An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media, written by Jason Koebler: I've been videochatting with Mixael Swan Laufer for about 30 minutes about an exciting discovery when he points out that to date, the best way he's been able to bring attention to his organization is "the old school method of me performing a bunch of federal felonies on stage in front of a bunch of people." I stop him and ask: "In this case, what are the felonies?" "Well, the list is pretty long," he said. Laufer is the chief spokesperson of Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, an anarchist collective that has spent the last few years teaching people how to make DIY versions of expensive pharmaceuticals at a tiny fraction of the cost. Four Thieves Vinegar Collective call what they do "right to repair for your body." Laufer has become well known for handing out DIY pills and medicines at hacking conferences, which include, for example, courses of the abortion drug misoprostol that can be manufactured for 89 cents (normal cost: $160) and which has become increasingly difficult to obtain in some states following the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs. In our call, Laufer had just explained that Four Thieves' had made some miscalculations as part of its latest project, to create instructions for replicating sofosbuvir (Sovaldi), a miracle drug that cures hepatitis C, which he planned to explain and reveal at the DEF CON hacking conference. Unlike many other drugs that treat viruses, Sovaldi does not suppress hepatitis C, a virus that kills roughly 250,000 people around the world each year. It cures it. [...] Crucially, unlike other medical freedom organizations, Four Thieves isn't suggesting people treat COVID with Ivermectin, isn't shilling random supplements, and doesn't have any sort of commercial arm at all. Instead, they are helping people to make their own, identical pirated versions of proven and tested pharmaceuticals by taking the precursor ingredients and performing the chemical reactions to make the medication themselves. "We don't invent anything, really," Laufer said. "We take things that are on the shelf and hijack them. We like to take something established, and be like 'This works, but you can't get it.' Well, here's a way to get it." A slide at his talk reads "Isn't this illegal? Yeah. Grow up." Four Thieves has developed a suite of open-source tools to help achieve its goal. The core tool, Chemhacktica, is a software platform that uses machine learning to map chemical pathways for synthesizing desired molecules. It suggests potential chemical reactions, identifies precursor materials, and checks their availability for purchase. The other is Microlab, an open-source controlled lab reactor built from affordable, off-the-shelf components costing between $300 and $500. It uses Chemhacktica's suggested pathways to create medications, and detailed instructions for building and operating the Microlab are provided. Additionally, the company developed a drag-and-drop recipe system called Apothecarium that generates executable files for the Microlab, offering step-by-step guidance on producing specific medications. Laufer told 404 Media: "I am of the firm belief that we are hitting a watershed where economics and morality are coming to a head, like, 'Look: intellectual property law is based off some ideas that came out of 1400s Venice. They're not applicable and they're being abused and people are dying every day because of it, and it's not OK.'" Further reading: Meet the Anarchists Making Their Own Medicine (Motherboard; 2018)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Part of the discourse this morning on Bluesky was about General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea through Georgia during the Civil War. I missed most of it, but it provoked a very good thread on political war from Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc). Flowers is an Assistant Professor at California State University Northridge.

I’ll copy their posts into something like a narrative. Carl von Clausewitz wrote about total war in his classic “On War,” and the thread is a riff implicitly  on Clausewitz and explicitly on Sherman. The thread starts here.

Sherman was an advocate of “total war,” which is essentially ensuring that the enemy’s warfighting capacity was broken by whatever means necessary. For example, when confronted with torpedoes (early land mines), Sherman forced Confederate POWs to march in front of his lines to demine the road.

When confronted with sabotage on the march, Sherman burned houses within a specific radius to indicate to the Confederacy what would happen if you provided shelter to the CSA or assisted them in their operations against the Union Army. He was not a man with whom to fuck.

Sherman’s prosecution of total warfare intended to break the CSA’s warfighting capacity, to make the prosecution of war so painful, so repugnant to the CSA and its allies, that they would reject any future attempt at war and the politics that gave rise to it. This is why Sherman was so effective.

Taken in our current political context, total political warfare (there is a reason we call these things CAMPAIGNS) would be to break the Republican’s policy making and “culture warfighting” capacity through whatever means necessary, including calling them weird-ass motherfuckers.

That is, a “total war” philosophy in politics would make the pursuit of political power, the passing of policy, so painful for the republicans that they would repudiate the MAGA party line that brought them to this moment in politics. It would be to repeatedly demonstrate just how weird they are.

Indeed, in many cases, this is a strategy that Trump and his MAGA hordes have already adopted. They are willing to use any strategy, any claim, any policy proposal to ensure that they take and hold power, regardless of the effects on the people they claim to govern. Moreover, they do so maliciously.

The entire republican platform, for the past four years, has been one of othering and dehumanization for the sake of maintaining cultural power and not passing actual policy. A political party like that is an existential and material threat to its citizens and DESERVES to be burned to the ground.

From a perspective of “total war,” [Kamala] Harris’ March to the White House should cut a bloody swath through the Republican party, destroying their political and social works on the way, and making it either impossible or incredibly difficult for them to govern or pass policy in the ways they have.

