Politicians who fanned these flames should hang their heads in shame.
Time and again we've seen this story play out. Single incidents used to fuel a far right narrative - and communities across the nation paying the price.
Each of these countries receive millions of dollars in “democracy promotion programs” from the National Endowment for Democracy, International Republican Institute, and National Democratic Institute.
In Bolivia, USAID was expelled in 2013 by the left-wing President Evo Morales.
The idea that the U.S. isn’t still dumping money into these countries to control their political systems, or that USAID was funding left-wing anti-imperialist candidates, is comically stupid.
This post just goes to show how geopolitically illiterate most American Conservatives really are.
Another activist found dead in her home, with marks on her neck, after leading a fight against mining companies and corrupt politicians amid the Ecuadorian state illegally expanding mining activity. Earlier this year, Ecuadorian water defender, Manuel Cabrera, was also murdered after refusing to give up the land he’s worked for years to mining corporations. Both activists received several death threats prior to passing and filed multiple complaints that went ignored because the state was hostile to their activism. Just last month, the vocal older sister of one of the four Black boys that the Ecuadorian state kidnapped, murdered and burned to ashes, was shot and killed. A few weeks later, family and neighbors from her community reported that military and government officials were stalking them and knocking on doors asking for the addresses of the 4 boys’ families in what appears to be an act of intimidation. All the while, Marxist organizers like Omar Campoverde are being starved and sexually tortured in Ecuador’s prisons. Whether it be by neglect, forced starvation, execution-style shoot outs, the U.S.-backed dictatorship that rules Ecuador by martial law and pentagon bombs is responsible and at fault.
TLDR: if anyone deserves credit for “saving Peru from the Shining Path”, it’s not Fujimori, but the anonymous Rondero - Indigenous self-defence fighter - using hunting rifles and slingshots to liberate their towns. The same Ronderos who are now demonised by Fujimori supporters
Just a reminder: You may notice gas prices inching down a bit. They’re now increasing the level of ethanol they put into our gasoline from 10% to 15%. Started May 1. This is really bad for our cars and will cause damage to our car’s fuel system due to corrosion.
🚨BREAKING: Israel has closed all crossings into Gaza and halted the entry of humanitarian aid following Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel, cutting off supplies to roughly 2 million Palestinians in the territory.
Israel has imposed similar blanket closures during previous periods of regional escalation, including immediately after the outbreak of war in late February, collectively punishing Gaza’s civilian population.
a critical moment for us media. this is exactly what happened in turkey with erdogans initial rise to power. regime loyalists bought up all the private media outlets.
> be Zuckerberg
> needs AI everywhere (apparently)
> lays off a bunch of employees
> replaces with AI
> fast forward
> AI is dog shit
> AI tricked into stealing accounts
> try to fix
> fail like 5 times
> product now leaking CEOs PII
AI truly is the future, wow
Breaking🚨: Israel has just killed Mohannad Farawna on his wedding day after striking his house in central Khan Younis an hour ago, reports @Bisan_Shrafi from Gaza.
Here’s Mohannad’s wedding invitation for today. Invitees will instead attend his funeral.
@AttackOnChitin person i know brought up how "da joos" or whatever was responsible for these and the whole time i couldn't help but think about how these predates every possible scapegoat for this by like, a century
This is an insane story. The DOGE whistleblower who said that login attempts were made to the NLRB from Russian IP addresses minutes after DOGE got access had his brake lines cut and photos of him walking his dog from a drone taped to his door after Musk attacked him on Twitter
So, I've worked in the beef industry. I have a fairly detailed knowledge of beef markets, the supply chain, parasites and parasiticides, etc. Suffice it to say, this is a nightmare scenario, but one we've known was coming since at least 2022.
New World Screwworm was eradicated from North and Central America in the mid-90's. The US gov't (APHIS) funded a program of screwworm drops, where they bred sterile males so that extant populations couldn't reproduce and move northwards. But in 2022 NWS jumped the Darien gap and started moving northwards once again. It's most likely that they came undetected on livestock brought alongside migrants fleeing political instability in South and Central America. Elon Musk/DOGE, of course, cut several monitoring programs that would have detected this exact scenario. The screwworm drops are still funded, but the monitoring programs are what have been cut - a stupid move if there ever was one.
