...for moving all their old SNL episodes to its paywalled "Premium" service. Thankfully there are other ways of accessing the episodes in their full, unedited forms as they aired originally if you know how to work the internet (for now), but what a dick move. So now you're gonna take our money & not even pay the licensing fees for the musical performances & all the other content you've cut from your own shows? A typical SNL episode is around 1 hour 4 minutes. Most episodes on Peacock don't exceed 45 minutes, with some like the Season 6 Bill Murray episode clocking in a pathetic 22 minutes. Greedy shits.
Getting real tired of these corporations making us pay separate fees for shitty chopped up content on 50 different web portals. Between Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Apple TV, HBOMax, Sling TV, fubo tv, Showtime Anytime & all the rest, it's a goddamn racket. At least with cable & satellite it was one price for the whole shebang all in one place. The future of online content looks dim with this landgrab mentality and the state of DMCA takedowns.
NBC is the Mr. Burns to the internet's Springfield.
After watching a string of recent interviews by people in Death Row's inner circle during the 1996 shooting of 2Pac & Suge Knight, I find myself coming back to the same question: why the fuck is Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs still walking the streets?
It's been alleged for years that the East Coast/West Coast beef that led to the deaths of rap's biggest stars was spearheaded by label owners Suge Knight & Puff Daddy, but now we have proof of Puffy's direct involvement. In 2008, the assassin's uncle confessed to ex-LAPD officer Greg Kading that Puff Daddy hired the Southside Crips to kill Suge & 2Pac, offering a $1 million bounty in exchange for their murders. Furthermore, Puffy had previously offered to pay the Crips $10,000 to steal a Death Row chain--the same chain 2Pac got into a fight over at the MGM just hours before his killing. (If you want more of the backstory on how 2Pac & Suge Knight were deeply entrenched with the MOB Piru Bloods & how this resulted in a deadly war with the Southside Crips, there are hours of videos on the subject on Youtube. Check out The Art of Dialogue, VladTV, bomb1st & Cam Capone News channels for more).
The 4 men in the white Cadillac that shot 2Pac, plus affiliate "Zip" Martin
After the murder of 2Pac, Puffy paid NY drug dealer Eric "Zip" Martin half the money promised--500,000 dollars--to be divided among the Southside Crips who killed 2Pac. Zip was connected to the Southside Crips via a man named Keith Ed (aka Keefe D), a Crip who dealt PCP & cocaine to him. The 4 men in the car the night 2Pac was killed in Vegas included Orlando Anderson (the shooter), Keefe D, Deandre Smith & Terrence "Bubble Up" Brown (getaway driver), with Orlando being the man who was assaulted in the MGM earlier that night. Zip Martin allegedly kept the money for himself according to Keefe D's taped confession, though that doesn't change the fact that Sean Combs hired & paid him in the first place. What he did with the money is irrelevant. Puffy's connections with the Southside Crips are extensively documented as his Bad Boy entertainment label used them as "security" whenever they performed on the West Coast.
Keefe D is the only surviving member of the Crips directly involved in the shooting. Biggie (the artist on Puffy's Bad Boy label) sometimes made subliminal references to his affiliation with the gang, such as in the song "Long Kiss Goodnight"--a blatant 2Pac diss released after his death. The line "my team in the marineblue six Coupe" is one example. The photo at the top of this page with Puffy & Big wearing dark blue, the color of the Southside Crips, is another subtle sign of their gang affiliation. And here's yet another smoking gun piece of evidence that Puffy & Biggie engaged in the war of words during the height of the East Coast/West Coast drama despite claims to the contrary.
Diddy Put 10K Bounty on Death Row Chains to Southside Crips
Needless to say, putting a hit out on somebody's life is highly illegal. Charles Manson was blamed for single-handedly ending the freewheeling 1960s & sentenced to death (later commuted to life without parole) for ordering his followers to kill Sharon Tate & the LaBiancas, and he didn't pay them a dime for their troubles. So why is Sean Combs still walking free after actually ordering AND paying the ultra-violent Southside Crips for the successful murder of one of the biggest entertainers & activists of the 20th Century? My only guess is that, aside from Puffy's ability to buy the best legal representation available, the Feds & other law enforcement agencies were glad to see Tupac eliminated. They considered what Puff did a public service.
Like so many Black Panthers & other leftist agitators before him, Tupac represented a persistent threat. Not only was he the child of one of the infamous Panther 21, he was close with a number of political prisoners & exiles including Mutulu Shakur, Sekou Odinga, Assata Shakur, Mumia Abu-Jamal & Geronimo Pratt whom he often name-checked in his songs. He even shot two (white) off-duty cops for beating up a Black man... and won the case in court. After their unsuccessful attempt at keeping 2Pac incarcerated on trumped-up "unlawful touching" charges at one of the nation's toughest prisons, the government must've been sick to death of him. Near the end of his life, close friends like Napoleon of the Outlawz say he was thinking of getting involved in politics, something he alluded to himself in a few of his last interviews. This would've certainly pissed off the powers that be.
The "Panther 21": Tupac's mom Afeni bottom left
It's a fact that the FBI had both 2Pac & Biggie under surveillance at the time they were murdered. The so-called "Hip Hop Cops" are a well-documented presence, stalking rap artists for nothing more than simply being minorities & making rap music. They also had extensive files on Bob Marley, John Lennon, Grace Slick, John Denver & Jimi Hendrix among others. Entire books have been written on the subject of the FBI's unconstitutional surveillance of musicians & what its true purpose might be. There's no indication that this activity has stopped today.
As soon as 2Pac & Biggie passed, the gritty reality rap of the early-mid '90s was quickly replaced by vapid party tracks courtesy of Bad Boy CEO Puff Daddy, Jay-Z & bubblegum crooners like Ja Rule & Nelly. Some say it was "time for a change" while others say this change points to something more sinister in the industry. Either way, never again would we hear profound songs like "Changes," "Tennessee" or "Fight the Power" on mainstream Top 40 radio. Now it was all about cars, coochie & cash. And most importantly, capitalism.
(For the convoluted story behind the Biggie Smalls murder, check out the bombshell ID docuseries "Who Killed Biggie & Tupac?". His killing proves beyond a doubt that law enforcement including the FBI are capable of conspiring to cover up murders of this kind, and that gang loyalties run deep).
