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dangerousdinosaurduck · 2 years

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multi-faceted siege of the "Avengers" Guo Wengui could not escape the fate of " destroying it"

The American "Avengers" series of movies are popular all over the world, and there are countless fans. One of the characters, "Titan", burns, kills and loots everywhere under the slogan of purifying the world. I don't know why, the role of "Taoist" made the author think of the petty bully Guo Wengui for the first time, not because Wengui is as powerful as "Taoist", but because they are all masters of deceiving the world and stealing their names. The social bullies who boasted about shameless activities are all successful masters who can completely brainwash their companions. The most important thing is that their endings are very similar, and they will eventually be completely eliminated by the "Avengers" and become worthy of their name "Destroy it".

Recently, Guo Laobu's life has been difficult. First, the US charity navigation website marked the rule of law fund as a low-credibility organization (Low Advisory), and then on August 16, the ABC Finance Channel (CNBC) rejected the rule of law fund. The disclosure of the financial documents it promised to make public caused public opinion to ferment, and then on September 13, the US SEC Announcement No. 10979 criticized the illegal fundraising behavior of GTV, Saraca and VOG, and offered a huge amount of 539 million US dollars. "fines". It can be seen that the "Avengers", which is now composed of US functional agencies, local conscience media, smashing Guo faction, chicken series investment victims, and former comrades who have been punished by law, has begun to fight back against Guo, forming a multi-faceted attack. Under the situation of encirclement and suppression, Guo Wengui, who was still dying, was already besieged from all sides, isolated and helpless.

But as long as you think about it carefully, it was already expected that Guo Laobu would end up like this. First, during the critical period of the United States' fight against the epidemic, rumors were promoted, and hydroxychloroquine and dexamethasone, which had been officially proved to be ineffective, were touted as magic drugs against the new crown, which made many American people be tempted by them to "test the medicines themselves" Caused poisoning, with the help of Lao Guo, the protest work in the United States not only failed to improve, but there was always a "oil bottle" behind it. How can the US government and the media not become "Avengers"?

Then, in order to obtain benefits through the "urinating revolution", Lao Guo used the "anti-Communist and anti-China" to attract money wildly, and he did not hesitate to invite all kinds of bulls, ghosts and snakes to help him through all kinds of rhetoric, but the interests are inseparable from it. The word "money". Whether it's Yan Limeng who was killed by the mill, or Sara who broke with the Phoenix Farm incident, or Lude and others who engaged in the "green hat gang", the fundamental reason for breaking with Lao Guo is not because of those "stinky money" . As the old saying goes, "the world is prosperous for profit, and the world is for profit." Guo Wengui failed to make them realize the "freedom of wealth" in their dreams, so these people turned into staunch "Avengers" of the Guo faction. Also within reason.

Then there is Guo Wengui, who made a lot of money by relying on the chicken series. Seeing that all the scams are thundering one after another, in order to "love" the ants again, and add to the last drop of blood of the ants, Guo Tian shamelessly uses the same routine and pretense. I started the "Xi Coin" investment, thinking of repeating the chicken series of operations with the trick of "one trick fresh, eating all over the sky", which really pushed the ants' IQ to the ground and rubbed them. Fortunately, the ants who have eaten "One Cut" have also begun to realize that no matter how high the investment benefits Guo Wengui advocates, it is only himself who will bulge his pockets in the end, and all the ants end up "making wedding dresses" for Lao Guo. 's fate. The refund of ant investors is still far away, and now there is another "Xi coin", such a provocation is believed to have broken through the bottom line of most ants, and only the incarnation of "Avengers" can hope to regain their own interests.

The "Avengers" camp is constantly expanding, and Guo Wengui, who knows it well, can't stand it anymore, and he starts to bite wildly, scolding the streets everywhere, trying to support the new favorite, and trying to fight back. But Guo Wengui's fight against the trapped beasts, after all, only makes people feel embarrassed. It was he who pursued personal interests unscrupulously, and he cultivated one after another "Avengers" by himself, so that he fell into the world that was spurned by the world. situation. With the "Avengers" assembled, Guo Wengui is also destined to fall into the same fate as the "Titan" in the movie, and be completely eliminated to become the real "Destroy it".

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scripttorture · 3 years

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hi there, I hope my question is fitting with the blog theme. I am searching for resources about hand caning how it was used in schools, as a more or less harsh punishment for children (that's why I was not sure about asking here). I can't find if the punishment was delivered always on the palms or sometimes on the back of the hands too, and if there are serious risks of bone breaking or nerve damage since I guess it's a delicate area. I imagined my character being hit on the back of his hand with a wooden ruler, so I was wondering if that would be perceived as unusual + how his hands and fingers would feel after that - if there could be bleeding, swelling or similar. We're talking about a young man in his twenties - I know this was usually a punishment for children, it's just a really specific situation in an imaginary setting that resembles the late '800. Thank you for your attention and feel free to discard this ask if it's unfitting!

It might surprise you but by the modern legal definition this is arguably torture, so yes it’s very much in the scope of the blog.

The definition of torture by the UN essentially amounts to this:

It must be painful

It must be done deliberately

It must be done by (or under the orders of) a public official for one of the following reasons

To obtain a confession

An attempt to gain information (torture can’t do this)

Punishment

Intimidation

It does not matter if they’re trying to effect the victim or another person. So for instance if someone is tortured to ‘punish’ a relative who hasn’t been arrested, that still counts as torture.

Class room abuse of school children isn’t what we usually think of when we discuss torture and it isn’t where most of the research is focused. But legally speaking, if it’s a government run school it certainly counts.

My understanding here is based on modern research on spanking and I think it’s worth discussing the ways in which torture in a class room might differ from torture in a jail cell.

In many countries and schools (probably most) children do not stay at the school. They have a reprieve. They know when they’ll leave every day and how long classes are. If they’re lucky they’ll be going back to a supportive families.

They also have the support of their peers in class, something prisoners don’t always get. And they almost always have access to medical help in a way that is not dependant on the school.

Depending on the context there may also be more effective recourse for children in schools then prisoners.

What this amounts to is that children in schools are not necessarily subjected to the same long periods of abuse that prisoners are. For example standing stress positions were used against children in western schools for a long time. But if children aren’t sleeping at school then they’re less likely to be kept in those stress positions for 48 hours straight compared to prisoners.

And all of these differences might effect things like recovery rates and symptom severity.

I think that having time away from the abusive environment (the school), a supportive family and supportive peers would be protective factors. On the other hand children are incredibly dependant on adults and though the school day might end it takes years to finish school. I think those factors would make things worse.

We know from research on smacking that even low levels of violence have a pronounced negative effect on children. Children who were hit grow into adults that have lower IQs, are more likely to be mentally ill, more likely to behave aggressively and have worse relationships with their parents (who smacked them.)

Based on what I know about torture (keep in mind the studies I look at focus on adults) I think it’s likely that the frequency and intensity of the attacks would make a difference to how mentally healthy the character would be as an adult. He’d probably have lower self esteem then he would have done otherwise. He would be more likely to develop anxiety and/or depression.

Think about how often these attacks are happening, how long each attack takes and how long through the schooling process they continue. This feeds in to what ‘reasonable’ physical and psychological consequences for the character look like. A character who is subjected to attacks of several minutes every day for the entire time he’s in school will look very different to a character who is hit once in every 3-6 weeks for the two year he had that one terrible teacher.

Hitting the hands was and is a pretty common attack on children globally. My impression is that hitting the backs of the hands was more common but it depended on where you were. I think generally what you’re describing is a fairly ‘typical’ torture used against children in schools.

