The tiny island of Île à Vache, Haiti (pronounced “eel ah vash”) was the location Captain Henry Morgan decided to setup a base of operations to harass the French and Spanish who controlled the mainland. The British, French, and Spanish fought furiously 300 years ago for the spoils which came along with the conquer and colonization of the New World. Captain Morgan lives on in modern culture as the Captain Morgan rum manufacturer takes its image and name from this famous British privateer
Category: Criminology
The Hijacking of Matt Furie’s Pepe the Frog Character by the Fringe Political Movement of the Alt Right
The Pepe the Frog character and meme rose to ascension during the presidency of Donald Trump because of the 4Chan.org website which was created by Christopher Poole. Poole’s system leveraged Darwinian survival as the base for his new forum system in which posts with a lot of traction would float to the top, allowing even more people to become exposed to them, and posts which had little traction sinking to the bottom where they would inevitably die out. This method of selection and rejection is immensely conducive to creating memes as users, overwhelmingly adolescent males, would compete upon 4Chan to create the most bizarre and outrageous memes and replies possible. 4Chan exacerbates this behavior by allowing users to remain anonymous and therefore able to express opinions and/or ask questions or provide answers to material which they normally would not engage in conversation in, during their day to day life, for fear of retribution for deviating outside of typical social convention. Pepe the Frog became a meme circulated almost exclusively upon 4Chan as the other major social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.) did not observe spikes in content related to this meme due to the user base that uses these platforms being unaware of it as 4Chan is a relatively obscure online forum. Pepe the Frog eventually became adopted by those within society who did not feel marginalized, people who visited 4Chan in search of Pepe the Frog memes, rather than for communication with 4Chan members, which ascended Pepe the Frog into popular culture. Those who initially propelled Pepe the Frog into the counter culture of 4Chan felt overlooked and as a direct result, this marginalized group started to produce increasingly offensive content related to Pepe the Frog, with the hope that it would deter others from using the meme which was believed to be exclusively reserved as a 4Chan character, despite having been stolen from the original artist Matt Furie, who created the character in 2005 for his comic book publication Boys Club, a storyline about 4 friends, including Pepe the Frog, who spent time together. Pepe the Frog was depicted upon 4Chan as a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, crashing into the World Trade Towers, with tattoos of German Nazi and white supremacist symbols etc. (e.g. swastika, Celtic cross, 14/88 which refers to Adolf Hitler etc.). These derivative depictions and memes began to become widely circulated upon 4Chan and other websites found online, as Pepe the Frog displays both innocence in his depiction but also malevolence while engaging in horrific acts (e.g. abhorrently forcing a gas mask onto an unfair, stereotypical characterization of a Jewish person). It is Pepe the Frog’s smile while performing these actions which allowed his popularity grow online as virtually any despicable act could be depicted as a joke because of the juxtaposition between Pepe the Frog and the victim being attacked. This emboldened those making these offensive memes as the work started to become viewed as hyperbole and comical, which acted as a defense for creating new content as those engaged believed that their work could always be interpreted and defended as satire, therefore free of scrutiny from authorities or those who reject the Alt Right ideology (e.g. law enforcement investigating a hate crime etc.)