Puffy's Violent Past... and Present
1999 mugshot after nightclub shooting
People often ask when Keefe D is gonna be arrested for bragging all over the internet about his involvement in the 2Pac murder. Indeed, his attitude is disgusting. He comes across as a proud thug with zero remorse who would kill again without batting an eyelash. The kind of person borne of poverty, poor education, toxic exposures, domestic violence, systemic racism & a lifetime of bad choices that furthered his own downward spiral into violence & crime. But Puff Daddy is something far more sinister: a cowardly white collar criminal who uses his power to have people snuffed out while hiding behind lawyers & a businessman facade. Nearly everyone who's ever worked for him says the same thing--that he's a cutthroat narcissist with no regard for fairplay or other people's feelings. The amount of societal influence someone like Keefe D has vs. a man like Puff Daddy is virtually non-existent.
To this day he continues to threaten anyone who speaks out on his role in the 2Pac killing, even high-profile celebrities like Eminem, who he threatened to have "handled" for joking that he was involved in the shooting in one of his songs. He's had many other violent brushes with the public, such as the time he fired shots inside a nightclub with a stolen gun in 1999, which he managed to wiggle (read: pay) his way out of, leaving his artist Shyne holding the bag. Shyne ended up serving 9 years in prison for Puffy's crime & then was deported back to Belize for an additional 12 years. After this ugly incident, Combs was inspired to change his alias to P. Diddy as if that would somehow absolve him of his hideous actions. In 2015 he was arrested for assaulting his son's UCLA football coach with a kettlebell, an outburst that could've killed the man if the weight had connected.
Here's a more recent interview where he's asked straight out about his alleged role in the 2pac murder. Note his lack of denial. He just claims he wants to focus on "the positive" now which, like his name-change in 1999, is very superficial & lacks any sense of accountability. He also seems livid that this interviewer had the gall to bring this up on the air.
If Puffy was paying the Crips to snatch Death Row chains off the necks of people in Los Angeles prior to 2Pac's murder, that means he was inciting violence that wouldn't have otherwise existed. Meanwhile he lived on the East Coast where he was safe from the fallout. This chain-snatching was the direct cause of the fight that triggered 2Pac's demise in Las Vegas. When you look at it from that angle, it starts to reek of a bigger conspiracy. WAS Puffy involved in setting up the Quad Studio shooting? Was "I Shot Ya" a direct blow at 2Pac while he was locked up & unable to respond? Could Puffy have been working with the FBI in some capacity to get Tupac "Black Panther" Shakur caught up in something too deadly to escape?
Based on Puffy's history of throwing associates under the bus to save his own ass (see: Shyne), I'd put nothing past him. The fact that he's remained free after all this evidence has emerged about his involvement in the murder also stinks. As stated in my previous article on this subject, the East Coast/West Coast war is very reminiscent of the COINTELPRO tactics used to turn the Black Panthers against other pro-Black groups in the '60s. Perhaps Puffy was the (Federal) agent that sparked the whole thing. It would've been a win-win for himself and the FBI. Eliminating the top-selling rap artist would allow Biggie and the rest of the Bad Boy crew to rise to the top of the game while giving the Feds what they wanted in the form of a very dead Shakur. It'd be the ultimate revenge for their failure to keep him or his mother (or godmother) locked up. He wasn't even able to have a child in his short life so his bloodline was effectively snuffed out with the killing.
Now What?
All this is proof we don't have a justice system in America--we have a legal system. By all means, go after Keefe D and any other low-level offender involved in violent crime. But don't stop there. I'm not sure what Mr. Kading & Co. were even bothering with this case for if not to catch the "big fish" who orchestrated it all. Did they just want to sell books, or did they actually try to apprehend Puffy & fail due to FBI apathy? It's not like they could prosecute Keefe D: they'd already promised him immunity in exchange for his testimony.
And what's with the Vegas Metro PD's lack of action? Either take down the monster who paid to have 2 people assassinated or stop LARPing as law enforcement officers on the public's dime. The Uvalde massacre proved we have more than enough do-nothing pigs filling that role already. Compton residents have known who killed Shakur since the day it happened. His mother filed a lawsuit against Orlando Anderson shortly after the killing too. It's not exactly a revelation.
What WOULD be a revelation is if someone of Puffy's wealth & stature was actually held accountable for their despicable actions for once. The way this has been handled leads me to believe that Puffy's an FBI informant himself or is otherwise being protected for the killing of Tupac Shakur by people in high places within the government. Until somebody proves otherwise, I can't help believing this is the case. If I or any one of my readers put out a (successful) hit on a high profile celebrity after paying to have their expensive jewelry stolen, we'd be rotting in prison or sentenced to death, likely after a lengthy public trial a la the Manson Family case. So why are the FBI and Vegas Metro so silent about Puffy's involvement in the murder of Tupac Shakur? The evidence is overwhelming yet he continues to walk free.
I'm calling on the media to hold his feet to the fire. Include #justicefortupac in your annual memorials & tributes. More specifically, demand that law enforcement interrogate Sean Combs for his role in this horrific crime & stop referring to it as an "unsolved murder". Failure to do so is a slap in the face to Tupac's memory, his loved ones & all victims of violent crime. There's no statute of limitations on murder; as long as this narcissist is still breathing there's still time to hold him accountable in a meaningful way.
Update 6/27/24: Since this article was posted, Keefe D was arrested for the murder of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas (Sept. 29, 2023). Shortly thereafter (March 25, 2024), Diddy's homes were raided by the Department of Homeland Security for alleged sex trafficking offenses. No link between the two events has been made, at least publicly. However I have little doubt that Keefe squealed as he was known to do long before he was locked up. Videos of him implicating Sean Combs in the murder of 2Pac are all over Youtube, and he confessed as much to officer Greg Kading in 2008. Due to a lack of hard evidence, I doubt we'll ever see Diddy prosecuted for that crime, but if we're lucky he'll have plenty of time to think about it while serving time for his other vile crimes against humanity. The only question is, what the hell took law enforcement in Las Vegas & the Feds so long to take action against these two pieces of human refuse? How much more suffering could've been prevented if Combs had been locked up right away instead of being allowed to become a literal billionaire who used the people around him as stepping stones? And how many more aspiring Puff Daddys are in the process of doing the exact same thing right now while law enforcement knowingly looks the other way?
Stay tuned as it looks like Act II of this saga is just getting started.