The context I’ve heard it in most often is a single hit, during class as the teacher walks past.

Honestly there are a lot of possible injuries these kinds of attacks can cause. Broken bones are possible but unless it’s a prolonged attack (ie he’s hit a lot of times over the course of a minute or two) they’re less likely with a wooden ruler. Even then I think fractures are more likely then breaks.

Your instinct is pretty good. I think you’d see visible swelling and you would sometimes get bleeding as the skin across the knuckles cracks.

I actually get these cracks pretty regularly because the chemicals I use dry out my skin. And I forget to moisturise. Like a terrible mammal.

They don’t bleed a lot. But they’re also hard to put plasters over, the movement of the hand makes the plaster peel off. You can bandage around the whole hand, but this is very bulky and clumbersome. I personally never bothered. The cuts also re-open often. They often leave small blood stains on sleeves and cuffs. They also sting, especially when washing your hands.

The actual hits- It’s a sharp pain and it makes a loud noise. The noise itself can be surprising. The joints often ache afterwards and it can take several days, may be up to a week for that ache to vanish. Which makes any repeated blows over the next few days more painful.

If it’s a single hit that might be the end of the physical injuries, unless he’s really unlucky. But the more often this happens and the more times he’s hit in any attack the more likely more serious injuries are.

I’m honestly not sure about nerve damage in this case. I will say that it seems unlikely if you’re talking about a single blow every month or so. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an adult survivor of this particular practice describe symptoms similar to nerve damage.

Overall it sounds like a perfectly plausible scenario. I hope this helps :)

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#writing advice #tw torture #tw child abuse #beating #torture in schools #beating hands #effects of torture #writing torture

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yobaba30 · 3 years

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Stolen from Twitter

I owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency these last four years, and am still exhausted from the experience. But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than when he incited an insurrection against the government, mismanaged a pandemic that killed nearly half a million Americans, separated children from their families, lost those children in the bureaucracy, tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church, tried to block all Muslims from entering the country, got impeached, got impeached again, had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden, fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia, bragged about firing the FBI director on TV, took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community, diverted military funding to build his wall, caused the longest government shutdown in US history, called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,” lied nearly 30,000 times, banned transgender people from serving in the military, ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions, vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers, refused to release his tax returns, increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion, had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history, called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers, coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist, refused to concede the 2020 election, hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House, walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl, called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID, abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey, pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans, incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic, withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords, withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal, withdrew withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances, insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter, pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op, failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies, called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries, called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation,” claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere, forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe, suggested the US should buy Greenland, colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges, repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people,” claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases, violated the emoluments clause, thought that Nambia was a country, told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public, called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution, nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet, nominated a corrupt head the EPA, nominated a corrupt head of HHS, nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department, nominated a corrupt head of the USDA, praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies, refused to allow the presidential transition to begin, insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death, spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president, falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote, called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,” falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote, called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,” falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year, considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions, mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID, locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones, used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus,” hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser, pardoned several of his shady associates, gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories, got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!), had a Secretary of State who called him a moron, forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history, botched the COVID vaccine rollout, tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him, charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties, constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate, claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear, called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas,” used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise, opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling, got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers, claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US, ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings, blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining, redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle, got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,” threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution, botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them, pressured the governor and secretary of state of Part 2 cont… Georgia to “find” him votes, thought that the Virgin islands had a President, drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane, allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing, rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos, pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID, rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers held blatant campaign rallies at the White House, tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man, refused to attend his successors’ inauguration, nominated the worst Education Secretary in history threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted, attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t), allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues, struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble, called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ,” threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders, went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic, claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,” seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution, demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director, praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles, completely gutted the Voice of America, placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service, claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower, suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country, suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public, overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported, reduced the number of refugees the US accepts, insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames, gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address, named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties, eliminated the White House office of pandemic respon used soldiers as campaign props, fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him, demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade, hired a shit ton of white nationalists, politicized the civil service, did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked US falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts, claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won, insulted reporters of color, insulted women reporters, insulted women reporters of color, suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs, attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him, summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election, spent countless hours every day watching Fox News, refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas, hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer, tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him, acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney, attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault, held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present, didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media, stopped holding press briefings for months at a time, “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power, led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform, claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers, tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course, suggested that the government nuke hurricanes, suggested that wind turbines cause cancer, said that he had a special aptitude for science, fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure, blurted out classified information to Russian officials, tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida, fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban, hired Stephen Miller, openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them, interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel, abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war, tried to get Russia back into the G7, held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden, seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive, lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated, falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t, shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies, still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan, still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure,” forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID, told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” fucked up the Census, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act, Part 3 continues… seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win, constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump, claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened, said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake, claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him, claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President, created a commission to whitewash American history, retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain, claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there, hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims, had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others, bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties, apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House, stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians, falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police, said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about, tried to rescind protection from DREAMers, gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic, tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax, said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states, deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented, claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln, touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all, retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile, forced through security clearances for his family, suggested that police officers should rough up suspects, suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs, tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender, suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher, nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy, retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event, hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags, accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address, claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia, mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, obsessed over low-flow toilets, ordered the rerelease of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release, called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek), hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech, took advice from the MyPillow guy, claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists, said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition, never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign, falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent, announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest, insulted the leader of Canada, insulted the leader of France, insulted the leader of Britain, insulted the leader of Germany, insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!), falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues, blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually, continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders, said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked, left a NATO summit early in a huff, stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that, called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary, refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment. But other than that. . . Please share. This is how history books will read, because these are PROVABLE FACTS! Truth

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aldahi-rp · 3 years

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Is there any info on your OCs?

Our Characters are from a Mass Effect D&D campaign run by @starthefoxhound

Kai is my main OC (the others I will describe belong to my friends.) I have a short story written about her and her sister from her father's perspective on my blog. (Just check the #kai tag)

Kai is a fully autonomous artificial intelligence unit created by renowned robotics scientist Dr. Daniel Koizumi.

She was kept indoors locked away for the majority of her existence due to her creators fear that she would be dismantled if found out. He raised her as a daughter and did his best to treat her like a human child. But he was killed by pirates about a week ago and now Kai is out and exploring the wider world for the first time in her life.

The quarian she is often depicted with is her girlfriend Zohe. Zohe was captured by geth when she flew into geth space on her pilgrimage. Through time spent together she and the geth learned to trust one another and eventually became close friends. Now she is on a mission to establish peace between her people and the geth.

Kretin is the batarian. He is the ship's piolet and a wanna-be pirate with a very low IQ but a big heart. He is very child-like in demeanor and obsessed with pillows.

Nezon is the bright green salarian and Atticus is the Turian he is usually depicted with. The two of them are dating. Atticus is the crew's semi-official leader, and Nezon is probably the most paragon member of the crew. The two of them represent 90% of the maturity abroad the Liberator.

The asari in a cowboy hat is Lani. She is an ardant yakshi on the run from her government. She was part of a project intended to cure ardant yakshi in which horrible tests and experiments were preformed on her. She is now on a mission to find the other girls who were experimented on and bring those who perpetuated the abuse to justice

Botip is the more olive green salarian. He is obsessed with explosives and created an AI drone in the form of a dog mech named bite-e. He is one of Kai's best friends and something of a surrogate big brother for her.