The Test Subject and Scientific Experiment Which Proved the Fear Response in Human Beings Does Not Solely Reside Within the Amygdala
Justin Feinstein is one of the few scientists who have been able to study a woman who has zero fear response. To protect the woman’s identity, this subject is known only as “S.M.”, and Feinstein has had the opportunity to work with her under laboratory conditions and in real world scenarios (e.g. coffee meeting, sporting event, professional conference etc.) for the past 15 years as of 2018. S.M.’s lack of fear has had unexpected consequences within her life, as she displays no sense of typical fear induced scenarios (e.g. personal space, feeling completely comfortable being nose to nose with a complete stranger as the concept of personal space and discomfort has no meaning), heightened by the fact that S.M. does not produce typical signals of distrust when interacting with a novel person. S.M. lacks fear because she is without her amygdala, a physical trait observed in very few human beings, making S.M. one of the only people in the world to produce this physiology. S.M. has no amygdala because she has been diagnosed with Urbach-Wiethe Disease (pronounced “urr-bock vee-they”). The underlying etymology of Urbach-Wiethe Disease is still unknown but in patients with the condition, specific portions of the brain, in both hemispheres, can become subject to selective calcification which erodes the ability to function as designed. The amygdala acts as a sentry for potential fearful stimuli, and produces a response accordingly. The removal of or inability of the amygdala to work correctly results in a complete and total lack and/or loss of fear. This condition has caused S.M. considerable difficulty during her life as she has experienced dangerous interactions with those participating within the illicit drug trade. Upon one occasion, a stranger ran up to S.M., placed a firearm against her temple, and yelled “bang!”. Neighbors witnessed this event and notified law enforcement which puzzled S.M. as she did not view the event as dangerous or alarming and therefore did not expect to be contacted by the police. When the human body detects the intake of too much carbon dioxide, it can become pushed into a state of alarm. Feinstein wanted to better understand what would occur if he interfered with S.M.’s respiratory system, using 35% carbon dioxide during the first trial run. Feinstein found that S.M. was immediately fearful after a single intake breath, despite his original hypothesis of no fear response being observed. S.M. displayed an immediate and dramatic fear response with S.M. herself describing it as the “most intense fear ever felt” during her entire life. This single breath was revolutionary for neurology as it definitively proved that the amygdala is not the only region of the brain which controls and is related to fear
The Evolutionary Reason Human Beings Seek Violence and Conflict
Whilst observing chimpanzees in the wild, Jane Goodall noticed her observed chimpanzee community beginning to divide amongst itself, with some members choosing to spend more time in the northern region of the jungle and others in the south. By separating themselves, these chimpanzees inherently relinquished their right to be recognized as part of their previous clan. This once seemingly peaceful community began to become heavily engaged within primitive warfare and conflict, with the entire community which had moved south annihilated into oblivion by their northern counterparts. Goodall stated upon record that it took her considerable time to reconcile this brutality, as she had always thought of chimpanzees akin to human beings however better, kinder, and gentler. Goodall believed that conflict was a human invention, but eventually realized and accepted that the dark and cruel side of human nature was deeply embedded within the human genome and inherited from primate ancestors. It is most probable that a propensity for brutality, violence, and conflict has been hard coded into human beings genetically, at the fundamental level of deoxyribonucleic acid which create proteins, which produce neurons, and subsequently unique neural traits, such as a propensity for violence behavior(s). It would be advantageous for evolution to have evolved such traits because if a person (or animal) is being attacked, the ability to fight back with deadly force is expediently beneficial. This is believed by most scientists to be the reason why such traits have evolved within human beings. It should be noted, prior to Goodall’s work, scientists had no knowledge of chimpanzees engaging in warfare and/or hunting practices, which makes her work groundbreaking and revolutionary to say the least as it provides unique introspective into human behavior(s)
The Ancient Mesopotamian Law Code of Hammurabi
Dating from 1770 B.C., the most complete of ancient Mesopotamian legal texts is the Code of Hammurabi, a compendium of 282 laws which dictated the rules of commercial interactions and set fines and punishments for those found in violation of these laws. Inscribed upon a phallic piece of black obsidian, Hammurabi’s Code is depicted as receiving these laws from Shamash, the god of the sun, justice, and order, with the primary role of protecting the weak from the strong. It is written and recognized within the Hammurabi Code the first appearance of the biblical punishment of an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. Considered by many scientists to be one of the foundational stones of world civilization, the Hammurabi Code is a mixed blessing for women, both protecting women and lowering their social rank as second class citizens. Upon the positive end, the Hammurabi Code recognized women’s basic right to own property, fundamental in its importance as it provided women legal protection in regard to the control of their dowries and