Once she has power, a philosophy of total political warfare would have her govern not only with an eye to supporting her constituency, but ensuring the continued destruction of the political works, the political materiel of the republican party. It would be a style of politics UNSEEN in the US.

Now, if you think this harsh, recall that Sherman said this of the Confederacy during the Civil War: “There is a class of people (in the South), men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.”

And honestly? There’s a class of Republican, not JUST MAGA, who must be politically killed or banished from political life before we can hope for peace and order. Project 2025 and the uncritical Republican support for it makes this clear. Burn that fucking party to the ground.

A later thread continues the theme.

One more thing: “War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in till we are whipped or they are.”

In the contemporary political context, Trumpism was the remedy that the Republicans chose to advance their agenda. Other methods were available to them, other ideologies, but they went with Trumpism and its politics of violence and hate. Even supposed “moderate” Republicans enabled this shit.

When I said the whole party needed to burn under a politics governed by “total war” philosophy, I meant that shit: you cannot have a party that appeals to Trumpism and its politics of hate and violence and expect political and social order once power is transferred to the Democrats.

As Sherman said, “They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunder-storm.” Once the issue has been accepted, it ends with their complete surrender or our own.

And, to be clear: in my view, the survival of trans people, queer people, people of color, disabled people, depends on the complete and utter destruction of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party and any the centrist and moderates who enabled and benefitted from its rise. They all have to go.

Finally, I’d like to end on a prescient note from Sherman: “Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well,” and now annihilation should be their reward. I see no reason why this should be otherwise.

The post On Political War appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Ron Johnson has truly gotten to the heart of Tim Walz, Maoist.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson attacked Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz over his ties to China, claiming it’s a red flag that the “radical leftist” got married “on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square.”

Speaking to Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business, the Wisconsin lawmaker and member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee said of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate: “She’s a radical leftist. She chose another radical leftist. They’re just assuming the mainstream media is not going to cover his background.

“The House is going to investigate it now — it’s very strange. He got married on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. He’s gone to China. He’s taught in China. He’s got deep connections to China.”

Folks, my anniversary is June 25. We chose that date because it is the date of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and thus we want to slaughter all whites. It’s common sense.

The post Wisconsin’s Finest appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

[Source]

What the hell is wrong with these people?

The Times has a serious problem. One storyline into which any set of facts gets jammed, basically no matter what. I didn’t know how deep the sickness went. pic.twitter.com/CgMXLquesq

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 23, 2024

If I might be forgiven for stating the obvious, THERE IS NO WAY OF SELECTING A NOMINEE AFTER BIDEN STEPPED DOWN ON JULY 21 THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE METAPHORICAL SMOKE-FILLED ROOMS. The nominee will be selected by the party’s delegates. This is true whether they vote for the sitting vice president who was the only person members of the party voted for, or whether they vote for the two candidates chosen by the New York Times op-ed board after two weeks of panel discussions with Sydney Sweeney and Mitt Romney. A majority reaching a consensus is no less inherently democratic than weeks of fractious infighting. And in this case, is clearly the most democratic available option.

When the BLITZ PRIMARY crowd pretends that this is about democratic participation rather than their thirst for a dramatic reality show that would give them the DEMS IN DISARRAY narrative they’re hardwired for, they’re insulting everyone’s intelligence. And pretending not to understand why the vast majority of Democrats don’t want a weeks of bitter infighting four months before the election makes it worse.

Of course, I may miss this after the inevitable pivot to “it is outrageous for Democrats to suggest that Donald Trump’s age and obvious cognitive decline is an important issue.”

…Great point. It’s hard to claim the process is illegitimate among Democratic public officials or voters when you can’t actually find any objecting to the process.

Wisdom-of-crowd question:

As far as I can tell, *everyone* warning about the "rush to support Kamala Harris" is (a) on a newspaper editorial board, mainly NYT and WaPo, or (b) a newspaper / magazine columnist, like the fiesta in the NYT (attached).

What is an example of (c) a… pic.twitter.com/vkb6gUbXlj

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) July 23, 2024

The post The dream that refuses to die appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

We set out to solve why a forest in the middle of Uruguay looked like that — and wound up discovering something much bigger.

Deep in the geographic center of Uruguay, there’s a peculiar group of trees just a few kilometers down the road from the small town of San Gregorio de Polanco. From the ground, it looks like any other forest, with tall trees reaching deep as far as the eyes can see. But from above, the view is mind-boggling: Hundreds of trees are arranged in perfect concentric arcs, all spiraling toward the center. Together, they look remarkably like a human fingerprint.

When we first saw this forest, thanks to a Reddit post, we were fascinated. Why had they been arranged in this shape? Who planted them there? And why — when you zoom out on satellite view — was the entire country of Uruguay covered in similar-looking forests? To answer that question, we went straight to the source: interviewing locals, experts, and people whose lives have been shaped by a transformed landscape and economy.

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