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| ▲ | throwup238 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Funding was recently cut but this infestation has been building for years. The key failure that caused this current outbreak was during COVID. The lockdowns shut down both the release flights by the US and the mosquito breeding facilities in Latina America, grinding the whole pest control program to a halt. | | |
| ▲ | timr 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | From the other link on the front page about this subject [1]: > Illegal cattle smuggling, long considered one of the most efficient money-laundering routes for the drug cartels which terrorised San Pedro Sula, is regarded as the main reason for the accelerating advance. Up to 800,000 cattle a year are illicitly raised in nature reserves, such as the UNESCO-protected Rio Platano Biosphere in Honduras, and then smuggled by boat and truck up to Mexico. The flies, of course, travel with the livestock, embedded in cattle hides, accelerating their advance. > “Everything indicates that illegal cattle routes from Central America are the arteries through which the screw worm is circulating again toward Mexico,” wrote Jeremy Radachowsky, director for Mesoamerican and the Western Caribbean at the Wildlife Conservation Society, in a recent paper. So for those who keep trying to make the connection, it has little, if anything, to do with US politics. Meanwhile, I had no idea that cattle smuggling was a money-laundering route for drug cartels. TIL! [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... | | |
| ▲ | fc417fc802 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > So for those who keep trying to make the connection, it has little, if anything, to do with US politics. I follow your intended meaning (USAID & etc cuts). But taken literally it's US policies and propaganda that enable the drug cartels. Our dysfunctions are still ultimately the root of the problem. | | |
| ▲ | timr 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | OK, so let me be even more explicit: for those who continue to want to connect this to recent changes in the US political system, the relationship is tenuous, at best. | |
| ▲ | 0xDEAFBEAD 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The world is complex and interdependent. The US, being a powerful and influential country, has direct or indirect involvement in pretty much everything. That doesn't mean we are to blame for everything. | | |
| ▲ | fc417fc802 6 days ago | parent [-] | | I agree. We certainly aren't at fault for the existence of organized crime in general. However our aggressively exported drug policy is very obviously the root that props up the Mexican and South American drug cartels (among others). There's decades of academic literature and economic analysis on this point. When a parasite is spreading due to a large scale money laundering tactic by a large scale criminal enterprise whose scale is only enabled by our policy I class that as yet another own goal of the war on drugs. These downstream effects are somewhat non obvious so I think it's worthwhile to point them out when they come up. | | |
| ▲ | wonderwonder 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Good thing we are considering approving military force against the cartels. Optimally those large scale criminal enterprises will soon find themselves to be of much smaller scale after we start drone striking them. The cartels are already being hurt by the increased security along our southern borders as well as the large crackdown from Mexican authorities as they seek to appease Trump. Incredible that we could have been doing this the whole time, we just chose not to. We just chose to allow the cartels to act in whatever way they saw fit and to cross our border with their poison and violence whenever they wanted. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/world/americas/mexico-car... | | |
| ▲ | Teever 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Are you concerned about the possibility that the cartels can strike back with their own drones? If they do so, what do you feel should be the correct response? | | |
| ▲ | wonderwonder 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Absolute overwhelming force where what happened serves as a cautionary tale for generations | | |
| ▲ | fc417fc802 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | So in other words adopt a policy by which we shoot ourselves in the foot (several times over) and disrupt our neighbors. Double down on said policy by burning lots of cash to provide military assistance to our destabilized neighbor in the form of bombs (we sure do seem to love those). In the event this has negative consequences (ie our own citizens are killed) burn even more cash bombing the perpetrators into the ground (surely this won't result in any collateral damage or ill will). To me that reads as a convenient step by step guide to undermining our own freedoms while destabilizing our neighbors. Perhaps in turn you'll propose the solution of occupying Mexico to "maintain security"? | |
| ▲ | Teever 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Does America have the economic, social, and industrial resources to wage such warfare with the cartels? America has spent trillions on two failed wars in the past 25 years, and lacks the economic capability to produce artillery shells to aid Ukraine. At the same time it needs to build up industrial capacity to defend against an impending war in the pacific and it doesn't seem to be able to do that. It is unlikely that engaging in all out war with the cartels is a viable path at this time. |
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| ▲ | Hikikomori 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is there a problem America can't solve with guns? | | |
| ▲ | wonderwonder 6 days ago | parent [-] | | I mean taken to its furthest extreme, not really. America owes its dominance to two things: Guns and Money And the second is very much dependent on the first. |
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| ▲ | bloomingeek 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > So for those who keep trying to make the connection, it has little, if anything, to do with US politics. Right now, as the world turns, we have the greatest number of appointees in positions of governmental influence on policies, that have no idea what they are doing because of a lack of expertise. Almost all these vital positions are politically appointed by the current administration. Need an example: soon the policies of JFK jr., God help us, are going to, unfortunately, prove my point. | | |