A serious Central/South America policy would have worked hand-in-hand with CA/SA governments to help contain this, but we've never had a serious policy towards South America, not during the Biden years, and especially not under Trump. The USDA broke ground on a sterile screwworm facility in Texas... last month. I worry it's too little, too late.
Screwworm is so dangerous because, unlike other fly larvae, they lay eggs and feed on living flesh. So something like a small scratch (or even bug bite) can quickly becomes infested, and the larvae will burrow into the flesh, growing the wound and attracting more screwworm. They don't only parasitize cattle, but will also feed on wildlife, domestic pets, even humans. Since they have detected screwworms in domesticated cattle right now, it's likely that there is a wild reservoir as well. We can quarantine herds and pets, but we can't quarantine deer and armadillos. They will move, and so will the NWS.
Under normal circumstances, cattle are moved around - a lot. Calves will be sent to stockers through their adolescence, then shipped to feedlots for finishing. A lot of calving operations (like 70%) are small, and small-time producers don't always catch parasite infestations. Cattle moved in-state don't require a certificate of veterinary inspection, so it's easy for an infested animal to be moved without being noticed. Animals crossing state lines do need a CVI, but Texas has such an enormous cattle population (something like 13 million head) that as goes Texas, so goes the nation.
Fortunately, we have a lot of drugs that treat NWS. The FDA has issued several emergency use authorizations in the last year or so. But every input raises the price of beef, and treatment only makes a difference if producers catch an infestation early. If an infestation spreads unnoticed on a large feedlot, it can hit hard, both in terms of cattle that have to be killed, and treatments that then have to be deployed. Producers will spend days at a time running cattle through the chute, inspecting them and applying parasiticides. It costs a lot of money, which is then passed on to the consumer.
What does that mean for you? Beef is a commodity, and just because there's no NWS up here in Illinois doesn't mean that prices won't skyrocket - and they will skyrocket. US herd size is already at record lows, and this will result in culls. Consumer prices also run 18-24 months behind, which means that shocks to the supply chain now are still going to be felt by consumers in 2028.
It's hard to say if our government will be able to muster an effective response - though I don't trust our current administration, which can't even throw a 250th anniversary party, to be able to deal with an ecological issue of this magnitude. It doesn't help that our current USDA secretary is a lawyer and think-tank creature. I don't much trust the state government of Texas either. The industry has also taken the workforce of large animal veterinarians for granted - a monopoly/market power issue that I just can't get in to here.
For me, it comes back to our federal government having an incoherent policy on Central and South America. We knew what was coming, we know what's going to happen, but we cut the program meant to prevent this scenario. Instead of taking those countries seriously as partners, the government has been stupid and domineering.
Here's the kicker: this is what the industry voted for. They might scream, they might get bailed out, but all that means is that you, the consumer, are going to be paying more for beef, plus whatever bailout gets shoveled their way. Until the industry accepts that they are part of a larger system; that they cannot eternally privatize the gains and publicize the losses of beef production; that they need to consider sustainability and stewardship in the management of their operations, this is only going to keep happening. Eventually, they may find that there is very little goodwill for them among the public, and people will decide that a Brazilian ribeye tastes just as good as one from Texas.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize Israel had now escalated to the "quadruple tap" where they just keep killing and killing as people try desperately to help the wounded
There you go: the FT confirms that not only is the NSA using Anthropic's AI "for offensive cyber operations" against "nations such as China or Iran" but Anthropic is actively helping them in that effort.
As per the article, Anthropic "installed about half a dozen staff within the NSA as so-called forward-deployed engineers to guide the use of the technology and customise models for specific applications."
It confirms two things. First: the United States is the most aggressive state actor in cyberspace, by far. It offensively infiltrates other nations' networks, and is now supercharging that capability with AI. Heck that is literally one of the core mission statements of the NSA, one of the largest security agencies of the US government.
Second, that Anthropic's carefully cultivated image as the ethical, safety-first AI company that "partners with the church" is a fiction. In reality, it is the most deeply embedded AI company in the US security state. Instead of building guardrails, they're literally weaponizing their own AI inside the NSA.
Src: https://t.co/sWmXvPSUy4