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Lead is a naturally-occurring heavy metal with many industrial uses. It's also highly toxic to humans--children in particular. It's been known as far back as the Roman Empire that lead is poisonous to humans, causing irreversible brain damage among other serious health problems when ingested, inhaled or otherwise introduced into the body. Specific neurological & cognitive deficits caused by lead exposure include dose-dependent IQ reduction, increased impulsivity, hyperactivity, aggression & a tendency toward violence/antisocial behavior. These effects are considered irreversible.
Lead does its damage by degrading myelin--the insulating sheaths around neurons--and inhibiting white matter growth. This prevents the brain's hemispheres from communicating effectively, a sign commonly observed in murderers & sociopaths (Raine et. al, 1997). The result is a slower, less coordinated brain. Other studies have linked lead exposure to permanent loss of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex--a part of the brain linked with inhibition of aggression.
So why has lead been so widely used in our everyday products for so long, and what are the implications of that use on human behavior & society?
A Brief History of Lead in Society
Tetraethyllead (TEL), the form used in gasoline to reduce engine knock beginning in the 1920's, was so toxic it would instantly cause poisoning if absorbed through the skin. This was discovered in 1924 when 15 Ohio & New Jersey factory workers experienced the horrific effects of lead poisoning via skin absorption, eventually dying as a result. But true to corporate form, the General Motors CEOs & others who championed leaded gas fought to keep this info suppressed for decades, with the truth only emerging in the 1960s and '70s. While several generations were exposed to dangerous levels of lead via gasoline emissions, the Baby Boomers (born from 1946-1964) and early Generation X (1965-1980) got the worst of it due to increased vehicle ownership during this period.
In addition to leaded gasoline which was the main source of exposure, lead-containing paint was the 2nd most prevalent source and remains so to this day. Houses built before 1978 are more likely to contain lead paint, with both the risk & lead content going up the longer ago the house was built. This diagram gives a good idea of risk:
Courtesy EPA.gov
Systematic Poisoning
Even when you control for factors like income, age & location, Black & brown people are far more likely to have higher blood lead levels than white people. There are several reasons for this, the first being that many of these families live(d) in inner cities where vehicles constantly spewed out toxic gasoline exhaust before smog regulations existed, and this lead persists in the soil today. The second is the likelihood of living in dilapidated government housing built before 1960 which is more likely to contain flaking lead-based paint due to lack of renovations over the years. This housing often remains risky even today.
Kids who are malnourished early in life (which is a standalone risk factor for permanently lowered IQ) and have pica--a condition that causes cravings for non-food items like dirt, ice or paint--have a tendency to eat the peeling paint chips or suck it off their toys because lead tastes sweet. Another risk factor is a lack of access to healthcare among Black people--when they do get it, it tends to be of lower quality than white people. Children on Medicaid or other government-funded healthcare plans are even less likely to be routinely screened for lead toxicity.
But lead paint doesn't need to be ingested to be dangerous: it can also be inhaled as a fine dust which toddlers encounter often due to their proximity the ground. Maternal smoking or vaping during pregnancy is another route to lead exposure, as is living or working in certain professions like lead smelting. Minorities frequently live closer to toxic industrial sites like landfills, incinerators, abandoned mines & high-traffic areas that contain lead-contaminated soil or water. The ongoing tragedy in Flint, MI, is proof of the higher risk that's inherent with simply being a person of color in the United States--Flint's population is comprised of 54.05% African Americans with whites making up only 38.45%.
Lead or Something Else?
Here are the cold, hard numbers. Preschool blood lead levels of 10 micrograms (mcg) per decileter (dl) are associated with 7.4 IQ points lost. Levels of 40 mcg/dl equals an average of an IQ loss of 15 points, with 60 mcg/dl lowering IQ by nearly 20 points. This can be enough to cause borderline mental retardation in even the brightest child with no other risk factors (poor nutrition, neglect, head trauma).
In the late '70s, the average blood lead level for Black kids under age 3 was 50% higher than average white kids. Black children were six times more likely to have levels of 30-39 mcg/dl and EIGHT times more likely to exceed 40 mcg/dl. This is criminal.
But the effects of lead poisoning don't stop at IQ loss, which would be bad enough. The link to violent crime has been proven over and over again, yet people seem squeamish about pointing out specific examples. The evidence that violence is caused by lead exposure gets stronger when hair lead levels of violent criminals are compared with those convicted of property crimes--in nearly all cases, the violent criminals had higher hair lead levels. This is after factors like age, drug use history, socioeconomic status & time institutionalized are controlled for.
While we can't look at a person and say their behavior is definitely caused by lead poisoning, we can look at the generations & communities most likely to be exposed & get a general idea of lead's effects. And we damn well should. We wring our hands about the horrific effect that drugs like crack & fentanyl have had on our communities but give a literal neurotoxin like lead a pass. Why? It's always "drugs, poverty & fatherless homes" that get the blame with some "rap music" thrown in for good measure.
Indeed, being poor is stressful. Not knowing where your next meal is coming from--wearing hand-me-downs while your peers wear the latest name brands--takes its toll. All of that contributes to desperate acts like drug dealing & theft, but it doesn't turn a normal person into a cold-blooded killer or rapist who commits violent acts just for kicks. And there IS a difference. People who commit crimes like shoplifting or drug dealing to get their basic needs met are not the same as sociopaths & psychopaths. Poverty does not explain the levels of violence we saw from the 1960's through the early 1990's in America's inner cities between the Bloods & Crips, nor with our nation's (mostly white) serial killer epidemic & assassinations of public figures like JFK, RFK, John Lennon, Harvey Milk, Malcolm X, MLK, Ronald Reagan (attempted), George Wallace (attempted).
Indeed, poverty hasn't gone anywhere. In fact income inequality has gotten much worse. Wages have stagnated while cost of living & productivity have skyrocketed. Gentrification has pushed long-term residents out of their neighborhoods from New York to San Francisco as corporations like Black Rock buy up homes & apartment complexes across the country. Yet gang violence, serial killings, domestic terrorism & other forms of violent crime have dropped precipitously since the mid-'90s when Hillary Clinton made her infamously crude remarks about "Superpredators".
Superpredators: A result of lead poisoning?
Drug addiction & overdose deaths have risen to historic highs since 2015, yet violent crime has remained stable. While the crack epidemic was a plague, we now have more drugs flooding our cities, towns & suburbs than at any time in this nation's history. Stimulants that make crack look mild by comparison like flakka, bath salts & ultra-pure methamphetamine are ubiquitous. Downers & opioids of deadly potency are easy to get. That's to say nothing of the wide variety of dissociatives (ketamine, PCP, nitrous) & hallucinogens (DMT vape pens, ayahuasca, salvia) and a smorgasbord of cannabis products. You simply couldn't get that variety of drugs in the ultra-violent '80s when crack was king, and certainly not with a simple text or message to an Instagram dealer. Drugs are everywhere yet violent crime has decreased since the 1980s crack era.
