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Unlike most flies that lay eggs in dead and rotting organic matter, the Newworld Screwworm lays eggs in the open wounds and mucus membranes of living animals. The maggots then eat the animal (or human!) alive. Its scientific name is cochleomyia hominivorax which literally means “man-eating snail”.
These little monsters have plagued livestock and humans in tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas for centuries. This includes the southern US, the Caribbean, and most of Central and South America. The devastation of these terrible creatures amounted to billions of dollars of yearly damage on top of the fact that they are extremely gross and cause massive human and animal suffering.
So why am I not already familiar with this thing? I’ve lived most of my life in a region of the US that is the historic breeding ground for the screwworm, why have I not heard anything about it?
That’s because, similar to the eradication of small pox, we used science and massive international institutional coordination to destroy this nasty little pest.
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In the 1930’s, Raymond Bushland and Edward Knipling were studying the screwworm in Texas where it was devastating livestock herds. These two scientists proposed and developing the “sterile insect technique” (SIT), which involves breeding the insects, sterilizing them with radiation, and releasing them into the wild. Because the female screwworm fly mates only once, if she mates with a sterile male fly any eggs she lays will not produce maggots.
This has the immediate benefit of stopping the maggots from killing livestock but also has the long term benefit of eradicating these little assholes. Of course this would mean intentionally breeding sterile flies on an industrial scale and releasing millions of them into the wild. So that is what they decided to do.
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Over the next 30-40 years, the there was a major push for screwworm eradication in North America. It was driven out of the US in the 60’s. With enormous international cooperation, they were pushed out of Mexico and Belize in the 80’s and eradication was pushed down to Panama by the 1990’s.
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It wasn’t plausible to push screwworm elimination past Panama for a number of reasons that include political instability and the fact that Brazil is an enormous and terrifying place.
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Apparently in 2022, the screwworm barrier was breached. I say “apparently” because there seems to be wide agreement that 2022 is when this happened but no one can point to an event or any form of data about when this happened. The year 2022 seems to be a backward extrapolation from the fact that in 2023 there were 6,500 screwworm cases in Panama. Since then, cases have spread up through Central America and into Mexico.
How did this happen? That’s an interesting and mysterious story. The official line is that there were supply chain disruptions associated with the Covid pandemic that limited the Panama production of sterile flies necessary for screwworm containment.
I’m skeptical that this is a complete explanation because it sounds a lot like a faultless excuse. No one can blame anyone for Covid supply chain disruptions. No one gets fired for Covid supply chain disruptions.
It seems very likely that unchecked northward migration of livestock herds in 2022-2023 was a big factor in this ongoing disaster. Expert entomologists have looked at the pattern with exasperation and concluded that this is really the only plausible explanation since the flies themselves simply do not spread that quickly on their own. They were almost certainly transported via unchecked northward migration of people and animals.
I Told You The Price Of Crude Is Being Rigged
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Southern Poverty Law Center. Republicans are rightfully scrutinizing the organization's practices, and one of their witnesses was Dr. Alveda King.
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Like her father and uncle, Alveda has chosen to dedicate her life to speaking up for those who can't speak for themselves. However, in her case, it's the unborn — she's had two abortions and was nearly aborted by her own mother before her grandfather talked her out of it, and after becoming a born-again Christian in 1983, she changed her views on the matter. She believes abortion and racial discrimination go hand-in-hand, and has said that Planned Parenthood profits from killing "black babies."
She has served as an advisory board member for Black Voices for Trump, and she's currently the senior advisor on Faith and Community Outreach for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She's also the chair of the Center for the American Dream at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), and she has advised Donald Trump in other roles throughout the years.
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Alveda invoked her uncle's words in her opening remarks, along with Bible verses (a Democrat's kryptonite), as well as her family's legacy. She began:QuoteI was born on January 22, 1951, not with a silver spoon in my mouth, but singing 'Amazing Grace' and pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. In other words, I was born into a Christian family led by Baptist preachers and men and women who loved God, believed in God, proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and embraced the truth found in Acts 17:26: 'And He has made from one [a] blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.
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My family legacy reflects the very truth that America is strongest when we recognize our common humanity. My grandmother's family came from the west coast of Africa. My grandfather's family came from Ireland. My mother's family included Cherokee roots. I have spent my entire life living the reality that America is not a collection of competing tribes. America is one people under God.
But none of this matters to Crockett. That woman had the nerve to sit up there and shout about how "white men" invited Alveda to the hearing. She said that the only diversity comes from the left side of the aisle and that white men from the GOP wanted to "tell people of color who is fighting for who. People of color do not feel comfortable or welcomed within your party."
I guess Crockett speaks for all "people of color" now.
"That's why you have to parade someone who has the name 'Dr. King' attached to them, so that people can be confused. Because I have been reading the comments online, and people are like, 'who is this Dr. King' because you want them to believe that she somehow espouses who Dr. King was," Crockett said.
