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.

Artemis II’s titanium toilet cost taxpayers $23M — the 2nd most expensive potty in history

Flushed.

The malfunctioning toilet on board the Artemis II, the second most expensive commode ever built, cost American taxpayers $23 million.

NASA scientists took six years to create two of the 3D-printed titanium thrones, officially named the Upper Waste Management System.

The first model, which cost $11.5 million, was installed on the International Space Station in 2020.

The lavish loo improved upon less hygienic designs of previous spaceships, replacing plastic bags with a suction system that keeps waste stored safely and cleanly.

Despite its pricetag, the urine hose of the Upper Waste Management System malfunctioned after take-off on Tuesday.

The problem was quickly addressed by the astronauts on board.

The moon-destined crapper falls just a little short of being the most expensive toilet system ever constructed.

The Space Shuttle Endeavour’s Waste Collection System, which debuted in 1992, cost roughly $30 million to create and install, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Adjusted for inflation, that would be just under $70 million in 2026.

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Maine Lobsterman Asks the Supreme Court To Strike Down a Rule Allowing the Government To Track His Boat 24/7

In March 2022, a rule was finalized requiring all federally permitted lobster vessels in 10 East Coast states to install GPS tracking. Now one lobsterman is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the regulation.

Last week, Frank Thompson, a fifth-generation Maine lobsterman, filed a petition to the Supreme Court challenging a rule set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). This rule required lobstermen to install a GPS device on their boats, which tracks and sends locations on a minute-by-minute basis to government agencies—even when the boat is being used recreationally. The systems—which are Bluetooth compatible and can collect audio—also record and update the boat’s location every six hours when it is docked or moored. Failing to comply with the rule could lead to fines, forfeiture of fishing licenses, jail time, and even a federal moratorium on lobstering in noncompliant states.

The rule was pitched as a way to save lobstermen time. Rather than using written logs, the GPS device would automatically track their day. It was also proposed to better track and reduce the environmental impact of the industry. However, these fishermen are already ecologically conscious because their livelihood depends on it. The industry has received praise from the state’s fishing commissioner for being a “model of conservation.”

Whatever the motivation, fishermen say the rule violates their constitutional rights. In 2024, Thompson challenged the regulation in federal court, arguing that it violated his Fourth Amendment right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Both the district court and appeals court sided with the government, saying that since lobstering was considered a “closely regulated” industry, it did not enjoy the same constitutional protections from warrantless searches that less-regulated businesses enjoy.

But “digital surveillance without a warrant is unconstitutional—regardless of industry,” says the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a public-interest law firm that is representing Thompson. “The government cannot exclude licensed professions from the Fourth Amendment’s protections and compel lobstermen to submit to government trespass and around-the-clock” federal surveillance.

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Downed U.S. Drone Appears On TikTok Live As Iraqi Children Try To Sell It

As the U.S.-Iran conflict enters its second month, America’s Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, is becoming increasingly visible across the Middle East theater, a sign that the Department of War has learned one critical lesson from both the Iranian drone playbook and the Ukraine-Russia war: cheap drones are the future of warfare.

The latest news on LUCAS comes from an unverifiable TikTok video, amplified on X, which appears to show a downed drone seized by Iraqi children who are reportedly trying to sell it.

If authentic, the footage is another reminder that low-cost drones are proliferating so widely across the region that they will likely spread to other parts of the world.

In a separate video reposted on X, Iranian forces appear to have recovered a LUCAS drone in the Persian Gulf area.

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Trace DNA Found on Shroud of Turin Suggests ‘Unexpected’ Connection to India

Scientists examining DNA contained on the Shroud of Turin were surprised to find evidence indicating that the materials used to make the relic may have originated in India. The fascinating study reportedly involved researchers re-examining samples collected from the controversial artifact in 1978, with the intention of gaining new insights from the genetic information left behind on the pieces. In detailing their analysis of the trace DNA, the scientists revealed that they detected a remarkably diverse array of plants and animals that had their proverbial prints on the relic.

But what particularly intrigued scientists were their findings with regard to the people who came into contact with the shroud. Specifically, the researchers noted that nearly 40 percent of the human DNA found on the relic was from “Indian lineages.” This “unexpected” result, they noted, “is potentially linked to historical interactions associated with importing linen or yarn from regions near the Indus Valley.” Alas, given the complex history of the relic, the scientists were unable to determine its age based on the trace DNA from “centuries of social, cultural, and ecological engagement” with the shroud.

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Rising number of Americans refusing life-saving blood transfusions because they come from vaccinated donors

Health researchers are sounding the alarm after noticing more people refusing life-saving blood transfusions because they come from vaccinated donors. 