Oh, and another thing: The U.S. incarcerates more of its population than any country on Earth. That number has increased dramatically since the 1970's. More Blacks are in the criminal justice system now than there were slaves at the height of slavery in 1850. So this disproves the "fatherless homes" theory. While it's undoubtedly detrimental to grow up without a mother or father, in no way does it guarantee that a child will become violent as an adult. Families come in all shapes & configurations, with grandparents, uncles, step-fathers & other positive role models filling the role of biological father in many instances.
So to wrap this up: blaming poverty, drug dealing/abuse or absentee parents for violence is not correct. Nor is claiming that increased incarceration has improved the situation of violence on our streets. Because this isn't just an American phenomenon.
Leaded Gasoline Around the World
Iraqi gas station, where leaded gas was phased out in 2021
Leaded gas was phased out in 1973 in the United States & officially removed from gas stations on January 1, 1996. Other countries followed their own schedule. Violent crime in the U.S. peaked in the early '90s & has been steadily decreasing ever since--that 20-year lag means kids born after 1973 were less prone to violence once they reached the "peak" violence ages of 18-25 than those born before. This decrease in violent crime happened not only in the U.S. but worldwide. Every country phased leaded gas out in different years and their crime rates peaked/fell in the same exact pattern as ours (i.e - with the same 20-year lag following the ban).
I know it's hard to believe we live in a less violent world now with the constant reports of mass shootings at schools, grocery stores & other public places, but it's true. The reason we feel like crime is worse is due to the internet & 24-hour news channels like FOX, CNN & MSNBC which didn't exist for most of the 20th Century. Back then, the news came on TV at 12:00 p.m., 6 p.m. & 11:00 p.m. and consisted mostly of local stories. And before that, newspapers were the main news source and they only came out once a day.
U.S. violent crime stats by age/year
To give an idea of how crazy it was during peak violence years, in a single 18 month period between 1971 and 1972, there were 2,500 bombings on American soil, most of them committed by American citizens. This averages roughly 5 per day. Airplane hijackings were commonplace in the '70s & '80s, as were prison breaks & other things we mostly only see in Netflix dramas now. Violent crime including murder, rape, robbery & aggravated assault have all decreased dramatically since the mid-to-late 1990s across not only the country but the world (with the exception of a few countries). But we'll get to that in a minute. If you have any doubt about what a mad, mad world it was in those days, check out the cult classic documentary 'The Killing of America' (1981).
The very last places on Earth to ban leaded gasoline in 2021 were North Korea, Myanmar, Iraq & Afghanistan. Think for a moment about what these countries are known for. North Korea is notoriously closed off from the outside world due to their isolationist policies. Censorship there is among the strictest in the world--all media outlets are owned & controlled by the NK government. Cell phones were completely banned from 2004-2008, and the country currently ranks as the world's worst internet black hole. Short-wave radio possession is against the law in North Korea. Upwards of 70% of media reports are dedicated solely to the idolization of Kim Jong-un. Myanmar is a hotbed of human trafficking (men for labor; women & children for sex); Iraq & Afghanistan are globally known for terrorism and their brutal figureheads Saddam Hussein & Osama Bin Laden. A majority of Afghanis and their Taliban leaders have chosen to remain in the Stone Age rather than adopt modern technology & globalism or "Western" democratic standards. For centuries. If predictions about leaded gasoline's effects are correct, terrorism in these nations will be cut in half by 2040.
Environmental Racism
Race, not income, is the #1 predictor of living near toxic environments
When white nationalists & racists--even faux-scientists like the authors of "The Bell Curve" who claimed that certain races are genetically inferior when it comes to intelligence--look down on Black & brown people, citing things like violence, poor grammar or other "signs" of inferiority, how much of that is actually caused by racism itself? In other words, are discriminatory housing policies, the dumping of leaded gasoline & outsourcing of industrial pollutants to poorer nations causing minorities to become the very thing these racists hate? Make no mistake: racists will hate regardless of any "reason," but it's absolutely criminal to commit soft genocide by poisoning entire demographics of people & then blame them for the shortcomings that YOU caused or endorsed with your votes.
Here are two documented lead poisoning victims who died violently in police custody & exhibited aberrant behavior in the hours leading up to their murders. Both were part of a lawsuit against Baltimore alleging that 2,000 homes were contaminated with peeling, flaking lead-based paint poisoning at least 65,000 children. And after being murdered by cops, online commenters blamed them for their deaths, claiming they brought it on themselves. While there may be a grain of truth in this at some level, the bigger picture is that America's police brutality and ecological racism are an intersectional issue that desperately needs addressing.
The Briley Brothers--a trio of serial rapist, serial killing brothers who escaped from death row in 1984--are perfect candidates for the lead poisoning hypothesis. Raised in a middle class neighborhood in a 2-parent home in Virginia, the brothers showed signs of sadism & extreme sociopathy from an early age but with no obvious cause. One of them had shot and killed an elderly neighbor at age 16 which was the first real sign of trouble. Their killing spree was so gruesome I won't go into details, but it involved the brutal beating/rape/murder of men, women & children of various ages ranging from 5 to 76. They murdered for fun, not for the purpose of robbing people or getting revenge. When faced with the ultimate punishment they showed no fear, telling their mother "don't worry mom, it doesn't happen right away" immediately after receiving a death penalty sentence.
The likelihood of 3 brothers in one family turning out this evil by chance--especially with normal-appearing parents--is extremely low. Yet in this documentary they're labeled "Born To Kill" & referred to as a "gang". Sorry psychologists, but gangs don't kill for the enjoyment of killing. They kill for revenge, over drug turf or because a rival is wearing the wrong colors (which goes back to the first two items in this list--drug turf or revenge). Over time, gang members become desensitized to killing which makes it easier, but it's never "fun," and the first time is generally very traumatizing. These sick fucks were killing for sheer enjoyment. Just because they're Black doesn't make them "a gang". These brothers were the equivalent of 3 Ted Bundys in one family, and figuring out what went wrong is vital to the field of forensic psychology & crime prevention.