Desnett is an elcore doctor. He's a bit of a loner and his hobbies include drinking absenth and avoiding Kretin.

#Mass effect #Campaign #Answers

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bigmacdaddio · 3 years

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Trump

Trump will never be forgotten because he incited an insurrection against the government, mismanaged a pandemic that killed over half a million Americans, separated children from their families, lost those children in the bureaucracy, tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church, tried to block all Muslims from entering the country, got impeached, got impeached again, had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia, bragged about firing the FBI director on TV, took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community, diverted military funding to build his wall, caused the longest government shutdown in US history, called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,” lied nearly 30,000 times, banned transgender people from serving in the military, ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions, vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers, refused to release his tax returns, increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion, had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history, called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers, coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist, refused to concede the 2020 election, hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House, walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl, called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” suggested that people should inject bleach or disinfectant into their bodies to fight COVID, abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey, pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans, incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic, withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords, withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal, withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances, insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter, pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op, failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies, called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries, called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation,” claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere, forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader, believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe, suggested the US should buy Greenland, colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges, repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people,” claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases, violated the emoluments clause, thought that Nambia was a country, told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public, called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution, nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet, nominated a corrupt head of the EPA, nominated a corrupt head of HHS, nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department, nominated a corrupt head of the USDA, praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies, refused to allow the presidential transition to begin, insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death, spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president, falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote, called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,” falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year, considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions, mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID, locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones, used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus,” hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser, pardoned several of his shady associates, gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories, got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!), had a Secretary of State who called him a moron, forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history, botched the COVID vaccine rollout, tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him, charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties, constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate, claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear, called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas,” used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise, opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling, got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers, claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US, ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings, blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining, redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle, got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,” threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution, botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them, pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes, thought that the Virgin islands had a President, drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane, allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing, rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos, pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID, rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers, held blatant campaign rallies at the White House, tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man, refused to attend his successors’ inauguration, nominated the worst Education Secretary in history, threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted, attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t), allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues, struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble, called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ,” threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders, went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic, claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,” seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution, demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director, praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles, completely gutted the Voice of America, placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service, claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower, suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country, suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public, overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported, reduced the number of refugees the US accepts, insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames, gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address, named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties, eliminated the White House office of pandemic response, used soldiers as campaign props, fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him, demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade, hired a shit ton of white nationalists, politicized the civil service, did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government, falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts, claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won, insulted reporters of color, insulted women reporters, insulted women reporters of color, suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs, attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him, summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election, spent countless hours every day watching Fox News, refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas, hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer, tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him, acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney, attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault, held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present, didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media, stopped holding press briefings for months at a time, “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power, led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform, claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers, tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course, suggested that the government nuke hurricanes, suggested that wind turbines cause cancer, said that he had a special aptitude for science, fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure, blurted out classified information to Russian officials, tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida, fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban, hired Stephen Miller, openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them, interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel, abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war, tried to get Russia back into the G7, held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden, seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive, lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated, falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t, shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies, still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan, still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks,” forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID, told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” fu**ed up the Census, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic, did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act, seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win, constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump, claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened, said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake, claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him, claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President, created a commission to whitewash American history, retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain, claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there, hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims, had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others, bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties, apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House, stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians, falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police, said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about, tried to rescind protection from DREAMers, gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic, tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax, said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states, deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented, claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln, touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all, retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile, forced through security clearances for his family, suggested that police officers should rough up suspects, suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs, tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender, suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher, nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy, retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “F**k tha Police” at a campaign event, hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags, accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address, claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia, mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, obsessed over low-flow toilets, ordered the rerelease of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release, called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek), hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech, took advice from the MyPillow guy, claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists, said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure, never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign, falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent, announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest, insulted the leader of Canada, insulted the leader of France, insulted the leader of Britain, insulted the leader of Germany, insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!), falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues, blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually, continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders, said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked, left a NATO summit early in a huff, stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that, called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary, refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and keep his promise, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment.

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aalt-ctrl-del · 4 years

Link

“The state laboratory, finally able to begin testing, confirmed the result the next morning. The teenager, who had recovered from his illness, was located and informed just after he entered his school building. He was sent home and the school was later closed as a precaution.

Later that day, the investigators and Seattle health officials gathered with representatives of the C.D.C. and the F.D.A. to discuss what happened. The message from the federal government was blunt. “What they said on that phone call very clearly was cease and desist to Helen Chu,” Dr. Lindquist remembered. “Stop testing.”’

Absolutely beautiful.

It’s weird how people have had to bend and break the rules set in place by our current administration, just to paint a picture of the Covid 19s movement. We’re moving on to wide spread testing, but fuck... THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN AVAILABLE LIKE A MONTH AGO.

But those numbers would have looked bad on trumps record. So guess what.

NOW EVERYBODY HAS TO BE IN QUARANTINE BECAUSE TODDLER IN CHIEF AND HIS SNAILS IN COLD MOLASSES DIDNT LIKE THE NUMBERS.

“It’s just like the flu. Don’t worry.”

- trump somewhere in February

YOU WALKING USED TISSUE. YOU ABSOLUTE DRIED TOENAIL CLIPPING. YOU GANGRENOUS INFECTION. YOU AND ALL YOUR RUSTY, BLUNT TOOLS ARE SO LOW ON THE IQ SCORE, WE DON’T HAVE NUMBERS TO REPRESENT YOUR FAILURE. WE JUST HAVE SCREAMING AND FLASHING LIGHTS. AND PERHAPS A REPUGNANT ODOR. WORTHLESS NOISE.

A thermometer aint gonna save you, boomer

#Dr. Helen Y. Chu #flu study #coronavirus #corona virus #covid 19 #Seattle #washington #toilet paper #people did an illegal #outbreak #fucking fed #im FED UP

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

The 'fool' that fentanyl made into a millionaire

https://apnews.com/ce51cf7c958643629bce76764f71058d

This is a fascinating read 📖 looking at who stoked and helped create the Fentanyl Crisis that has taken so many lives. 😱 😭 😭 😭

The 'Fool ' That Fentanyl Made Into A Millionaire

By CLAIRE GALOFARO and LINDSAY WHITEHURST | Published September 14, 2019 10:20 AM ET | AP | Posted September 14, 2019 10:40 AM ET |

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The photo that flashed onto the courtroom screen showed a young man dead on his bedroom floor, bare feet poking from the cuffs of his rolled up jeans. Lurking on a trash can at the edge of the picture was what prosecutors said delivered this death: an ordinary, U.S. Postal Service envelope.

It had arrived with 10 round, blue pills inside, the markings of pharmaceutical-grade oxycodone stamped onto the surface. The young man took out two, crushed and snorted them. But the pills were poison, prosecutors said: counterfeits containing fatal grains of fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that has written a deadly new chapter in the American opioid epidemic.

The envelope was postmarked from the suburbs of Salt Lake City.

That's where a clean-cut, 29-year-old college dropout and Eagle Scout named Aaron Shamo made himself a millionaire by building a fentanyl trafficking empire with not much more than his computer and the help of a few friends.

___

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

___

For three weeks this summer, those suburban millennials climbed onto the witness stand at his federal trial and offered an unprecedented window into how fentanyl bought and sold online has transformed the global drug trade. There was no testimony of underground tunnels or gangland murders or anything that a wall at the southern border might stop. Shamo called himself a "white-collar drug dealer," drew in co-workers from his time at eBay and peppered his messages to them with smiley-face emojis. His attorney called him a fool; his primary defense was that he isn't smart enough to be a kingpin.