inheritance. The Hammurabi Code also forbade arbitrary poor treatment and/or neglect, which meant wives who were ill or barren couldn’t be simply discarded. In divorce, women were permitted to keep their dowries, and in widowhood, women were permitted the opportunity to utilize their husbands estates as their own for the duration of their lives. The Hammurabi Code essentially recognizes Mesopotamian women as distinct persons in a legal sense, rather than property which is how most of the ancient world recognized women. Upon the negative side however, women’s economic and sexual freedoms became severely restricted, forbidden from performing any commercial activity outside of their home and supporting and legalizing the concept of the patriarchy by providing men immense autonomy over the bodies of women, meaning husbands and fathers now owned the sexual reproduction of their wives and daughters which lead to women being executed for adultery, virginity becoming a condition of marriage, and rape not viewed as a violent sexual offense against the female victim, but rather an economic offense against her father as it would cause the father to suffer a severe loss in respect to a daughters bride price as the daughter would be considered a damaged commodity. It’s unclear how these legal mandates and statutes worked at the local level as they are ideals of Mesopotamian culture, but the driving force of these laws and how they are setup and constituted is abundantly clear, allowing male authority and patriarchal notions of male honor, to become sacrosanct
The First Use of Forensic Science to Resolve a Murder
Sun Tzu’s text the “Washing Away of Wrongs”, written in 1235 A.D., is the first text which records forensic analysis being used to resolve a criminal case. The murder of a farmer prompted a local judge to demand that everyone in the village lay down their sickle before him. While every cythe appeared to be clean, the judge watched for insects as he understood that insects would be attracted to and by consequence fly around within proximity of a blade with fresh blood still attached to it, even if the blood was physically removed to the point at which it could no longer be observed by the human eye. This innovative technique allowed the judge to figure out which member of the community committed the homicide with forensic certainty
The 18th Century Gin Craze and it’s Association with Murder
Gin was highly consumed in poorer areas of London, England as it was a cheaper alternative to beer. Gin was unregulated during the early 18th century, and was often badly distilled and filled with harmful compounds like oil of vitriol which is similar in construct to modern day turpintine, sulfuric acid, and methylated spirits. By 1750, gin consumption was at its peak, with the city of London consuming 11,000,000 (11 million) gallons per year. In the poorest areas of London, specifically upon the east end, it was not uncommon for everyone in public to be permanently drunk; an analogue to the modern day crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980’s. All members of society consumed gin including men, women, and children, with many cases exhibiting severe addictive traits as was the case with Judith Darfour, who took her child into a heath, murdered them to sell their petticoat clothing and acquire more gin, then attended work later that day as if nothing had occurred. Gin related crime soared and Mothers Ruin which refers to “women who killed their family members to acquire funds for gin” was responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women, and children. When the death rate climbed higher than the birth rate, the British government was forced to intervene, outlawing small gin distilleries and ending the era referred to as the “Gin Craze”
The Chinese Governments Intentional Deception of the World Public Regarding COVID-19
ATTENTION: ALL INFORMATION DISPLAYED HAS BEEN COLLECTED EXCLUSIVELY FROM CANADA’S MOST TRUSTED NEWS NETWORK, CBC NEWS, AS THIS BLOG IS BASED OUT OF VANCOUVER, CANADA
Wuhan, China is the second most populated city in China in respect to the number of universities available to students. Wuhan is economically and geographically within the heart of China, a city subject to a constant flux of people coming in and out, making it one of the worst possible areas in China for a viral outbreak to occur. 4 weeks after the first recorded infection, the Chinese government notified the World Health Organization of the outbreak, but it was far too late by this point as Wuhan was now experiencing an enormous influx of people migrating in and out of the city for the Chinese Lunar New Year festivities. The absolute worst period for a viral infection to occur in China is during the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration as hundreds of millions of people migrate back to their families causing enormous increases in public transport use (e.g. busses, aircraft, taxis etc.). This period of a few short weeks is the largest annual mass migration in the world, as people travel in and out of as well as across China, to be with loved ones
It is believed that Coronavirus Disease 2019, commonly abbreviated as “COVID-19”, developed in Wuhan’s seafood and wildlife market, most likely from bats as this is what the genetic data collected appears to confirm. Often an intermediary animal host plays a role in opportunistic pathogens like COVID-19 and it is believed that pangolins, which are small mammalian creatures, may be this intermediary species. It is not believed that the consumption of bats and/or pangolin is what caused COVID-19 to affect human beings, but rather physical contact during handling of these animals while preparing their meat which was butchered for human consumption