The Serial Killers Who Escaped Death Row (Born To Kill) | Our Life
It's extremely hard bordering on impossible to find the names of actual criminals who tested positive for lead poisoning after committing violent crimes, so unfortunately we're left to speculate. But if you go back in time & watch videos from the 1970s, 1980s & early 1990s you'll see a difference in the speech & general behavior of target populations (i.e. low income inner city Black & brown people, serial killers or prison inmates incarcerated for violent crimes).
The good news is it's gotten much better; the bad news is it's an ongoing problem & minorities are still disproportionately affected. Lead is still found in many consumer products including jet fuel, toys & pottery from other countries and ammunition. A complete list can be found here. But there are many other things that can lower a child's IQ and cause behavior changes for life.
Protecting Your Child's Brain Health
Brain health is about cumulative exposures. The effects of lead poisoning can be made much worse by other factors like poor nutrition, other chemical exposures, oxygen deprivation at birth & severe emotional trauma/neglect. That's good news because it means there are things you can do to improve your child's overall outlook for a successful life even in the presence of lead toxicity.
Head trauma is a huge risk factor that's still getting a pass, and much of it is preventable. Putting your kid in Pop Warner football, soccer, ice hockey, lacrosse or other contact sports puts them at risk of concussion and repeated sub-concussive hits that lead to CTE, a progressive and fatal brain disease. But even in the absence of CTE, head injury on playground equipment or bicycles still does damage over time so limiting a child's total lifetime head impacts is very important. Some impacts like car accidents may not be avoidable, so it's vital to avoid them or reduce their severity when you can. If Aaron Hernandez, Chris Benoit & Jovan Belcher didn't convince you, likely CTE sufferers who are still living like OJ Simpson, Suge Knight, War Machine & Mike Tyson definitely should. The personal lives of these mercurial, often violent figures are nothing to aspire to. Hopefully we'll see preventable head trauma viewed the way lead exposure is today within the next 20 years.
The first 3 years of life are the most important in terms of brain development. If you want to give your baby the best chance at optimal neurological & mental health, make sure to get proper prenatal care, avoid all recreational substances (including cigarettes, alcohol & non-prescribed OTC medications) while pregnant & have regular checkups with your OB/GYN. Simply talking to your baby is one of the most effective ways to boost intelligence & vocabulary. The number of words spoken to a child before the age of 3 is directly correlated with IQ, numerical understanding & reasoning so make sure to spend plenty of one-on-one time looking into the child's eyes & communicating with them when you can.
And good nutrition is vital--breastfeeding being the ideal for complete nutrition for the first 6 months of life according to the World Health Organization. If you can't breastfeed, a quality formula will suffice. As your child gets old enough to eat solid food, avoid junk foods like chips, candy, juice & soda as these not only cause tooth decay but offer no nutritional value & contribute to childhood obesity. Aim for a balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins like chicken, fish & beans and healthy mono/poly-unsaturated fats.
There are programs to help if you can't afford adequate food or medical care: SNAP, WIC, TANF, Medicaid & others exist for this purpose. But ideally, avoid having children if you can't afford to give them the best life possible. A country that can't even guarantee a steady supply of baby formula isn't a place to bring a baby into the world without having all your bases covered.
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Because we live in obesogenic environments, it's entirely on us to make healthy food choices. Our government & corporations have thrown us to the wolves in favor of big profits. I've created the following plan to help anyone seeking to lose weight and keep it off. This plan is based on subtracting the most common causes of obesity & adding behaviors that will help you gain control of not only your weight but your overall nutritional health. Follow it and you're guaranteed to lose weight and keep it off forever.*
The only rule is that you do not skip ahead & make sure to spend the appropriate amount of time on each step. That's the core factor that sets this plan apart from every other fad diet--its gradual pace. You'll need to keep track of your progress on a calendar, notebook or online document like Microsoft Word (or whatever app the kids are using these days). Remember: You have an entire lifetime to tweak & customize each step to your liking, but these changes also need to stick for a lifetime. So take your time with each one.
If at any time you backslide on an earlier step (say, slipping up on Step 1's rule when you're on Step 4), take some time to reflect on what went wrong & how you can avoid it in the future but don't start all the way over. The goal is to be comfortable with the mastery of each step before moving on, knowing that realistically you'll have some missteps along the way. Slow & steady wins the race. And so does being 100% honest with yourself. Don't let a relapse turn into an excuse to return to addiction & self-destruction.
Step 1 is to cut out all sweetened drinks as they are completely devoid of nutrients & full of empty calories that don't fill you up. Juice, sweet tea, soda, energy drinks, alcoholic mixed drinks containing sugar, any coffee other than "black," etc must go. That includes artificially sweetened "diet" drinks which have been linked to increased hunger & weight gain too. If you aren't sure whether a drink contains added sugar, check the label. Replace them with any non-sweet drink of your choice. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.
Once you've done this for a minimum of 1 month & feel confident that you have mastered it, you can move on to the next step. Any setbacks put you back at Day 1, and you must feel confident in your ability to maintain your progress before moving on to Step 2. It will be tempting to skip ahead but it's absolutely vital that you do not lest this just become another failed attempt at rapid weight loss/dieting. If you already avoid sweet drinks in all forms, start at Step 2, but most people drink at least some sweet drinks (particularly those who are overweight/obese) so think about it long and hard before skipping ahead.
Step 2 is eating breakfast every day. It can be anything except fast food or asuper sugary cereal. But literally anything else will do: a banana, a couple strips of bacon + whole wheat toast, even a slice of leftover pizza (as long as it's not from a restaurant--even a frozen Tony's or Red Barron will suffice). Breakfast is so important you shouldn't stress over the content--just force something down whether you're hungry or not. Breakfast should actually be the biggest meal of the day so don't feel bad if you go a *bit* overboard on portion size, just try to avoid sugary junk like pancakes, French toast & other sweet stuff. If your mornings are rushed, prepare something the night before.
If you're already a breakfast-eater, focus on improving the nutritional content & choosing things that are high in lean protein like an egg white omelette & Greek yogurt, or a high-fiber cereal like All Bran which can be mixed in with another lightly sweetened cereal like Crispix with vanilla almond milk if you don't like the taste. These options will give you energy & keep you feeling full until lunch, preventing the urge to binge around noon & suffer that 2 o'clock energy slump. Reducing sugar content is always a good way to make your meal healthier too.