In a study out of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 15 patients or families of patients who needed blood transfusions rejected them because they requested blood from donors who were not vaccinated. 

The majority of patients were children or teenagers. 

The refusal led one patient to go into shock, another to develop anemia and others to have their surgeries delayed. 

Now, doctors involved say they fear more Americans, spurred by vaccine-suspicious health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, will follow.  

Over a two-year period, the researchers found requests for non-anonymous – meaning patients can choose specific donors for their transfusion – had increased because the patients specifically wanted blood from unvaccinated individuals. 

The patients had told doctors they wanted unvaccinated blood because they believed it was safer, but their exact safety concerns are unclear. 

Researchers noted that while the total number of these donations was small, the requests caused delayed care and could have contributed to complications of not receiving a timely blood transfusion, which can include organ failure, stroke and death. 

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MUCKRAKER INVESTIGATION: Taxpayer-Funded NGO Caught Busing Non-Citizens to Radical “No Kings” Protests

According to a report by Muckraker, a shocking undercover investigation has revealed that the radical left’s “organic” protest machine, specifically the NGO Make the Road New York (MRNY), is allegedly funneling millions of federal taxpayer dollars to mobilize and bus non-citizens into Manhattan for the “No Kings” demonstrations.

For weeks, the mainstream media has portrayed the “No Kings” demonstrations as a grassroots movement against the Trump administration.

But as usual, they were lying to you. New evidence proves this is a coordinated operation designed to manufacture the appearance of public consensus using people who aren’t even legal citizens of this country.

An explosive report from Muckraker’s Anthony Rubin reveals the inner workings of this shady operation. Undercover footage captured Make the Road New York staff members in Brentwood, Long Island, loading groups of individuals, many of whom were confirmed to be non-citizens, onto buses bound for the massive March 28th protest in Manhattan.

Muckraker wrote on X:

“The NGO Make the Road NY has received millions of dollars from the federal government.

Our undercover investigation reveals that Make the Road New York was responsible for mobilizing and busing non-citizens into Manhattan to join the recent No Kings protest.

We are calling for an immediate investigation into how Make the Road New York is spending taxpayer money.”

Hidden camera footage shows Angel Vera, identified as a Make the Road NY Community Organizer, admitting that the majority of their members are illegal aliens.

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What Exactly Is the Purpose of NATO in the Year 2026?

One month into Operation Epic Fury against the Islamic Republic of Iran, a long-overdue conversation has finally broken into the open: What, exactly, is the enduring rationale for NATO? For decades, this question has been treated in Washington foreign policy circles as heretical. But it isn’t. And to their credit, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are now saying so plainly.

As Trump recently put it, “They haven’t been friends when we needed them. We’ve never asked them for much. … It’s a one-way street.” Rubio has been similarly blunt: “If NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement. … So all that’s going to have to be reexamined.”

They’re spot-on.

At best, America’s European “allies” have spent decades free-riding on the U.S. security umbrella. Despite repeated commitments to meet baseline defense spending targets, many NATO members still under-invest in their militaries and outsource their national defense to American taxpayers. The imbalance is staggering: The United States accounts for the overwhelming majority of NATO’s military capabilities, logistics, and strategic lift. Overall, American taxpayers contribute about 60% of total spending on NATO defense.

At worst, some of these same European allies actively undermine U.S. operations at critical moments. Major Western European countries such as Spain and France have restricted or complicated U.S. use of their airspace during Operation Epic Fury. That is farcical. A so-called alliance in which members obstruct one another’s ability to wage war is not actually an alliance — it is a liability.

This raises the core question: Why, exactly, does NATO exist in the year 2026?

Let’s recall its origins. NATO was founded in 1949 with a clear and urgent mission: to contain and, if necessary, defeat the Soviet Union. That mission was compelling — indeed, existential. Western Europe lay devastated after World War II, and the Soviet threat was real, immediate, and hegemonic.

But that world quite literally no longer exists.

The Soviet Union collapsed three and a half decades ago. The Berlin Wall fell the year I was born. The Cold War is now a relic of history. By any reasonable metric, NATO achieved its raison d’etre by the early 1990s. But instead of declaring victory and recalibrating, the alliance drifted. It expanded ever further into Eastern Europe and shifted its ostensible mission into… well, something.

Simply put, NATO is today an organization in search of a purpose.