How he and his friends managed to flood the country with a half-million fake oxycodone pills reveals the ease with which fentanyl now moves around the world, threatening to expand the epidemic beyond America's borders. It is so potent, so easy to transport, experts say, large-scale traffickers no longer require sophisticated networks to send it to any corner of the globe. All they need is a mailbox, internet access and people with an appetite for opioids. And consumption rates are rising from Asia to Europe to Latin America as pharmaceutical companies promote painkillers abroad.

The case against Shamo detailed how white powder up to 100 times stronger than morphine was bought online from a laboratory in China and arrived in Utah via international mail; it was shaped into perfect-looking replicas of oxycodone tablets in the press that thumped in Shamo's basement and resold on the internet's black markets. Then it was routed back into the postal system in thousands of packages addressed to homes across this country awash with prescription painkiller addiction.

When Shamo took the stand to try to spare himself a lifetime in prison, he began with a nervous chuckle. He careened from one topic to the next in a monologue prosecutors would later describe as masterful manipulation to convince the jury he thought his drug-dealing was helping people. Customers wrote thank you notes because their doctors refused to prescribe more painkillers, he said. It felt like "a win-win situation" — he got rich and his customers got drugs.

One of them was a struggling 21-year-old named Ruslan Klyuev who died in his bedroom in Daly City, California, the envelope from Utah at his feet. Shamo was charged in connection to that overdose alone, but when investigators scoured the list of customers they said they counted dozens more dead.

___

The question before this jury is being debated all across America: Two decades into the opioid epidemic, is there such a thing as justice for 400,000 lost lives?

The largest civil litigation in history is testing how the pharmaceutical industry should be held accountable for inundating the country with billions of addictive pain pills. Purdue Pharma, seen by many as the primary villain for deceptively pushing the blockbuster drug OxyContin, reached a tentative $12 billion settlement this week with about half the states and roughly 2,000 local governments. Attorneys general who didn't sign on say the figure is far too low. A trial of other pharmaceutical companies is scheduled for next month, in which communities will contend that their mass marketing of prescription painkillers sparked an epidemic.

This crisis began in the 1990s and has since has spiraled into waves, each worse than the one before: Prescription opioids spread addiction, then a crackdown on prescribing paved the road to heroin, which led to fentanyl — a synthetic opioid made entirely in a laboratory. Traffickers added it to heroin to boost its potency and profitability. That transition happened slowly at first, then with extraordinary ferocity.

By 2017, deaths from synthetic opioids had increased more than 800 percent, to 28,466, dragging the United States' overall life expectancy down for a third consecutive year for the first time in a century. Fentanyl deaths have been reported abroad, in Canada, Sweden, Estonia, the United Kingdom. Countries with surging prescription opioid addiction, like Australia, fear they are on the brink.

"Fentanyl will be the bubonic plague," said Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, warning that any country with a burgeoning prescription opioid problem could soon find itself following American footsteps. "It's just a matter of time."

No one can say exactly how or why fentanyl, first synthesized in 1959 as a powerful painkiller, entered the modern illicit drug market, said Bryce Pardo, a researcher at the Rand Corporation. In 2013, people began overdosing on heroin laced with fentanyl in New England and Ohio, and it spread from there. Shabbir Safdar, the Partnership for Safe Medicines' executive director, said the first known death from a fentanyl-laced pill was in San Francisco in October 2015.

It was a frightening development: The DEA estimates 3.4 million Americans misuse prescription painkillers, compared to 475,000 heroin users — meaning the pool potentially exposed is 10 times bigger.

There are two sources of supply. Mexican cartels and packages shipped direct from China, where it is produced in a huge and under-regulated chemical sector. A Senate investigation last year found massive quantities of fentanyl pouring in from China through the Postal Service. The report largely blamed dated technology that left customs inspectors sifting through packages manually looking for "the proverbial needle in a haystack." The Postal Service wrote in a statement to The Associated Press that it is working hard with its international counterparts to close those loopholes, and is improving its technology to intercept fentanyl shipments.

By the time a seized package heading from China to Utah led investigators to Shamo, he had already turned fentanyl into at least 458,946 potentially poisonous pills, the government said. There are many more like him, officials say, upstart traffickers pressing pure Chinese-made fentanyl into pills in their basements and kitchens with unsophisticated equipment. In a single batch, one pill might have no fentanyl and another enough to kill a person instantly. One agent at Shamo's trial compared it to making chocolate-chip cookies, only if too many chips ended up in a "cookie," whoever ate it dropped dead.

For traffickers, the profit margins are irresistible: The DEA estimates a kilogram of fentanyl synthesized for a few thousand dollars could make a dealer more than $1 million.

"Any moron can basically become a major drug kingpin by dealing in fentanyl," said Vigil. "You can have somebody with an IQ minus 100 who becomes an overnight multimillionaire."

___

Aaron Shamo dreamed of entrepreneurial riches. He idolized Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and studied self-improvement books like "Think and Grow Rich."

He and a longtime friend, Drew Crandall, worked at eBay after failed stints in college. But Crandall was fired and Shamo decided it was "unfair" that he still had to work, so he quit. They wanted easy money.

Shamo grew up in Phoenix with three older sisters. As a teenager, he started smoking pot and refusing to attend services with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His parents sent him to boarding school in Utah, where he earned his Eagle Scout badge. He later met Crandall through their shared love of longboarding and they moved in together. Crandall was awkward and shy; Shamo was charismatic, and prided himself on helping his friend talk to girls.

The pair concocted a plan to sell their Adderall, prescribed for attention deficit disorder, on the dark web — a wild, unregulated layer of the internet reached through a special browser. There are underground marketplaces there that mimic Amazon or eBay, where guns and drugs and pirated software are traded. Money is exchanged anonymously through cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

They learned what they needed on the web, searching with queries like "how to ship drugs." It was so easy. They expanded, ordering drugs in bulk, breaking them down and selling at a mark-up, all while barely having to leave the house.

They used the postal system like a drug mule, peddling the club drug MDMA, magic mushrooms, date rape drugs — they once bought a kilogram of cocaine from Peru. They recruited friends, offering them $100 to have parcels mailed to their homes, no questions asked.

But the profit margins were slim and their ambitions were greater: They bought a pill press, ordered the sedative alprazolam online from India and watched YouTube videos to figure out how to turn it into fake Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication. Crandall, math minded, created the recipe. They mixed it up by shaking it in mason jars.

Then Crandall fell in love.

His new girlfriend grew suspicious when he would sneak away to package drugs. When she confronted him at a party, he tearfully confessed. She forgave him, if he promised to leave the business. They bought one-way tickets to New Zealand.

Then a local drug dealer made a suggestion to Shamo that would change the course of his life: There was a fortune to be made in producing fake oxycodone.

Shamo enlisted his gym buddy, Jonathan Luke Paz, to help him. Shamo ordered fentanyl online from China, set up the pill press in the basement and bought dyes and stamps to match popular pharmaceuticals. Then they handed them over to the local dealer, who tested them on his own customers. The first batches were weak or speckled in color, he told them, or didn't react like real oxycodone when users heated it on tinfoil to smoke it.

But they were getting better.

"Close to being money in the bank," the dealer messaged Shamo. "You did it, bro."

On the first day of 2016, Shamo he wrote out his goals for the upcoming year: He would be rich. All the girls would want him.

"I will overachieve," he wrote. "I will overcome."