But if you're NOT already a breakfast eater, focus only on the first paragraph in this step. Just force something down to break the fast from the previous night--Carnation Instant Breakfast, a piece of string cheese & some Triscuits, peanut butter & apple slices. Eating breakfast is not natural for many people so it's a hard habit to incorporate, therefore you should just do your best to make it an everyday practice without worrying too much about the "healthy" bit. As long as you're not eating a McDonald's Grand Slam, consider it a win.
Once you've mastered Step 2 for at least 1 month plus giving up all sweet drinks with no slip-ups, you're ready for...
Step 3: Reducing fast food consumption to no more than1 time per week. Not "one day/several times" but one time. This is a big one, especially for people who are addicted to eating out. It will require lots of planning ahead, particularly in terms of grocery shopping & meal prep. But the results will be so worth it.
Even if you eat nothing but TV dinners & Chips Ahoy, you can't do worse than eating fast food/takeout every day. People justify eating out by claiming to have busy schedules & no time to cook, but this is no more logical than a celebrity justifying their cocaine use by claiming to have a demanding schedule. Giving up fast food will not only save you calories, it will save you massive amounts of money very quickly.
One tip for making smart grocery choices is shopping when you're not hungry, which is easier than ever with online options like Walmart.com & Amazon. You can just put things in your cart through the week as you think of them & turn in your order to be picked up at a set time/day, or even have it delivered. Again, don't overthink your grocery purchases--just grab whatever looks palatable to you in the beginning. Things you'll actually eat. You can work on the "healthy" bit later.
The point of this step is to reduce your fast food consumption to no more than 1 time per week. That's your only goal right now. And because it's such a big one, give yourself a minimum of 2 months to adjust before moving on to the next step. (If you already eat out no more than once a week, good for you. You can skip to Step 4, but if you eat out on average even 2 times per week, do NOT skip it). Plan your one time of dining out carefully & if you have even one slip up, start over at Day 1 of Step 3. Do not lose heart as slip-ups are totally normal and expected. This is a huge lifestyle change here. Take as long as you need.
Step 4: Eliminating all fast food, restaurant meals & takeout from your diet. This might be the hardest step in the program, but look at everything you've achieved so far! In order to pull this off you'll have to totally commit to grocery shopping & meal planning, but again, just focus on buying things that are affordable that you'll actually eat. Do not overthink it or try to "go healthy". One step at a time. This step is about eliminating takeout which is HUGE. And because it's so huge, give yourself a minimum of 3 months to master it before moving to the next step.
Bringing your lunch & 2 small snacks to workor school will help you stay on track & avoid the typical office fare of donuts, cupcakes & pizza parties. Eating 3 meals & 2 snacks per day is a good way to keep your blood sugar even throughout the day & prevent binge eating. And don't forget your thermos containing whatever yummy (unsweetened) drink you're now swigging. If you "need" caffeine, you can get it cheaply in the form of tablets like No Doz or plain black coffee--no sugar required.
(If a friend or loved one invites you to a sit-down restaurant for a special occasion during this time & you can't get out of it, go ahead. Just tell them you're giving up dining out & eat something before you go so you're not tempted). Remember, you must treat junk food and large portion sizes like the addiction they are & it's important to let loved ones know you're not indulging anymore. If they don't respect that, they're violating a boundary.
As with the other steps, if you already don't eat out at all, skip to Step 5. But only if you don't eat out at all & are in the habit of buying groceries every week.
Step 5: Now that you're comfortable with grocery shopping, start focusing on makinghealthier choices at the grocery store. There's no "pass/fail" with this part--just do your best to make good choices when presented with a choice. Again, implement these changes gradually at a pace you can sustain. Follow the links in this section to find examples of foods from each category listed here.
Whenever possible, choose complex carbs instead of refined carbohydrates & sugar. Opt for unsaturated fats vs. trans & saturated fat, and choose lean protein sources if given the choice. And don't forget about fiber! Make it your mission to learn about nutrition & macronutrients during this time, and write down the things you learn for future reference.
To complement all these healthy food choices, add in a quality multi-vitamin that meets your particular needs (i.e. - over 50, for women, for men, etc) that has a USP, ConsumerLab or NSF approval seal on the label. While it sounds counterintuitive, many overweight/obese people are actually deficient in certain vitamins & minerals which can cause increased food cravings and feelings of hunger. Give yourself a minimum of 2 months for this Step or more if you need it.
Step 6:Calculate your TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure. In order to truly lose weight, you have to know how many calories you should be eating each day. You've likely already experienced some degree of weight loss by cutting out sweet drinks & fast food and switching to more nutritious foods--this is due to the calories you've cut from your diet. All diets operate on this principle. Knowing your TDEE is the key to unlocking your true weight loss potential, so scoot your booty over to the TDEE calculator & get to crunching numbers. (It's not as hard as it sounds, and that's coming from someone with a math learning disability).
The most important part about this exercise is to set a realistic goal weight (somewhere within your ideal Body Mass Index, eventually) & be 100% honest about things like activity level & your current weight. To be on the safe side, rank your activity level one degree lower than you actually think it is: If you think you're moderately active, put "mildly active". If mildly active, put sedentary. People tend to overestimate the effect of exercise on calories burned so this is the best way to avoid falling into that trap. And always opt for "slow/steady weight loss" rather than "aggressive" or "rapid" (or whatever other rushed options they offer). It would be downright stupid to throw away all your progress now by engaging in some crash low-calorie diet. In the space where it says "Calorie Deficit," enter 15% under the "custom > in percentage" option.
In the RESULTS portion, ignore everything except "Daily Calories". That's the number you're looking for--the amount of calories you should eat each day to lose weight. We're not putting a set date on it. Write down your number & familiarize yourself with it. And remember: Slow and steady wins the race.
Step 7: Start keeping track of the calories you eat each day. If a food item doesn't list the number of calories on the label, don't eat it. You can use an app to track calories or good old pen and paper (my preferred method). Or you can keep a calculator tab open in your browser & add to it as you go through your day (another fave trick of mine). This may seem like a hassle at first but it'll become 2nd nature in no time. Aside from the weight loss aspect, being aware of the things you put in your body is a positive habit that encourages mindful eating & body awareness. Most people are shocked at just how many calories they consume in a day once they actually start paying attention to it.