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Crockett, of course, didn't give Alveda time to respond, but the next speaker, Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.), allowed her to do so, and all I can say is that this woman has a lot more patience and class than I do. I don't think I would have been as kind with Crockett.
"Congresswoman, I am a bit emotional. I'm going to watch what I say, but it seems as though you have suggested that I am a bastard to the King family legacy," Alveda said. "I am legitimately the daughter of the Rev. Alfred Daniel Williams King and Dr. Naomi Ruth Barber King. We are a family who loves God. And I love you. God bless you."
Not that Crockett was around to see it. She got up and left — you can hear the door slam — in the midst of Alveda's words.
❓ WHAT HAPPENED: Analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine revealed that over 15,800 avoidable deaths occurred in British Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments in 2025 due to excessive wait times. Overcrowding and delays in treatment have become normalized, with nearly 500,000 patients waiting over 24 hours for care.
📺 DETAIL: The National Health Service (NHS), Britain’s socialized healthcare system, calls for patients to be seen within four hours of arrival, a target that has not been met nationwide since 2015. Medical officials say the primary cause of the delays is a lack of available hospital beds, leaving emergency departments unable to transfer patients for further treatment and forcing many to remain on beds in corridors. ...
There's a pattern on the left that conservatives have noticed for years. Democrats really do support some of the creepiest, perviest people, and they do so without any shame whatsoever. The latest example, of course, is Graham Platner, who just officially won the Democrat nomination for U.S. Senate in Maine.
"Democrats have no creep radar," Gutfeld explained on The Five. "But a burly guy in a dress can show up to teach sex ed at fifth in your fifth grader’s class. And those parents would say, ‘But that's their lived experience.’ A Republican truck driver would pull the guy up by the scruff of his neck and throw him through a window."
He continued, “Think about all the parades, the parade of creeps and pervs that the Democrats have introduced to us, you know, or embraced or defended. Whether it's Anthony Weiner or Swalwell, Antifa, trans activists… they cannot see a creep if it's sitting on their lap doing a — whatever."
Then Gutfeld made the case that Graham Platner actually did the country a favor. And believe it or not, his reasoning makes perfect sense.
"Platner is a hero, and I'll tell you why," Gutfeld said. "He's done a tremendous service. He's slayed two big movements, the 'You're A Nazi' movement, by being a Nazi and being accepted by the left. You can't call anybody a Nazi anymore. What about the #MeToo movement? Well, by not believing all women, that goes out the window because he got the most strident adherence of those causes to accept him, revealing that that whole scene was theatrics."
Over a hundred employees of the most infamous United Nations agency helped Hamas terrorists commit the heinous atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023.
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USAID’s inspector general's office, which is separate from the almost extinct and infamously corrupt agency of the same name, shared its UNRWA findings with the Washington Free Beacon. The outlet reported that 101 “UNRWA school principals, teachers, security personnel, attendants, psychosocial counselors, and medical professionals” are also members of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades — the primary perpetrators of the Oct. 7 atrocities — or other terrorist factions.
From the Free Beacon:QuoteThe latest staffers to be flagged at UNRWA—historically the primary major relief organization operating in Gaza—include a "deputy school principal serving as an al-Qassam deputy company commander in the Ain Gallout/5th infantry battalion," as well as a "deputy school principal serving as squad leader for the Khan Younis Brigade/2nd." Another teacher served as a "platoon commander of the Central Brigade/Al Quds 2nd Battalion," while a "math and computer teacher" was found to have "ties to an Al-Qassam intelligence squad." A third UNRWA instructor had "expertise as a sniper for Hamas," and a fourth served as a "Hamas soldier with orders to bring two anti-tank missiles to a prescribed location during the October 7 terror attacks." One other deputy UNRWA school principal served as a "platoon commander in Hamas’ Nuseirat battalion with communications responsibilities on October 7th."
Let's look at the clickbait:
1. a. Ummmm OK. clickbait thread title, suggesting all of DC is shut down. It isn't. Then 1. b. AverageOldGuy changed the affected area to "basically all of downtown DC". In the real world, the shut down area, per https://www.nps.gov/whho/learn/management/rod_ufc.htm , is bounded by 15th Avenue NW, Constitution Ave. NW, 17th Ave. NW, and H St. NW. In that area are Lafayette Squar, the White House, and the Ellipse.
Outside the shut down area, but possibly affected by traffic, obviously, are places such as the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and other memorials, the Smithsonian, National Gallery of Art, the Trump-Kennedy Center, State Department (Foggy Bottom), Capitol, Library of Congress, and George Washington University. The shutdown area is very much NOT "basically all of downtown DC".
2. "Last minute"? Really? Look at the date of that National Park Service webpage that announced the shutdown area and dates: "April 30, 2026, Last updated: May 18, 2026". The shutdown was announced 6 weeks ago.
Guess why I was unsurprised by the above.
What? Poorly?