He went online with his products a month later. Some were specified as fentanyl, but some weren't, purporting instead to contain 30 milligrams of oxycodone. Shamo named this new store Pharma-Master.

___

As winter turned to summer, sales skyrocketed. Pharma-Master started selling thousands of pills a week, charging around $10 each.

On June 6, a relatively small order came in: 10 pills, to be shipped to an apartment house in Daly City, a working-class suburb of San Francisco.

Like every order, it was sent in an encrypted email to two former eBay co-workers in charge of distribution. Alexandrya Tonge and Katherine Bustin counted out the pills in their suburban condo, packaged the shipments and dropped them in the mail.

The envelope arrived at the doorstep at 3 p.m. on June 11.

Under different circumstances, Shamo might have been friends with the 21-year-old man who lived there. Ruslan Klyuev, a Russian immigrant, was also an aspiring tech entrepreneur interested in the dark web. He had a baby face: rosy cheeks and curly hair. Klyuev loved to cook and would make extravagant meals for the house.

But his relationship ended, his web design business sputtered and he became estranged from his family, said Barry, a roommate who spoke on the condition that his last name not be published. His emotions toggled between sorrow and elation, and he struggled with substance abuse.

After drinking vodka, Klyuev crushed two of the pills with a battery and snorted the powder with a rolled-up sticky note, according to testimony. He started drifting in and out of sleep. He couldn't stand up.

He was found dead the next day, with fentanyl, alcohol and a substance associated with cocaine in his system.

His was the only death with which Shamo would be charged. His defense attorney, Greg Skordas, argued that neither his death nor any others can be definitely linked with Shamo's operation.

But in documents, prosecutors connected Shamo to a veritable slaughter:

A 24-year-old man in Seattle overdosed three weeks after he bought pills from Pharma-Master in March 2016.

Later that spring, 40 pills were shipped to a 21-year-old in Washington, D.C. He died in his dorm room 11 days later.

In Utah, a 29-year-old software analyst named Devin Meldrum had been searching since he was a teenager for a cure for cluster headaches that felt like knives stabbing his skull, said his father, Rod.

Doctors had prescribed opioids but limited the dosage, so he bought a backup supply from Pharma-Master. On Aug. 13, 2016, he ran out of pills days before his refill. As he got ready for bed, he texted his fiance and took a pill from his reserve for the first time, his father said.

He was dead before she arrived to say goodnight, blue on his bathroom floor.

His father isn't sure Shamo even now understands the magnitude of what happened: "Does he even comprehend how many families have had their hearts torn out?"

___

Online, Pharma-Master was getting rave reviews.

"These will make u a millionaire in under a year, guarantee," wrote one shopper who called himself "Trustworthy Money."

He was a dealer in Portland named Jared Gillespie. He bought 80,000 pills from Pharma-Master, according to documents filed against Gillespie in Oregon. He knew he was buying fentanyl pills, the Oregon prosecutors alleged, but the people buying from him had no way to know that. They are unknown and uncounted.

Shamo offered steep discounts for bulk buyers. Tonge, one of his distributors, testified that she began to question Shamo's claim that he was helping patients who couldn't get medication: Why would one person need 5,000 pills?

Her vacuum cleaner would become a critical piece of evidence. Its dust bin was filled with pills. The operation had grown so frantic, pumping out tens of thousands of tablets a month, that when they spilled onto the floor, they weren't worth saving.

Tonge and her partner complained that the orders were coming too quickly, so Shamo hired a "runner" named Sean Gygi to pick up the packages and drop them in the mail, dozens of them a day.

Drug manufacturing became routine: Shamo once wrote himself a to-do list, and included a reminder to "make blues," the street name for oxycodone, along with getting a haircut, washing his sheets, cleaning the kitchen. And Shamo planned to expand. He bought another press so big agents would later need a tow truck to drag it out of his garage.

The money was pouring in, and out.

Shamo hired a personal assistant; she did his shopping, had his car detailed. He stuffed a duffel bag with $429,000 cash and asked his parents to hold it. He bragged to friends about VIP bottle service at clubs and gambling in Las Vegas. He shopped for real estate in Puerto Rico; took photos sipping champagne on a cruise ship; bought designer jeans, an 88-inch television, a boat and BMW.

Crandall and his girlfriend posted photos on Instagram of trips to Laos, Thailand, Singapore, kayaking and partying. But he was running out of money and agreed to become a remote customer service representative. The list of people accepting packages from China ballooned to more than a dozen. Everyone was making easy money and getting text messages from Shamo dotted with "lol" and "awesome!"

Shamo penned another note: "I am Shamo. I am awesome. My friends love me. I created an empire."

But even as he cheered himself on, there were signs of danger.

One customer reported an overdose death. Shamo scanned obituaries, then declared it was a faked, Crandall said. Then a message said pills were making people sick.

Crandall forwarded it to Shamo with a dismissive question: Should he tell them to "suck it up?" Or send more pills to pacify them?

___

They didn't know it, but a suspicious customs agent at the Los Angeles International Airport had flagged a box from Shanghai, China, pulled it off the belt and looked inside. The agent found 98.7 grams of fentanyl powder — enough to make almost 100,000 pills. The box was destined for Utah.

Agents looked for more packages making their way from China to Utah, and eventually one arrived, said an agent with Homeland Security Investigations who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect ongoing investigations. On Nov. 8, 2016, postal inspectors seized a box en route from a port city in China known to law enforcement as a fentanyl-trafficking hub. It was addressed to Sean Gygi, Shamo's "runner," so agents arrived at his house with a search warrant.

Gygi said he thought the hundreds of envelopes he'd put in the mail contained the party drugs he sometimes took himself. Told it was fentanyl, the agent recalled, Gygi drooped.

He agreed to wear a wire while he picked up the packages, like he did every day. But instead of dropping them in the mail, he delivered them to police.

This single day's shipment contained 34,828 fentanyl pills destined for homes in 26 states.

Four days later, on Nov. 22, 2016, agents stood on Shamo's stoop, shouted through a bullhorn, then broke the door down with a battering ram. They were dressed in neon-orange hazmat suits with clear bowls around their faces that made them look like astronauts.

Shamo came up the stairs in a T-shirt and shorts, a mask and gloves in his pocket. A pill press downstairs was running, in a room with powder caked on the walls and the furniture.

Others were raiding the stash at Bustin and Tonge's condo. Veteran vice officers would say they had never seen so many pills, even in international operations. In total, they packed up over 74,000 fentanyl pills awaiting distribution.

In Shamo's sock drawer, agents found stack after stack of cash. There was more money in a safe in the closet. Agents totaled up more than $1.2 million, not including the money he had tied up in Bitcoin or bags he'd stashed with his family. Investigators eventually caught up with Paz, who Shamo paid around a dollar per pill, and he surrendered $800,000 more.

Crandall was in Laos, still traveling with his girlfriend, when he heard the news. He stored his drug-related data on a flash drive, threw it down a storm drain and sent an email to the dark web marketplace: "This account has been compromised." After a few months, he figured he was in the clear. He and his girlfriend planned their wedding and invited guests to meet them in Hawaii for the big day: May 12, 2017. They bought rings, and a dress.

Agents were waiting when they stepped onto American soil in Honolulu.

___

When Crandall sat on the witness stand, he was slump-shouldered and shackled, clumsily trying to maneuver his handcuffs to pull a tissue out of the box to wipe his eyes. In the two years since his arrest, he has been imprisoned in a county jail and watched his fellow inmates suffer the brutal fallout of an opioid epidemic. They stole from their parents, cycled in and out of jail and shivered, sweated, sobbed through withdrawal.