If you exceed your daily limit of calories, which you most certainly will at times, no sweat. We all have days where we're hungrier or less hungry for whatever reason. PMS, stress, poor sleep, depression & a myriad of other factors can all contribute. The important thing is to not let a setback turn into an excuse to give up and relapse. You're on Step 7, for Pete's sake! The final step! You've given up sweet drinks, fast food, added in nutritious grocery items & vitamins to your diet & calculated how many calories you should be eating in a day. The only thing left now is to turn your focus toward your passions. Just make sure you've mastered Step 7 first.
The good thing about this step is, once you get a good feel for how many calories are in the foods you eat on a regular basis, you can *sort of* stop counting calories as closely... at least once you reach your goal weight. Just remember to weigh yourself weekly to make sure you're not gaining. And when you do step on the scale, do so first thing in the morning before eating/drinking anything, and naked. This will give you the most accurate reading. Give yourself a minimum of 3 months before even considering not counting calories. If your weight starts creeping back up at any point in the future, revert back to keeping a close eye on your calorie intake. This isn't about reaching a goal weight and then stopping, it's about adopting a lifestyle you can maintain forever.
That's it! Sound overwhelming & not at all doable? I promise it's not if you take one step at a time instead of reading the entire page at once. It's not meant to be binge-read like some kind of Netflix docuseries, silly. While it may sound like this plan will require your life to revolve around food & weight loss, the goal is to shift your focus away from food as a hobby or source of pleasure and onto things you're passionate about. It just takes some getting used to. It's worked for me in the long term & my life definitely doesn't require constant focus on food, calories or weight. But it certainly did in the beginning when I needed to make a drastic change & get my health in order. That was over 5 years ago & I'm still going strong.
While there are other factors like overuse of antibiotics or Adenovirus 36 that can potentially contribute to weight gain, 99% of it comes down to the food choices we make (i.e. eating too much of the wrong things). Exercise doesn't even enter into the picture, though it's vital for heart & lung health & can help tone your muscles. When in doubt, take your eating cues from the thin people in your life: put down the fork & knife.
*As with any dietary program, individual needs may vary. Talk to your doctor before implementing this plan if you suffer from a serious medical disorder like diabetes or phenylketonuria.
As with all new & emerging diseases, the topic of origin always arises at some point. With HIV/AIDS, scientists were practically tripping over themselves to track down the origin as soon as it became clear that it had been present in the Haitian population at least a decade longer than it existed on American soil. Prior to that it looked like it originated here, as our gay male cohort was the first group to be noticeably affected. Africans were responsible? Whew, good. We must trace it back to the source at once for the good of humanity.
With COVID though, world leaders seem much less interested in finding the actual roots of the disease. China shut the doors of the Wuhan lab to the World Health Organization in 2020, which shouldn't have even been an option with a disease that had the entire globe on the brink of public health & economic disaster. Slowly, some fringe voices started questioning whether the virus might've originated in the Wuhan laboratory. While many skeptics poo-pooh'ed them, a few of these claims came from within the scientific community & high up in the government. Then China countered with a wave of claims that COVID actually existed before the Fall of 2020 & originated at the Fort Detrick, Maryland, laboratory.
As an American who's steadily fed a diet of Western propaganda, this sounded like a weak & almost laughable attempt by the PRC to deflect responsibility back onto the Americans, particularly those like Trump who were calling it the "China Virus" & inciting racial violence against Asians. But with a bit more digging I found that this theory actually has some circumstantial evidence to back it up. (Not that I subscribe to the idea that COVID came from a laboratory, let alone one in the U.S. I'm just laying out both sides of the discussion in one place since every other article on this issue is painfully one-sided).
Americavirus?
Fort Detrick's lab was shut down by cease & desist order in August 2019
The first case of SARS-COV-2 is officially said to have occurred in November 17, 2019 in Wuhan, though some reports claim it circulated undetected in the Chinese city as far back as October 2019. How could a virus so strongly associated with China have started in the U.S.? Just because the first cases were identified there does not mean it started there. As with AIDS, we now know the "first cases" that showed up in New York City's gay male population in 1981 were nothing of the sort--the HIV virus had actually been circulating in the U.S. since 1969 with our first identified patient Robert Rayford & got a firm hold in IV drug users in the '70s. Meanwhile it had been killing people in Haiti since the '60s & was finally traced back to the 1920's in central Africa where it crossed over from chimps & sooty mangabeys to humans & became HIV-1 & HIV-2, respectively. Obviously COVID doesn't have an incubation period that long, but that doesn't mean early cases weren't missed or misidentified as something else. In fact it's quite likely that's exactly what happened.
Take the fact that "an unknown respiratory virus" infected more than 60 residents of the Greenspring Senior Living Center in Fairfax County, Virginia in the Summer of 2019 before spreading to a 2nd nursing home nearby, killing 3 people in all. Note that this illness didn't just sicken the frail & elderly--it also infected healthy young employees. It was later confirmed that this virus was NOT influenza, though to this day they haven't publicly identified it. The fact that this happened in the heat of the Summer threw epidemiologists for a loop since most viral outbreaks this deadly happen in the Fall & Winter months.
Greenspring, VA, is 1 hour and 22 minutes from the Ft. Detrick laboratory.
2 Dead After Respiratory Outbreak at Fairfax Nursing Home (July 2019)
I was also struck with a bizarre, maddeningly itchy rash in August of 2019. My doctor was completely baffled. Blood tests showed elevated levels of C-reactive protein and nothing else. The itching was unbearable & lasted about 3 weeks. I made it through 2020 and most of 2021 without a recurrence only to be struck with 2 back-to-back outbreaks at the end of 2021 & early 2022. My skin is still completely disfigured from the last outbreak, as you can see below.
The third outbreak happened when my entire family was sick with Omicron, & the rash's onset coincided perfectly with the onset of their symptoms so I have no doubt it's COVID related, as rashes are a well-known symptom. I was vaccinated in May 2021 shortly before the huge wave of COVID hit that Summer, which meant I was likely safe for the time being. But by Fall the immunity had worn off. Delta hit around Thanksgiving & Omicron around Christmas--I have to assume that's what caused the rashes. Every time it lasted 3 weeks so it's clearly viral & not, say, an allergic reaction or some other minor skin condition. Prior to the August 2019 incident I never had so much as a blemish.