As the number of cases increased in Wuhan, physicians began sharing data in a private Wechat chat group. Well before the world became familiar with COVID-19, a small number of medical professionals within Wuhan attempted to notify the public. Dr. Li Wenliang (pronounced “lee wen-lee-yong”) posted within this chat group with former university classmates that patients had begun coming into his clinic with what appeared to be the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, commonly abbreviated as “SARS”, a viral pathogen which is a coronavirus in and of itself, one which appeared between 2002 – 2004, in China. Dr. Li wrote within this group chat, “7 SARS cases were confirmed in the Huaban seafood market. The main mode of transmission of the virus is droplet transmission at close range or contact with respiratory secretions of patients. This can cause a specialized pneumonia that is evidently contagious and capable of affecting multiple organ systems. The reason Chinese physicians were worried about this new outbreak was because SARS is incredibly infectious, with a relatively high mortality rate of 10%, and a large number of healthcare practitioners died of SARS during the 2002 – 2004 outbreak because of the complexity involved while attempting to impede transmission. On the same day as Dr. Li’s warning, the Wuhan Health Commission sent an urgent internal notice to hospitals with regard to the treatment of pneumonia with an unknown etymology. This memorandum stated, “some medical institutions in our city have seen patients steadily with pneumonia of unknown cause. If you find patients with unexplained pneumonia, actively adjust the resources and treat them on the spot”. This notice warned healthcare professionals to keep the outbreak quiet, stating, “without authorization, no units or individuals shall release treatment related information to the outside”. Dr. Li and his colleagues continued to share information, warning each other to protect loved ones and avoid the Huanan seafood markets but ran into many blockades by the Chinese government for doing so, with their Wechat conversations being monitored and eventually forcibly shut down. It is now understood that Wuhan health authorities purposefully withheld and covered up pertinent information as these authorities and their employees were explicitly told not to speak about COVID-19 under threat of undefined punishment. Dr. Li and 7 of his colleagues were detained shortly after and brought in for interrogation by law enforcement. Law enforcement internal documents state “after investigation and verification by the public security organs, 8 offenders have been summoned and handled according to law. The police will investigate and punish with zero tolerance those illegal acts that fabricate and spread rumors and disrupt social order”. Dr. Li was also reprimanded by the hospital he worked for in addition to the interrogation and intimidation instituted by law enforcement
The central Chinese government frequently received reports from health authorities and hospitals but actively chose to conceal this information, attempting to control the epidemic internally. This contradiction of western medical practice standards prevented Chinese health authorities from properly mobilizing in an effort to control the spread of this new pathogen. Had the Chinese government adopted an approach used by western health authorities and governments, the spread of COVID-19 would have been severely reduced as early detection and intervention would have been implemented ubiquitously across all Chinese outbreak zones. Although internal controls were put into place, the information purposefully kept from the public greatly exacerbated the prevalence of the COVID-19 pathogen. The COVID-19 virus could have been traced during the first 2 – 3 weeks of it first being observed, but this opportunity was squandered and lost due to the mismanagement and political ineptitude of the Chinese state
Critics like Dr. Wu Qiang, (pronounced “woo chung”) who had previously lost his ability to teach university level subjects for defying a ban instituted by President Xi Jinping which stated that university students were forbidden from learning about western democracy, continued to speak out regarding the Chinese government’s incompetency and lack of understanding in handling such a precarious public health danger
On January 9, 2020, the first death of COVID-19 was recorded, experienced by a 61 year old male who visited the seafood market where COVID-19 was first observed. This death was kept under wraps for 2 full days before being made public. It is believed that the local authorities kept this information from the public due to political concerns, as annual political summits were occurring in Wuhan and Hubei province in which Wuhan is situated. On January 22, 2020, the Chinese government finally acknowledged the complexity and severity of the COVID-19 epidemic at a press conference in Beijing, China. Wuhan went into lockdown the following day on January 23, 2020 with all public transport including busses, trains, ferries, and airports shut down, and 11,895,000 (11.8 million) people under forced quarantine
By late January, Wuhan hospitals struggled to cope with the enormous increase in COVID-19 cases confirmed, with staff subjected to intolerable conditions with many experiencing emotional outbursts and talk of suicide due to deceased patients being left upon the floor to be stepped over by healthcare workers and patients alike. With patient case numbers soaring, the Chinese government began constructing 2 new hospitals at blistering paces set, involving 24 hour work schedules in an effort to open both facilities within a few short weeks