| ▲ | macintux 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, the way we’re turning our backs on one of the most important medical miracles in recent years is horrifying. I hope COVID or something worse doesn’t cause too much carnage. |
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| ▲ | Noumenon72 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Someone must have decided they weren't "essential". Big mistake. | | |
| ▲ | crawsome 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Twice | |
| ▲ | andsoitis 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment. | | |
| ▲ | Numerlor 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Screwworm also infects wildlife and occasionally humans, it's really not something you want to have in the area if you can help it | | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Better for health, the environment. India has an equally large cattle industry that outproduces American dairy and cattle, yet their industry has a fraction of the carbon and methane impact as American dairy and cattle rearing [0] because the feed used in Indian industry is crop residue instead of industrialized meat+grain mixtures. American Ag is hyperconsolidated into 3 processors [1] which makes it difficult for innovations to develop, whereas an equally large country like India has 228 local run dairy cooperatives and multiple private sector players each generating around $500M-2B in revenue. Yet, the comments I'm seeing here on HN (and with those who I chatted with at the state level Dems) are reminiscent to those who blamed autoworkers and coalworkers for not learning to code back in 2014. If someone like me who has been somewhat hesitant about Lina Khan until after getting deep into the dairy industry recently, I think HNers should recognize the value this train of thought can have in 2026 and 2028. 84% of Americans consume dairy or dairy alternative (still synthesized using dairy) products [2] - don't make this yet another culture war topic [0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/from-extinction-t... [1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-surviv... [2] - https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights... | | |
| ▲ | gruez 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | >India has an equally large cattle industry that outproduces American dairy and cattle That's a tad misleading. The statistics I could find only says that India outproduces the US in dairy, not beef. Rounding >yet their industry has a fraction of the carbon and methane impact as American dairy and cattle rearing [0] I did a cursory search in your source for "carbon" and "methane" and couldn't find anything to back this claim, only vague claims about how India does "Regenerative farming" and is therefore "low methane". >because the feed used in Indian industry is crop residue instead of industrialized meat+grain mixtures. That's not scalable and only works because the country is poor and beef/dairy consumption isn't high. There's no way you can supply American level demand for beef/dairy by only using crop residue. >American Ag is hyperconsolidated into 3 processors which makes it difficult for innovations to develop, whereas an equally large country like India has 26 state run dairy cooperatives and multiple private sector players. You can easily tell an opposite story about how consolidate companies have bigger budgets for R&D and capital projects, as opposed to 26 cooperatives each trying to implement some sort of strategy. | |
| ▲ | mahirsaid 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Regardless, it's terrible to have around you. Your dog will have it too if let be. they do need to be controlled if it gets out of hand. Better now than when its a bigger problem. | |
| ▲ | ajmurmann 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Could I start a processor today and disrupt them? (Real question, I know almost noting and meat processing) | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Nope. These are organizations that can generate multi-billion dollar revenues, and could outcompete based on investment capacity alone. |
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| ▲ | kristjansson 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And we should encourage that by leveraging the response to a natural disaster to advance your particular policy goals? | |
| ▲ | ben_w 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | While I am a vegetarian and thus am an existence proof, there's multiple different ways in which something can be "essential". Anyone going "let's stop a thing today which will messes with a non-trivial fraction of our food production in a few years' time, without preparing either that food sector nor the dietary choices of the consumers before that happens" is definitely making a high-risk strategic choice. | |
| ▲ | SoftTalker 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Already happening. Beef is rapidly becomming unaffordable. A steak at the supermarket is >$20. Can't imagine what they cost at a restaurant. I've switched to mostly turkey, chicken, and pork. | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That's due to issues around monopolization in the Dairy and Cattle industry in the US [1]. 70% of all processors in the dairy and cattle industry are now owned by 3 companies. Processors don't own cattle - they just process raw material like dairy and meat into cheese and pasteurized milk and handle the entire supply chain. But because they control the supply chain, distribution, and even the feed [0] used they can set rates and vendors used by farmers. I posted an article about this earlier on HN, but it seems HNers like to talk about antitrust for search engines and not dairy and beef production. Antitrust for me, oligopolic market forces for thee. [0] - https://www.landolakesinc.com/what-we-do/animal-nutrition/ [1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-surviv... ___________ To u/andrew_lettuce below: Canada has the exact same issue of