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SURPRISE: Justice Jackson Gets NUKED by Fellow Leftist Justice Kagan For Writing This Insane Dissent in Case Regarding Conversion Therapy Ban for LGBTQ Minors

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has become such an embarrassing spectacle on the Supreme Court that even her fellow leftists appear to be tiring of her.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, The US Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 8-1 against Colorado’s conversion therapy ban for LGBTQ minors. Jackson was the lone dissenter.

The lawsuit was filed by Christian talk therapist Kaley Chiles, who argued that Colorado’s ban on her talk therapy methods violated her First Amendment rights.

In an insane 35-page dissent, Jackson essentially said that therapists like Chiles should not have the same free speech rights as other Americans.

“Professional medical speech does not intersect with the marketplace of ideas: ‘In the context of medical practice, we insist upon competence, not debate,’” she wrote. “Treatment standards exist in America.”

“It threatens to impair States’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect,” she added. “It extends the Constitution into uncharted territory in an utterly irrational fashion. And it ultimately risks grave harm to Americans’ health and well-being.”

She also attacked the Court for ‘playing with fire’, which could ‘burn Americans.’

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Trump says workers must pay for imperialist war with cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and daycare

Speaking at a closed Easter lunch at the White House on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump declared that the federal government should stop paying for daycare, Medicare and Medicaid, all of which, he indicated, must be sacrificed for imperialist war.

“Don’t send any money for daycare,” Trump said, because “we’re fighting wars.” He went on, “You gotta let states take care of daycare and they should pay for it too … Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” insisting that Washington had to concern itself with only “one thing, military protection.”

He added that the federal government’s role was to “guard the country,” before dismissing Social Security, which serves more than 70 million people; Medicare, which covers about 68 million; and Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program), which together cover more than 75 million people, including about 36 million children, as “little scams.”

The remarks, delivered in a setting where Trump evidently felt free to speak more openly than usual, were a blunt threat against programs on which millions of workers and their family members depend. Capitalist politicians generally avoid such direct attacks on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security because these programs remain deeply embedded in the lives of working people who have paid into them for decades. Trump, however, stated with unusual candor the real priorities of the ruling class.

The significance of the remarks lies not only in their content but in the circumstances under which they were made. The Easter lunch was closed to the press, and video of the event was briefly posted by the White House and then deleted. In contrast to Trump’s later scripted primetime address on Iran, the lunch exposed a more direct statement of policy: Social spending is to be gutted, while war spending is treated as the only indispensable function of the state.

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Poland: Pedophilia, Bestiality Scandal Hits Tusk’s Party

The Kłodzko scandal could bring down the Civic Coalition (KO). 

This is the view of PiS candidate for prime minister, Przemysław Czarnek, despite the localized nature of the crime.

“This is a group of people who really have a lot on their minds,” the politician says.

A pedophilia and zoophilia scandal in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship has shocked Poland. Przemysław L., 45, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for sexual offenses committed against underage girls, bestiality, and recording these acts on film and in photographs. 

According to Do Rzeczy, his ex-wife, Kamila L., a former Civic Platform activist, was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for failing to provide assistance to her minor daughter from a previous relationship, who was a victim of rape, and for complicity in animal abuse.

Przemysław Czarnek, the PiS candidate for prime minister, commented on the shocking case and its possible political consequences on Telewizja Republika on Wednesday.

“This is a very serious scandal that will, in my opinion, sink the Civic Platform. I spoke about the Civic Platform and their absolutely scandalous behavior three years ago, when there was a debate on the vote of no confidence in me. And I shouted from the parliamentary podium that these people should be feared, because these people from the Civic Platform, the mayors of cities from the Civic Platform, finance associations and organizations with enormous public funds—over a billion złoty a year—that simply deal with dramatic issues,” said the former Minister of Education and Science. 

“I mentioned programs that were simply perverted by their very name,” he added.

As Czarnek pointed out, “this is a community of people who really have a lot going for them, financing these kinds of communities that commit these kinds of shameless, dramatic, criminal, anti-human actions against children, and against animals as well, because we are dealing with zoophilia there as well.”

Politicians from the Civic Coalition also commented on the situation.

“It’s difficult to hold someone accountable; it’s a situation that can happen to anyone. Anyone can have a neighbor like that whom they know nothing about until the police and prosecutors get involved,” one Civic Coalition MP told Wirtualna Polska.

The interviewees emphasize that the case involves a former Civic Coalition (KO) activist and a very low-level figure. The police and prosecutors acted, and the perpetrators were brought to justice, so it’s difficult to speak of the scandal’s political context. “It’s a local issue, perhaps also highlighted by local disputes between the mayor and the Civic Coalition,” notes the Civic Coalition politician.

Word has surfaced that Prime Minister Tusk is offering clarification.

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