He'd helped feed this, he realized. For money.

He and Shamo's other ex-partners and packagers pleaded guilty, agreed to testify against their friend and hoped for mercy.

The story they told convinced the jury to convict Shamo of 12 counts, including continuing criminal enterprise, the so-called "kingpin charge" that is typically reserved for drug lords like El Chapo and carries a mandatory life sentence. The jury deadlocked, though on the 13th count: the death of Klyuev.

The bust was one of the largest operations in the country in 2016. But the fentanyl trade has only grown more sophisticated since. By comparison, Shamo now looks "small-time," said Safdar, with the Partnership for Safe Medicines. The most notorious Mexican drug cartels have transitioned to fentanyl, even as homegrown upstarts like Shamo's proliferate.

Seizure data in the United Nation's World Drug Report shows trafficking quickly expanding worldwide. In 2013, four countries reported fentanyl seizures. By 2016: 12 countries. In 2017, 16 countries reported seizing fentanyl.

And there is no reason to believe it will not spread further. In Africa and the Middle East, the synthetic opioid tramadol is widely abused, much of it illicitly manufactured in Asia. If that market transitions to fentanyl it would be catastrophic, said Scott Stewart, a former agent with the State Department. In Australia, prescription opioid consumption has quadrupled. Marianne Jauncey, medical director of a Sydney harm-reduction center, can't think of any reason fentanyl won't soon arrive — all they can do is prepare for the day that it does.

As Shamo was convicted, a single dark web marketplace still had 32,000 listings for drugs, thousands of them claiming to be oxycodone. There was no way to tell whether they originated in a pharmacy or somebody's basement.

One vendor even borrowed a version of Shamo's name. Pharmamaster peddles oxys online, sold in bulk at a discount. It has, it boasts, an "unlimited" supply.

"Pharma-grade A++," the listings promise. "24-hour shipping!"

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writerraj · 5 years

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Quotients

Our Company President when talks in a meeting, mesmerises the audience with his fluency in English. He impresses all with his super word power & knowledge - Man with a great L(Language) Q(Quotient).

Marathi community seniors who all have had enough of Holy Dnyaneshwari reads, will know how proficient such a young Saint Dnyaneshwar could be in Marathi & et al who are non-Marathi speakers, will be bristling with perplexities for his supreme poetic proficiency – Godly human being with an all-time high LQ & S (Spiritual) Q (Quotient). Stephen Hawking & Albert Einstein had an I (Intelligence) Q(Quotient) of 160, one of the all-time high. Parents of an eleven year old girl Kashmea Wahi in London buzzing with excitement boast: My kid is smarter than Albert Einstein because she clocked IQ of 162, officially. Just do note here the use of word smarter. (*) Owner of a grocery shop in the area where I stay, is a Gujarati baniya. Although he looks insane, he is a Crorepati – know why? His has mastered money management & proliferation techniques and has an inclement business focus. He has three flats in Mumbai & a couple of more in Gujarat. His F (Financial) Q (Quotient) and B(Business) Q (Quotient) are phenomenal. One celebrity, we all know – Amitabh Bachchan. Whatever his attire, anything suits him. Undoubtedly, he has a good F(Fashion) Q (Quotient) and of course a unique personality with a magnetic & obsessive voice. Some may recall Hollywood star Morgan Freeman for such a similitude. Nidhi is very blunt & cannot get along with people, even with her mother, easily. Why? Just because her E(Emotional) Q (Quotient) is very low. Two brothers Viraj & Anuj, both are diametrically opposite in nature. Viraj likes to associate with people & socialise. Not the case with Anuj though. Both have extremes of S (Social) Q (Quotient), Viraj finds himself on the top & Anuj finds himself at the bottom of SQ count. Music is synonymous with Salil. He has such a commendable grasping & ear for Music that just one hearing of a piece of music is enough for him to replicate. Music is in his blood & genes. He has a terrific M(Music) Q(Quotient). Now we all have a new Bravery milestone set up by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman (great BQ – Bravery Quotient). He is being aptly recommended by Tamil Nadu Government for Param Veer Chakra. All such tête-à-tête and sprinkles of word Quotient for Language, Intelligence, Finance, Fashion, Emotional, Social, Spiritual & Music etc. are a part of routine jargon for all of us. We may as well coin some more such (A to Z) quotients as trait indicators e.g. Bravery quotient (BQ), Risk quotient (RQ), Common-sense quotient (CQ), Acting quotient (AQ) etc. It is worth mentioning here about one of our Machine Design Professor who always used to ask us some simple (to him) questions during his lecture. On not getting the expected answer from all of us, he used to frown & say, “Do you see how common sense is so very uncommon.” So don’t ever underestimate CQ as it is that rare.

We often use this word, ‘quotient’ seamlessly and seldom condemn all the other people in the race who are low at that. These quotients that we presume indicate completeness of a person, do not necessarily indicate smartness (*) and often misguide to believe that one is not up to the mark. Management thinker Peter Drucker says that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” In other words, if anything is to be improved, it must be measured. Measuring quotients will indicate current level of a person in that area & also help to some extent which area he is good at.

One of my friend’s daughter got admitted to 11 th Grade science stream after a good score at SSCE in Science subjects, much obviously (?) so as thought & insisted by her parents. The girl kept on convincing her parents that she is not interested in science at all & wants to pursue fine arts. But nothing struck the parents right. Post her admission, she had a lot of academic struggle over subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Math etc. Unfortunately, parents thought this to be a recovering period for her due to her vernacular medium till tenth. The result was, she passed at 11 th but miserably failed at 12 th . The girl kept on insisting her earlier argument only. The parents now were furious but eventually gave up & succumbed to her choice of Fine arts. The girl had such a great flare for art that she stood first in the college & completed her B.F.A. with a University rank. A girl struggling to pass at Science stood first at BFA. Why & how did this happen? Did she not find her passion? Rajiv took a learning from this & sent his daughter to a stream of her choice – foreign languages like Japanese & Chinese despite her great score in Science & Math at SSCE. Although this is a perpetual conundrum, as a parent we all need to be assiduous while taking such life impacting decisions for our wards. If you recollect, that’s what the milestone movie “Three Idiots” (one of my all-time favourite) was all about, isn’t it? It’s all about pursuing our passion. Our low LQ, IQ, FQ, EQ, MQ or SQ do not necessarily indicate success in life and vis- e-versa. It only matters whether you like and enjoy your education or work. Success & money will follow, by default as a by-product: if you enjoy your education and work. More so that money plays second fiddle when you enjoy what you do. Money becomes secondary in the pursuit for happiness, enjoyment of our passion. Now passion becomes the target or even the path of pursuit is also a great rewarding experience. It is equally important to enjoy the path towards target as said by Robert Kiyosaki in his famous best seller ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’.

All our Grocers are excellent at business but no good at academics. Does it really matter? No, neither to them nor to their families and even to the society. I strongly believe that every person is smart (*) in some or the other area. The Almighty has bestowed each one of us with at least one boon - one area in which we score good, for sure. No one in the universe, is dumb. Each one excels in some or the other quotients. All College drop outs like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Sachin Tendulkar etc.(the list is endless) are the most successful business tycoons & the most impacting geniuses world knows. What does this indicate? Do we need to contemplate upon the importance given by us to academic excellence criteria and absurdly co-relating them to the future (would be) accomplishments of a person? Absolute zero, absolute positive or absolute negative do not exist – by default: that’s Nature’s law. So do the dumbness, idiocy in absolute terms never ever exist and that’s what needs to be acknowledged by all. Sounds rational? Hence, I feel it would greatly help to measure these quotients for each person just to have a fair idea about his potential strengths, probable area of studies & further career in the same stream. How would a young boy choose a career in defence? Will his BQ or RQ help? Probably, yes. Similarly, anyone good at acting can choose the same post measuring his AQ; so, on & so forth. What we understand from these quotients is not whether a person is brilliant or not. As I mentioned each person is brilliant in his area of choice. The quotients are indeed intended to indicate & guide one to identify potential strengths & choose career path. One may be good at Math while other may be good at finance or language. Quotient is a definitive measure for one’s area of inclination, strength or choice of career. Thus chances of being successful and contributing to the mankind will enhance certainly significantly for one who gets his choice right through the right quotient computation at the right time.