processor consolidation and oligopoly in agriculture as the US [0][1][2] Arguably, it's worse than the US because this process started in the 1990s in Canada [3] versus the 2010s in the US. [0] - https://ca.rbcwealthmanagement.com/terrence-galarneau/blog/4... [1] - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7350140/ [2] - https://financialpost.com/commodities/agriculture/why-only-t... [3] - https://www.eap.mcgill.ca/MagRack/RH/RH_E_97_05.htm | | |
| ▲ | andrew_lettuce 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This isn't true in Canada and we're seeing as big of price increases for beef, greater than the US for ground beef. This is a supply issue while demand has increased. Drought and costs have also impacted herd size | |
| ▲ | HillRat 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Packer and ag consolidation is a huge problem, but the underlying issue here is climate change and long-lasting droughts; some of the issues with herd size — the smallest since about 1950 — come from COVID hangover when cows weren’t getting processed and price-per-head plummeted, but the immediate problem is that ranchers can’t support large herds due to lack of rain and cost of feed. We’re looking at long-term cost trends that are unlikely to reverse or even be significantly ameliorated anytime soon. | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > the immediate problem is that ranchers can’t support large herds due to lack of rain and cost of feed Ranchers that can support large herds (2,000+) are those who earn a net profit [0] and are consolidating because processors do not want to support small farms. While environmental factors do play a role, saying it's the primary reason is greenwashing of the real oligopolies tendencies arising in American Ag industry. [0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-surviv... |
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| ▲ | gruez 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is this supported by the data? During the pandemic people were also blaming "monopolization" or "consolidation" for the rise in grocery prices, but in reality the margins of publicly traded supermarket companies went up by a percentage point or two. | | |
| ▲ | jncfhnb 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Profit margin increasing by a percentage point on a low margin business is potentially significant | | |
| ▲ | gruez 6 days ago | parent [-] | | It's certainly meaningful for the company involved, but a 1% increase in grocer margins means a $100 grocery bill becomes $101. It's at best an incomplete explanation for the ~20% price increase on grocery prices between 2021 and 2023. |
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| ▲ | alephnerd 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yep. To quote The Bullvine [0] (Axios for the cattle and dairy industry): "Here’s another force reshaping the industry that has nothing to do with immigration: processor consolidation. According to industry analysis, just three major cooperatives—Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, and California Dairies—now handle over 80% of the nation’s milk marketing. These processors need massive, consistent volumes. New processing plants require millions of pounds of milk per day to operate efficiently. From a logistical standpoint, it’s far more efficient to contract with a dozen 5,000-cow dairies than 500 smaller operations. I was at a dairy conference in Wisconsin last year where a DFA representative candidly admitted: “We’re building plants that need 4-5 million pounds per day. We can’t deal with 200 small farms—we need 10 large ones.” This “processor pull” creates powerful incentives for farm-level consolidation. I’ve seen it happen firsthand in regions where a new mega-processing plant opens—suddenly, there’s pressure on every farm in the area to either scale up or get squeezed out" Also [1] ----------- The fact that a country like India can support 228 milk cooperatives each generating around $500M-2B in revenue and outcompete American dairy+cattle in production and even reducing environmental impact with marginal subsidizes [2] means distribution+processing consolidation and it's side effects (cattle monoculture, non-competitive prices given to farmers, dairy processers NOW becoming animal feed manufacturers) are a good example of market failures due to oligopolic control. No one at the WI and MI state Dem level is chatting about this based on some of my own meeting with them recently. This is the kind of swing vote topic that can flip all 3 branches of government in 26 and 28. If someone like me who has been somewhat hesitant about Lina Khan until after getting deep into the dairy industry recently, I think HNers should recognize the opportunity this provides. 84% of Americans consume dairy and dairy products [3] - this is an easy win if some sympathy was provided. Yet, the comments I'm seeing here on HN (and with those who I chatted with at the state level Dems) are reminiscent to those who blamed autoworkers and coalworkers for not learning to code back in 2014. [0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/dairys-great-cons... [1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-surviv... [2] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/from-extinction-t... [3] - https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights... | | |
| ▲ | ModernMech 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Market failures due to oligarchic control is the natural end state of capitalism. Everything is going as intended, the point of the system is to produce oligarchs, not efficient markets. | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Not necessarily. It is mainstream economic and political opinion to regulate in some manner to reduce market consolidation since the 1940s with the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. | | |
| ▲ | ModernMech 6 days ago | parent [-] | | I think necessarily. I don’t think it’s possible to devise a capitalist system that doesn’t devolve into oligarchic control. Markets can’t be regulated like the theory wants, because capitalists just use their wealth to take over the politicians. They are able to do this because they control so much wealth. To prevent this hack, you’d have to take control of capital away from the capitalists, thus defeating the core idea of capitalism. | | |
| ▲ | chrisweekly 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > "capital away from the capitalists" or find other ways to reduce the influence of money on public elections -- see eg Prof. Lessig (of "Creative Commons" fame) and his writings on "Fix Congress First" which led to Rootstrikers.org |
