Science wasn’t actually certain how fungi like cordyceps “hijacked” their host’s behavior, and we always kind of assumed it was causing some simplistic damage to the brain.
As it turns out, it works much more elaborately and much MORE like the dramatized sci-fi horror parasites constantly inspired by it.
These fungi integrate themselves on the cellular level with the host’s tissues, actually seem to send signals to the host’s muscles and even alter the host’s genes with their own.
All the while, THE BRAIN ISN’T INVADED AT ALL.
These fungi, all along, have been converting their hosts into animal-fungal hybrids they control while the host’s brain and consciousness remain helplessly alive and largely unaltered.
I love knowing how my deepest, darkest horrors have been proven a reality.
Okay, but just earlier today, I read about a study that’s been finding fungal infections in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, and I am now fucking TERRIFIED!!!
If the mold in my fridge causes a zombie apocalypse at least I’ll go quickly.
Across the country, judges increasingly are sending defendants to rehab instead of prison or jail. These diversion courts have become the bedrock of criminal justice reform, aiming to transform lives and ease overcrowded prisons.
But in the rush to spare people from prison, some judges are steering defendants into rehabs that are little more than lucrative work camps for private industry, an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
The programs promise freedom from addiction. Instead, they’ve turned thousands of men and women into indentured servants.
The beneficiaries of these programs span the country, from Fortune 500 companies to factories and local businesses. The defendants work at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Oklahoma, a construction firm in Alabama, a nursing home in North Carolina.
There’s little drug rehabilitation going on at these labor camps. Some of the companies that utilize the slave labor are so dependent on it that they’d go under without it. Some of the industries these men are forced to work in are notoriously dangerous. When they’re injured, the companies file workers compensation claims – and keep the money for themselves, even though the workers are typically not employees but clients.
Warning: no matter how bad you think this story is going to be, it’s worse
cops in america are legally allowed to take people’s property (including large sums of money) purely because they feel like it. it’s called civil forfeiture and there are literally thousands of cases of pigs taking people’s property. that is looting.
i watched this happen to my roommate after the cops kicked our doors in at 6 AM on a weekday for a no-knock raid that, surprise surprise, didn’t turn out anything. they opened his wallet in front of him, took out about $300 and told him that since they had no record of where it came from on premises, that they’d have to take it from him. they took this man’s rent money right in front of him while he was in cuffs and told him “too bad”.
there was also a friend’s car in our drive way that had broken down so they left it over night. the doors were locked and the windows were up, and since the owner wasn’t there, they decided it’d be cool to just bust in all the windows to perform another fruitless search.
In Philly it’s been a HUGE and MASSIVE problem with cops taking people’s bank accounts, cars, electronics and pretty much anything worth any amount of money under a law that lets the DA seize property they think is related to a crime. “Related’ is a vague term though. They once forced a women and her grandchildren out of her home to sell it at auction because her son was found by police with $20 worth of weed.
(Depending on the property in question it can go under Civil Property Seizure or Seize and Seal, they’re not the same law but they work the same)
They don’t have to prove it’s related to a crime before or after, and even if the person suspected of the crime is cleared at questioning or acquitted at trial, you have to go through a MONTHS long process of court appearances (you can’t miss one or be late or you lose, no rescheduling) in hopes that they MIGHT get their stuff back. Most don’t.
Most people don’t think it’s worth the expense of days missed at work and a lawyer to get back a couple hundred dollars or whatever else the police stole. The city makes MILLIONS of dollars each year off this, around $6-10 (The DA doesn’t provide figures)
This bill, introduced by Rand Paul, guarantees that people who are the victims of civil asset forfeiture have a right to a lawyer, and also redirects all funds gained through it to the US Treasury, to discourage police departments from using civil asset forfeiture for financial gain.
Screw the pigs.
All cops are bastards. Every. Single. One. Fuck the police.
Didn’t one cop department use the money gained for a margarita slushee machine?
Ronald Reagan fired over 11000 workers, blacklisted them, destroyed their union, replaced them with scabs, and his name is going to be up on the Labor Hall of Fame along with Eugene Debs and A. Philip Randolph.
My grandfather was fired by Reagan. This is disgusting
Its hard not to see this as intentional shitting on the history of labor in the US
This is one of those things that I already knew was true, but seeing it so blatantly displayed makes me feel like like I am finding out about it for the first time.
CIA is getting lazy
O.o
It is really creepy how they all have the same freaking script
What the fuck
AHHHHHHHHHHHH
All these local news stations are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, a pro-Trump, Far-right company that has been forcing every station it acquires to read these scripts as “must-runs.” Their purpose is to push right-wing conservative propaganda without the explicitness of running an obvious commercial.
These are just one of the “must-run” segments they make their stations do, another is to force each of these stations to have a “Terrorism Watch Desk” which has nothing to do with reporting on terrorism but rather report on the activities on Muslims in general, even as innocuous as a group of them going to a Mosque service.
Here is a more detailed explanation on them:
The only thing standing in the way of them buying Tribune Media (owns 39 tv stations, also owns WGN America (a basic cable channel) is thr Justice Department right now. They’re working on a deal with then to get it.
This is one of those things that I already knew was true, but seeing it so blatantly displayed makes me feel like like I am finding out about it for the first time.
CIA is getting lazy
O.o
“It’s just a script whats the problem lol” the problem is that Fox, CNN, CBS, and all the other channels repped here, despite claiming to be different companies with different viewpoints, all had the exact same script, word for word, to push the exact same viewpoint that smaller, independent news outlets are Fake News and “A Threat To Our Democracy.”
The fact that they have scripts isn’t the problem. The problem is they all, each and every one, have the exact same script down to the letter and in some cases the fucking inflection, which basically reads “small news stations are untrustworthy and a Threat to your Way Of Life, only trust Us, We Are Verified.”
wupacing 