Los Angeles mayoral runoff race in November, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Median Strategies explained that the “results were based on a survey of 560 Los Angeles voters between July 30 and Aug. 5. It said it had a 4.1 percent margin of error,” according to the outlet.

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Maryland Court Strikes Down Nation’s First State Tax On Digital Advertising

A state tax court in Maryland invalidated the nation’s first state tax on digital advertising and directed state officials to refund tax payments already collected from major tech companies.

The legal dispute had been closely watched by other states that are considering taxing online advertisements.

The Annapolis-based Maryland Tax Court ruled on Aug. 14 that the digital advertising gross revenues tax was unconstitutional after it was challenged in three separate lawsuits by Google, Apple, and Peacock TV. Refunds are expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The state imposes the levies based on the businesses’ global revenue. Lawmakers previously said the tax could raise $250 million per year. The money raised from the tax was earmarked for a state education program.

The 2021 tax statute specifically targets the revenue large companies earn from digital advertisements shown in Maryland. Companies that take in more than $100 million in annual global gross revenue were taxed at 2.5 percent.

A sliding scale applies to companies with larger revenues, maxing out at 10 percent for those earning more than $15 billion in global gross annual revenues.

The law’s backers argued that Maryland needed to overhaul its tax system to deal with major changes in how businesses advertise. Lawyers representing the affected companies said their clients were targeted unfairly.

The state court said the tax runs afoul of the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, the First Amendment, and the due process and commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The court held that regulating interstate commerce was the business of Congress – not the Maryland General Assembly – and that it was inappropriate that the tax law was premised on global revenue rather than revenue that comes from in-state advertising.

The Internet Tax Freedom Act forbids taxation of electronic commerce if similar services are not taxed. The court held that there is no meaningful distinction between digital advertising and print or billboard ads, meaning the federal bar applies.

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‘UK Has Fallen’: Sen. Cruz Mourns Britain Criminalizing Public For Memes

U.S. Republican Senator Ted Cruz has lamented the loss of liberty in the United Kingdom after a former police officer was convicted of a crime for merely reposting a meme mocking Islam.

The Newton Aycliffe magistrates’ court found retired police officer Stephen Gray guilty this month of violating Section 127(1)(a) of the Communications Act 2003 over a supposedly “grossly offensive” image he shared on his Facebook account.

The meme, which was flagged to the Durham Constabulary by a non-Muslim neighbour, portrayed a man wearing a turban next to a rasher of bacon with the caption: “Fun facts about Bacon! People who eat bacon have a lower chance of marrying a 9-year-old!”

While Gray acknowledged that some may have found the meme in bad taste, he said he was shocked that it would result in a criminal conviction and a £1,000 fine.

Responding to a report on the case by Breitbart London, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) remarked: “No meme is criminal. The UK has fallen.”

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Women Flee Spain’s Ceuta After Civil Guard Confirms 15 Rapes — Socialist Government Stays On Vacation As Enclave Implodes

Spain’s socialist government is on vacation while Ceuta dissolves. Nearly two weeks after some 70,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into a city of roughly 84,000 residents, the Civil Guard has confirmed at least 15 rapes — including the alleged assault of a 10-year-old girl by three migrant brothers. Ceuta’s beaches, parks, and public spaces are now unrecognizable.

Women are leaving. Families are sending children to mainland Spain. One Ceuta mother broke down on live television: “My 16-year-old daughter has to go everywhere with her father or with me because the migrants devour her. I can’t take it anymore. I want them all gone.”

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez remained on vacation as the crisis peaked. The ruling Socialist party maintains the mass crossings are a humanitarian situation requiring management — not a security crisis demanding a response.

Residents describe a city transformed beyond recognition in three weeks. Beaches like Trampolín — once packed with local families — are now carpeted in makeshift shacks, garbage, and human waste. Children’s parks across the enclave have been fouled. A Ceuta resident told reporters: “We can’t take our kids to the beach. They are occupied. Full of shacks, people throwing food, full of clothes, feces, urine.”

Hospitals are overwhelmed. Reception centers hit capacity within days of the initial crossing. The Interior Ministry registered 2,168 unaccompanied minors in Ceuta; child-specific facilities existed for only a fraction of them. EU law requires unaccompanied minors be transported to the Spanish mainland — a directive now straining Spain’s broader social welfare system.

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