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| ▲ | rcpt 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Lina Khan was in power for years and didn't do anything about this. Closest thing was a case where she blocked Sanderson Farms from being acquired but that was poultry. | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 6 days ago | parent [-] | | She was starting to concentrate on the Ag consolidation [0] but my interpretation is she targeted tech first due to the industry's somewhat weaker political position in both admins. She also didn't touch Comcast - and they are the kingmakers in PA and DE. [0] - https://www.law.nyu.edu/news/katzmann-lecture-lina-khan-talk... | | |
| ▲ | rcpt 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes going after tech is the populist thing to do and she did that. As usual Comcast never gets touched and farm owners might as well write the laws themselves. |
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| ▲ | gruez 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | By "data" I was referring to data to support the claim that consolidation led to increase in prices (eg. margin expansion), not that consolidation was happening at all. It's the same with supermarkets. There's no doubt that consolidation was happening, and there's even evidence that it led to higher prices, but the absolute effect on grocery bills seems to be marginal. |
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| ▲ | throwup238 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Maybe for a USDA Prime ribeye or tenderloin at Bristol Farms or something. If you go to an ethnic store like Arabic halaal markets, ribeye steaks can be had for less than $10 a pound (but they’re ungraded). In one of the highest CoL areas in Southern California. Costco USDA Prime ribeyes are $20/pound and ribeye rounds are $25/pound. | |
| ▲ | HDThoreaun 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Im still getting outer skirt for $8 a pound at my grocery. Seems pretty affordable to me | | |
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| ▲ | ajmurmann 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Doesn't this impact wildlife as well? Apparently the Florida Key Deer was threatened by this a decade ago: https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2017-01-15/screwworm-infesta... | |
| ▲ | zahlman 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Screwworms will also infect humans, with horrific and potentially fatal consequences. | |
| ▲ | lazide 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Screwworms will eat people too, if allowed to. You really don’t want them in your area. | |
| ▲ | FpUser 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >"Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment." We can also live in a cave, better for the environment. | | |
| ▲ | f1shy 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Or just dissapear (which btw, no joking, is what some people propose) |
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| ▲ | spamizbad 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I guess nature is “finding a way” after all… | |
| ▲ | raverbashing 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Funny, you don't seem to have beef with the worm eating beef But it can and does infect humans and other animals | | | |
| ▲ | artursapek 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 125lb take | |
| ▲ | VaderLied 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | delfinom 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The funding was never cut. That was misinfo spread by morons because there was a typical Trump dispute of "mexico will pay for it". But the reality was that was in talks of a Mexico specific coverage program. The Panama program was never touched and is run by a third party agency with stakes holders consisting of the USDA and Panama government. But yes the current outbreak built up since COVID. | | |
| ▲ | fc417fc802 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | So funding was never cut, but actually some subset did experience cuts? Which is it? We're taking about Mexico to US trade here so the Mexico specific subprogram seems directly relevant. | |
| ▲ | throwaway5752 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Question, are they morons? Is your disagreement with them really that simple? Was it necessary to call them that? I don't like posting this comment, because it will be distracting and tone policing. I was just going to downvote and flag your comment and move on, but I think you offered some valuable information about the policy and I'd like to hear more without the divisive parts that add less value. |
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| ▲ | GeekyBear 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Why is it "used to be"? > Decades ago, screwworms were endemic throughout Central America and the southern US. However, governments across the regions used intensive, coordinated control efforts to push the flies southward. Screwworms were eliminated from the US around 1966, and were pushed downward through Mexico in the 1970s and 1980s. They were eventually declared eliminated from Panama in 2006, with the population held at bay by a biological barrier at the Darién Gap, at the border of Panama and Colombia. However, in 2022, the barrier was breached, and the flies began advancing northward, primarily through unmonitored livestock movements. The latest surveillance suggests the flies are now about 370 miles south of Texas. https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/08/texas-prepares-for-wa... | | |
| ▲ | stretchwithme 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Considering the widths of Panama and Mexico, holding them south of Panama had to be much cheaper. |
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| ▲ | jfengel 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, it got cut back in March. https://kbhbradio.com/usda-cuts-budget-staff-for-animal-dise... Part of it was restored a couple of months later. | | | |
| ▲ | starkparker 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Smuggling's also a contributing factor, at least in Honduras: https://www.drovers.com/news/industry/surprising-link-betwee... | |