Not Monkeypox: My poor disgusting skin :(
I wasn't the only American with strange symptoms that Summer. This was the Summer of "vaping lung disease" aka EVALI, a strangely COVID-like ailment that causes ground glass opacities on x-rays & often kills its victims. And like COVID, it was quickly blamed on China, with their "tainted Chinese vapes" catching all the flack. This article straight up admits that states with higher number of vapers had more COVID cases early in the pandemic, which points to a major overlap between so-called EVALI & COVID in the earliest days of the pandemic. Obviously vapes can't cause COVID (a virus), so there should be no correlation there unless researchers were confusing the two in the days before a COVID test existed.
While it's true that inhaling lipids like Vitamin E acetate & other oils can cause lipoid pneumonia, the idea that so many young, healthy kids were dropping dead so fast from these vapes never sat right with me. (Or that symptoms of lipoid pneumonia would include things like diarrhea & vomiting which is more common with viruses like COVID). Shitty black market vapes have always existed--why were they suddenly killing people en masse? Chinese officials challenged the U.S. to go back & check the EVALI victims for evidence of COVID and they refused despite now having the technology to do so.
So it seems we're at an impasse.
What I didn't know was that there was actually some merit behind China's finger-pointing at the Fort Detrick lab, at least as far as timing was concerned. Because in August of 2019, Fort Detrick had to "pause" work (aka shut down emergency-style) after failing a safety inspection with the CDC in Atlanta. As a USAMRIID military lab, they work with the most dangerous pathogens known to man including Ebola, plague, anthrax, Marburg virus & the coronavirus family, though trying to find out whether they were studying coronaviruses pre-2020 is next to impossible. What I did find was disturbing enough:
According to this well-written piece, the CDC found Fort Detrick lab workers opening a door that was to remain sealed at all times while "a large amount of biohazardous waste was being moved," thus exposing unprotected workers nearby. And that wasn't all. They found cracks in ceilings and around vital lab equipment in rooms that were supposed to be completely sealed, & inventories on dangerous pathogens weren't being kept among other violations. I can't find the original CDC report online (again, what gives Google?) but needless to say whatever it contained was serious enough for them to send a cease & desist order to one of the most prestigious military labs in the country, if not the world. The fact that it was shut down in August 2019 meant their violations had been ongoing for some time prior to that.
The National Institutes of Health has also "paused" funding for gain-of-function research a few times. Specifically on SARS, MERS & influenza back in 2014-2017. Gain-of-function research is the hotbed issue politicians like Rand Paul have been arguing with Dr. Anthony Fauci about in hearings, but the argument goes back much further among scientists, many of whom have been concerned about something like this happening for a very long time.
Point One Finger, Three Point Back
The Wuhan lab carried out high-risk bat research on coronaviruses for years
Meanwhile the Wuhan lab (BSL-4) was in no better shape. In fact they were known to be engaging in extremely risky bat research according to a January 2018 State Department cable that accused them of operating without enough adequately trained technicians & investigators. The cable specifically raised the alarm about a potential human risk of a "new SARS-like pandemic". Pretty damning. As far back as 2014, concerned U.S. scientists urged a moratorium on the type of gain-of-function studies going on at the Wuhan lab. The nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention lab (BSL-2) raised similar concerns.
The Chinese government has been extremely unhelpful as the world's epidemiologists have tried to track down the origins of this disease. One brave dissenting voice in the Chinese scientific community, Dr. Alina Chan, was practically excommunicated from the medical and scientific world for so much as raising the question that the virus might've originated in the Wuhan lab. Dr. & alleged "whistleblower" Li Wenliang met a similar fate when Wuhan police admonished him for alerting his colleagues about a new SARS-like coronavirus circulating in Wuhan via a WeChat message that was later leaked.
It's easy to pile on the Chinese medical establishment for tarring and feathering these folks until you look at how our own scientific community & government treat dissenting voices who raise similar questions, such as those who questioned whether Dr. Anthony Fauci & the NIH supported and funded gain-of-function studies on bat coronaviruses... at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, no less. If this virus originated in a lab, the burden of blame might be more of a circle than a straight line pointing at one country or the other.
Conclusion (In Progress)
When it's all said & done, it's not so much about which lab or country this disease started in. These labs operate all over the world, many in the middle of major metro areas or locations that experience earthquakes, major weather events or wars. (And these are just the BSL-4 labs; one of the Wuhan facilities in question was just a BSL-2). All engage in extremely risky research that serves no real purpose other than satisfying scientists' curiosity about highly deadly pathogens. Let's face it: These BSL-4 labs aren't curing cancer--they're looking for antidotes to biowarfare agents & potential weapons that could be used in warfare scenarios against other nations. The shady histories of military labs prove as much.
Inside the US Government's Top-Secret Bioweapons Lab
Any benefit gained from things like gain-of-function research is largely outweighed by the risks. And if the public doesn't even know it's going on & doesn't get a vote in whether it occurs, it's tantamount to mass murder when a pandemic of this magnitude breaks out. This secrecy also provides the perfect cover for powerful governments like China (the world's manufacturing superpower) & the U.S. (the world's military superpower) when these disasters inevitably happen, which impedes research & prevents potential medical breakthroughs in treating the diseases they caused. Meanwhile poorer regions like South Africa, Haiti & South America don't have this luxury & receive full blame when a new pandemic breaks out on their soil.
Without accountability & acknowledgement of our mistakes, we cannot learn from them & are doomed to repeat history. So far I've heard nothing about putting the kibosh on these dangerous viral studies or even enacting stricter safety policies in BSL-3/4 labs. Absolutely nothing & no one has been held accountable. Nothing is changing in either the world's laboratories or seafood/animal trading "wet" markets (assuming it started there). No matter which country COVID came from, the lesson is the same: ultra-risky research by flawed humans has no place in the modern world. MK-ULTRA, the Manhattan Project & countless other unethical experiments should have taught us that.
And for those who may be skeptical that a virus could come from a laboratory, here's a quick rundown of diseases known to have escaped from labs. It's not a matter of conspiracy theory or people "doing it on purpose"--nations don't purposely kill off their own populations. (They wouldn't be fretting about "low birth rates" while pushing abortion bans & mass immigration on us if they wanted our numbers down). It's caused by good old human error & incompetence. Even the best intentions lead straight to hell when you play with fire. And these scientists are playing with literal fire in these BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs every single day. The fact this doesn't happen more often is a miracle.
Oh, and just for funzies here are some real-world discussions from lab workers on Reddit that will open your eyes about what really goes on in scientific laboratories:
I put a lot of work into this article so if you enjoyed it, drop a buck (or whatever you like) in one of the accounts below. Google AdSense does not support "drug-related" content so I rely on your contributions to power this blog:
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