So now let’s use the word quotient in our routine responsibly & not conclude anything negative about anybody for his/her lower quotient scores. Techniques of measuring these quotients may be a little away from us presently but the day is not far when these will be quantified scientifically for each one of us and the generations to follow will supposedly take full advantage of it. They will pursue a rewarding career in the field & mother earth will be full of accomplished people; her own progeny – a planet of Ultimate Evolution.

#measures of human capability

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harrelltut · 5 years

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卍 I… Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] BEE HIGHLY Classified Nubian Egyptian [NE = NETERU] King iTUT® who AUTO Type HIDDEN Cryptic Algebraic Language Intel [CALI] on My HIGHLY Official… U.S. ATLANTEAN [USA] Egyptian Hi:teKEMETICompu_TAH [PTAH] that AUTO [PA] Translate Interstellar Communications from Inner Earth’s [HADES] Mystically HIDDEN [MH] Underworld Subcontinents of ATLANTEAN [USA = LEMURIAN] Civilizations who Ancestrally [CA] ESTABLISHED Lost America [L.A. = NEW Atlantis] 卍

#U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH BEE HIGHLY Official… U.S. ATLANTEAN [USA] Egyptian iTUT® on Egyptian HARRELLTV®#low iq = artificial intelligent #I Quietly [IQ] TERRORIZE [I.T.] ALL powerless modern day temporal govment agencies of basic artificial intelligence on Egyptian HARRELLTV®#be war ready & ready to die if you Violate Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] on Earth [JE = JESUS]#I Legally + ARISTOCRATICALLY [L.A.] BEE HIGHLY Official… U.S. ATLANTEAN [USA] EGYPTIAN SUN EMPEROR iTUT® on Egyptian HARRELLTV®#FEAR My QUANTUM HARRELL TECH® BLACKOUT of 2020 #My HIGHLY Official… U.S. ATLANTEAN [USA] Egyptian Hi:teKEMETICompu_TAH [PTAH] AUTO [PA] Translate Interstellar Communications #modern day americans still searching for extra terrestrial communications wit' worthless technology #Celebrate the Apocalyptic [CA] DEATH & DESTRUCTION of dumb ass america on Egyptian HARRELLTV®#I… Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] SOVEREIGNLY BEE Under Secret [U.S.] Egyptian ATLANTEAN [USA] Government PROTECTION #I TECHNOCRATICALLY [I.T.] Remain Under Secret [U.S.] Egyptian ATLANTEAN [SEA] Military PROTECTION in California [PC]#I… Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] BEE HIGHLY Classified Nubian Egyptian [NE = NETERU] King iTUT®

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rjzimmerman · 6 years

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Excerpt:

A first-of-its-kind study has reviewed the data and concluded that an entire class of pesticides should be banned because of its impact on children's health, The Huffington Post reported.

The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine on Wednesday, said that even low-levels of organophosphate exposure can cause brain damage in children. The news comes as Trump's U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently fighting a court order to ban just one of this class of toxic chemicals―the pesticide chlorpyrifos.

"We have compelling evidence from dozens of human studies that exposures of pregnant women to very low levels of organophosphate pesticides put children and foetuses at risk for developmental problems that may last a lifetime. By law, the EPA cannot ignore such clear findings: It's time for a ban not just on chlorpyrifos, but all organophosphate pesticides," study lead author and University of California, Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center Director Irva Hertz-Picciotto told The Guardian.

Children exposed to organophosphates in the womb have an increased risk for lowered IQ, reduced memory and attention and autism, the study found. To reach its conclusions, it drew on a UN database that includes 71 countries and cross referenced it with a wide variety of studies.

"We found no evidence of a safe level of organophosphate pesticide exposure for children. Well before birth, organophosphate pesticides are disrupting the brain in its earliest stages, putting them on track for difficulties in learning, memory and attention, effects which may not appear until they reach school-age. Government officials around the world need to listen to science, not chemical lobbyists," study author and Simon Fraser University scientist Bruce Lanphear told The Guardian.

#presticides #organophosphate pesticides #chlorpyrifos #EPA #public health #childrens' health #fetal development

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egarotss · 2 years

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The Best Home Businesses to Start During a Recession

The quality home enterprise to start in the course of recession is a monetary training enterprise. They do no longer train you in the way to improve your economic IQ in college. What they educate you to do is to get correct grades and a good career. Unfortunately, appropriate grades don't do us any correct inside the real global. The banker that wants to lend you money to buy a residence or automobile should care much less approximately your appropriate grades. He or she is greater interested in your financial portfolio. Good jobs are slowly becoming a factor of the past as increasingly jobs are being outsourced to distant places.

Financial education products will teach you the way to economize and finances. They will assist you to cut corners. They teach you how to reduce unfastened any needless spending that exists. If you can analyze where to save cash, you can discover ways to keep and stretch your tough earned money. Before you may grow your income, you will first learn how to make the high-quality of what you already have. The extra cash that you could keep and shop will bring about the extra money that you could entice for your lifestyle.

Financial schooling products can teach you the way money without a doubt works. Recession isn't always simply something that takes place due to negative budgeting through government officials and company executives. It is a lot more than the majority have a clue about. The recession has constantly been around since the monetary device has been in lifestyles. It truly is a totally well concept out plan designed to make the hundreds of paintings tougher and longer for much less but the give-up end result is to make the extremely good rich even richer. More money receives modified arms all through any recession and it all relies upon how a good deal financial IQ a person has as to how lots money he or she maintains and even increases.

Financial schooling merchandise can teach you the way to boom your tough earned earnings and actually have it running tough for you. Most human beings are privy to making an investment as a source of passive income. Most of the wealthy humans on this planet nowadays were given wealth as an instantaneous end result of leveraging passive income and investing. There are only 24 hours in an afternoon and you'll now not get to a long way beforehand only by working longer and tougher. You will learn how to paintings smarter. Learning how to make investments, whilst making investments and what to spend money on could make the world of difference for your lifestyles. Most people will truly visit the bank and blindly surrender their hard-earned bucks to a "financial marketing consultant" who likely doesn't have a great deal greater of a monetary IQ than the majority. This is simply not the way to wealth and the superb wealthy without a doubt recognize the fee of an excessive monetary IQ.

So there you have it. There are many different types of Business Care Management Consultants Agency UK and product strains out there. You have vitamins, cosmetics, and even journey products to pick from however the fundamental trouble is that they're saturated. These business models are saturated because of the reality that they have got very low begin-up costs. Everyone and their grandmothers get started out in the one's kinds of companies due to the fact they are reasonably priced to begin. The problem is that they are tough to grow and make a profit since the competition is just too high. If a person wishes nutrients or cosmetics, they will go to the retail shop and get them cheaper than at your MLM. If a person desires to tour they will go to the mall and into the journey organization. Now if a person desires to get economic schooling and a domestic business opportunity, there are not too many options accessible for them. This could make the arena of difference for you. Financial schooling business and product line is the nice domestic commercial enterprise concept for a recession.