| ▲ | zahlman 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Brief research tells me the screwworms broke though to Mexico in November 2024 after cases started increasing north of the Darian Gap throughout 2023 Elsewhere in the thread people have posted explainer videos (of how the program works) from 2024 that seem entirely unaware of any such breach. | |
| ▲ | tomrod 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | ajmurmann 6 days ago | parent [-] | | I have no idea. It certainly seems insanely careless to me to defund something like this but I haven't found anything in my brief research that gives me an idea of the impact. Intuitively I'd expect that to show up in the data a little later (assuming that data is still being collected) |
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| ▲ | cogman10 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | DOGE. It was ran by USAID. | | |
| ▲ | VladVladikoff 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It was failing long before this. The border used to be down by Panama. | | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The border didn't magically eradicate the flies on one side. Pushing the border down to the Darien Gap took work, but we did it before and can do it again. The real problem is the gleeful destruction of government capacity to do things like this. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, that's true, but the point the parent commenter was making is that recent previous administrations also didn't take this problem seriously. | | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Who was president in 2020 again? | | |
| ▲ | stretchwithme 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I see you are bias-free. | |
| ▲ | tptacek 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You get that there was a president between 2020 and now, right? Nobody is sticking up for Trump; they're just saying, this particular bad thing isn't a DOGE outcome. | | |
| ▲ | 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | chris_wot 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | If this particular bad thing was bad before DOGE, then it’s far worse under DOGE. It’s a particularly ridiculous argument. | | |
| ▲ | bbarnett 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Knowing how and why a thing happened, is far more important than political grandstanding. The doge cuts may affect the future of this program, but have absolutely positively nothing to do with the situation now. Nothing. Not a thing. It is fine to say doge will make this neglect worse, but the neglect happened for a decade. And that's important. That's vital to understanding why, and how it happened. And that is absolutely not a ridiculous concept. | | |
| ▲ | hedora 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | They cut funding in March in the middle of it beginning to spread north, and the spread has continued uncontrolled in the months since then. The DOGE cuts directly worsened the current situation. It’s unclear if the initial covid era cuts were performed by Biden or Trump (I can’t find a date or primary source for those). | |
| ▲ | tptacek 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't know about "not a thing"; have to be careful about overcorrecting the other direction. The thing I'm wary about is just shutting down discussion of complicated things as soon as Trump appears. The screwworm situation is interesting! |
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| ▲ | 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | cogman10 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The first sign of spread past panama was seen in Nov 2024. Parasites can spread fast and the US/Mexico needed to react fast to the fact that it spread past panama. In a critical time when monitoring and action were desperately needed, we eliminated the agency that'd do that. | | |
| ▲ | literalAardvark 6 days ago | parent [-] | | It wasn't a critical time, it was late. If there had been any political will for this things would have been set in motion since 2023, likely even before that when the reports from the scientists working on control started pouring in. Blaming a few weeks of funding lapse one year into an outbreak in a control project that's been running for decades is absurd. From a link in this thread: However, since 2023, cases have been increasing in number and spreading north from Panama to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico. | | |
| ▲ | asacrowflies 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Late is still a critical time...perhaps more critical. | |
| ▲ | cogman10 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Fair point. The cost to fight this back will definitely exponentially increase. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Ok, but where did you get that Nov '24 date from? You just agreed with a comment that falsified that claim. | | |
| ▲ | cogman10 6 days ago | parent [-] | | An article I read mentioned that Nov '24 is when the flies were spotted in Mexico. I incorrectly assumed that meant that is when they breached the panama boarder. So I agree with the commenter that falsified my claim because they are correct, the date of breach was earlier and the time to react was then. | | |
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| ▲ | rdl 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | And the Panama border (Darien Gap, specifically) used to be a stronger natural barrier; humans have been crossing it for years, are starting to graze cows within the exclusion zone, etc. |
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| ▲ | smallmancontrov 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | mindslight 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Musk certainly shares responsibility, but focusing responsibility on him lets others escape blame - eg Trump, Congress, the corpo and individual edgelord enablers sanguine about chaos, etc. And frankly, it's sad enough for Musk already - richest guy in the world, he could have actually done something politically on his own, and yet he still ends up being used as a useful idiot scapegoat by a con artist. "But Trump promised he cared about the debt!!1!1!" |
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| ▲ | treetalker 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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