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#BusinessCareManagementConsultantsAgencyUK

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sciencespies · 3 years

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UN declares milestone victory as leaded petrol is officially eradicated

https://sciencespies.com/environment/un-declares-milestone-victory-as-leaded-petrol-is-officially-eradicated/

UN declares milestone victory as leaded petrol is officially eradicated

The use of leaded petrol has been eradicated from the globe, a milestone that will prevent more than 1.2 million premature deaths and save world economies over US$2.4 trillion annually, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) said Monday.

Nearly a century after doctors first issued warnings about the toxic effects of leaded petrol, Algeria – the last country to use the fuel – exhausted its supplies last month, UNEP said, calling the news a landmark win in the fight for cleaner air.

“The successful enforcement of the ban on leaded petrol is a huge milestone for global health and our environment,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP, which is headquartered in Nairobi.

Even as recently as two decades ago, more than 100 countries around the world were still using leaded petrol, despite studies linking it to premature deaths, poor health, and soil and air pollution.

Concerns were raised as early as 1924, when dozens of workers were hospitalized and five declared dead after suffering convulsions at a refinery run by US giant Standard Oil, nicknamed the ‘looney gas building’ by staff.

Nevertheless, until the 1970s almost all the gasoline sold across the globe contained lead.

When UNEP launched its campaign in 2002, many major economic powers had already stopped using the fuel, including the United States, China, and India. But the situation in lower-income nations remained dire.

‘End of a toxic era’

By 2016, after North Korea, Myanmar, and Afghanistan stopped selling leaded petrol, only a handful of countries were still operating service stations providing the fuel, with Algeria finally following Iraq and Yemen in ending its reliance on the pollutant.

UNEP said in a statement that the eradication of leaded petrol would “prevent more than 1.2 million premature deaths per year, increase IQ points among children, save US$2.44 trillion (2.07 trillion euros) for the global economy, and decrease crime rates”.

The agency said the dollar figure came from a 2010 study led by scientists at California State University at Northridge.

Its chief factors were the benefits of better health for the overall economy, lower medical costs, and a dip in criminal activity – higher crime rates have previously been linked to exposure to leaded fuel.

UNEP warned that fossil fuel use in general must still be drastically reduced to stave off the frightening effects of climate change.

Greenpeace hailed the news as “a celebration of the end of one toxic era”.

“It clearly shows that if we can phase out one of the most dangerous polluting fuels in the 20th century, we can absolutely phase out all fossil fuels,” said Thandile Chinyavanhu, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Africa.

“Africa’s governments must give no more excuses for the fossil fuel industry,” she added.

Globally, vehicle sales are set to climb exponentially, particularly in emerging markets.

“The transport sector is responsible for nearly a quarter of energy-related global greenhouse gas emissions and is set to grow to one third by 2050,” UNEP said, adding that 1.2 billion new vehicles would hit the streets in the coming decades.

“This includes millions of poor-quality used vehicles exported from Europe, the United States, and Japan, to mid- and low-income countries.

“This contributes to planet warming and air polluting traffic and (is) bound to cause accidents,” the global body said.

Earlier this month, a bombshell report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that Earth’s average temperature would be 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer around 2030 compared to pre-industrial times.

A decade earlier than projected, the rise has raised alarm bells about the use of fossil fuels.

#Environment

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arbane235 · 3 years

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Good summary of the accomplishments of Trump:

"I know I’ve been highly critical of the Trump presidency. But to be fair, and in the spirit of Presidents Day, I'm here to apologize for all my rants and just admit that President Trump wasn’t that bad...... other than when he incited an insurrection against the government, mismanaged a pandemic that killed nearly half a million Americans, separated children from their families, lost those children in the bureaucracy, tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church, tried to block all Muslims from entering the country, got impeached, got impeached again, had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden, fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia, bragged about firing the FBI director on TV, took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community, diverted military funding to build his wall, caused the longest government shutdown in US history, called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,” lied nearly 30,000 times, banned transgender people from serving in the military, ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions, vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers, refused to release his tax returns, increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion, had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history, called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers, coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist, refused to concede the 2020 election, hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House, walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl, called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID, abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey, pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans, incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic, withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords, withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal, withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances, insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter, pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op, failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies, called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries, called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation,” claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere, forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader, believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe, suggested the US should buy Greenland, colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges, repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people,” claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases, violated the emoluments clause, thought that Nambia was a country, told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public, called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution, nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet, nominated a corrupt head of the EPA, nominated a corrupt head of HHS, nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department, nominated a corrupt head of the USDA, praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies, refused to allow the presidential transition to begin, insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death, spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president, falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote, called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,” falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year, considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions, mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID, locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones, used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus,” hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser, pardoned several of his shady associates, gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories, got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!), had a Secretary of State who called him a moron, forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history, botched the COVID vaccine rollout, tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him, charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties, constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate, claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear, called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas,” used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise, opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling, got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers, claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US, ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings, blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining, redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle, got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,” threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution, botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them, pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes, thought that the Virgin islands had a President, drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane, allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing, rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos, pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID, rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers, held blatant campaign rallies at the White House, tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man, refused to attend his successors’ inauguration, nominated the worst Education Secretary in history, threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted, attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t), allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues, struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble, called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ,” threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders, went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic, claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,” seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution, demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director, praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles, completely gutted the Voice of America, placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service, claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower, suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country, suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public, overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported, reduced the number of refugees the US accepts, insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames, gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address, named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties, eliminated the White House office of pandemic response, used soldiers as campaign props, fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him, demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade, hired a shit ton of white nationalists, politicized the civil service, did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government, falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts, claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won, insulted reporters of color, insulted women reporters, insulted women reporters of color, suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs, attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him, summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election, spent countless hours every day watching Fox News, refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas, hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer, tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him, acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney, attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault, held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present, didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media, stopped holding press briefings for months at a time, “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power, led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform, claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers, tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course, suggested that the government nuke hurricanes, suggested that wind turbines cause cancer, said that he had a special aptitude for science, fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure, blurted out classified information to Russian officials, tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida, fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban, hired Stephen Miller, openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them, interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel, abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war, tried to get Russia back into the G7, held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden, seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive, lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated, falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t, shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies, still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan, still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks,” forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID, told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” fucked up the Census, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic, did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act, seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win, constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump, claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened, said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake, claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him, claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President, created a commission to whitewash American history, retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain, claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there, hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims, had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others, bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties, apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House, stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians, falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police, said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about, tried to rescind protection from DREAMers, gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic, tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax, said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states, deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented, claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln, touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all, retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile, forced through security clearances for his family, suggested that police officers should rough up suspects, suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs, tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender, suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher, nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy, retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event, hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags, accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address, claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia, mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, obsessed over low-flow toilets, ordered the rerelease of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release, called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek), hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech, took advice from the MyPillow guy, claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists, said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure, never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign, falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent, announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest, insulted the leader of Canada, insulted the leader of France, insulted the leader of Britain, insulted the leader of Germany, insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!), falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues, blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually, continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders, said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked, left a NATO summit early in a huff, stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that, said and did nothing when US intelligence agencies presented intel that Russia placed bounties on the heads of US soldiers stationed in the middle east, called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary, refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment.

But other than that. . . Yea, he was great!" - Unknown

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