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation of Australia, commonly abbreviated as “CSIRO”, the Australian federal government agency responsible for scientific research, began cultivating COVID-19 within the countries highest security facility after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed on January 25, 2020 in the state of Victoria, Australia. The Australians became the first country to isolate the COVID-19 pathogen outside of China, and purposefully grew COVID-19 in the laboratory so that the disease could be better understood in respect to its characteristics and behaviors within biological models. The virus was then introduced to test animals, specifically ferrets because ferret respiratory systems are very similar to that of human beings. The goal for these experiments is to better understand how COVID-19 behaves and how it progresses as this permits for the development of immunizations
900,000,000 (900 million) Chinese have access to smartphone technology, 69% of China’s 1,300,000,000 (1.3 billion) person population. Extreme dissatisfaction with the Chinese government and its handling of COVID-19 was observed online, with unprecedented volumes of complaints and anger reported, more so than at any other time within the past decade of China’s recent modern history. Chinese nationals took particular issue with Wuhan’s local government and its ineffective response towards epidemiological and disaster relief strategies, the paralysis of local healthcare institutions, and the immense risk now faced by Wuhan’s 11,895,000 (11.8 million) person population. Wuhan effectively became cut off from the rest of mainland China due to the COVID-19 epidemic which was accelerating upon an exponential trajectory. There have been reports accompanied by video footage by Chinese citizens of authorities spraying doorways and other high traffic areas with disinfectant in anticipation of overflowing sewage becoming a potential vector of COVID-19 transmission and some reports have demonstrated with video footage, evidence of Chinese authorities welding the doors of entire apartment buildings shut so that no one can get in or out, regardless of the severity of an emergency (e.g. cardiac arrest, cerebrovascular accident, pancreatitis etc.)
Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist for the Imperial College of London has stated on record that the U.K. estimates that China only detects 10% or less of all infections detected and that up to 50,000 new infections occur each day in China, numbers which are in stark opposition to the official case numbers released daily by the Chinese state. Tragically, Dr. Li, the physician who first attempted to warn the public of COVID-19 died on February 7, 2020 at age 33 causing an outpouring of anger and grief towards the Chinese government. Chinese censors worked around the clock to find and remove commentary online related to this incident
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the World Health Organization has stated upon record that COVID-19 is “public enemy number one” and that COVID-19 could pose a larger global threat than terrorism as a “virus can have more consequences than any terrorist action”
The Development of Modern Institutionalized Psychological Torture as a Means of Interrogation
In the 1950’s, Scottish psychiatrist Ewen Cameron started experimenting upon his own patients which ushered in the modern age of the psychological techniques leveraged by governments to extract information from high value targets and low level targets alike. In 1951, the U.S., the U.K., and Canada began developing the Survival Evasion Resistance Escape program, abbreviated as “SERE” (pronounced “sear”) designed for when domestic soldiers became captured by enemy forces (e.g. aircraft shot down over enemy lines) as well as techniques which could be used against captured Soviets. This research became dominant within Canadian universities for almost a decade, with researchers beginning similar psychiatric experiments within psychiatric hospitals in the U.K. In the U.S. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency dominated most research and had over 160 secret projects within 80 institutions, comprising a total of $25,000,000 ($25 million) allocated for human experimentation. This project was code named “MK Ultra”. In 1963, many of Cameron’s psychological experiments were codified for the first time and compiled within the Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation hand guide, a book which is now declassified and freely available online. The term “kubark” is a cryptonym, the name for the Central Intelligence Agency itself. This content became the foundation for the method of psychological interrogation and psychological torture which the Central Intelligence Agency disseminated across the U.S. intelligence community and worldwide among allies for 30 years after its initial release. Since the 1950’s, confirmed cases backed by evidence and testimony of these techniques of torture being used have been recognized or admitted to by governments in 28 nation states including Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Borneo, Brazil, British Guyana, British Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Cuba, the UK, Guatemala, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lithuania, Morocco, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay, Vienna, and Yemen
Whilst I rarely if ever will submit an opinion upon this blog, I feel that it is important to state that the Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation hand guide is now declassified and been made public. To educate yourself so that these techniques cannot be used against you, click here to read the Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation hand guide
Photographic Evidence of Lewis Carroll’s Alleged Pedaphilia Involving Alice Liddell, the Protagonist of Alice In Wonderland
A photograph linked to Lewis Carroll was found in the Musée Cantini, a French museum in Marseille, France, which depicts what appears to be a pubescent aged Lorina Liddell who was the younger sister of Alice Liddell, the person whom the fictional character of Alice in Alice In Wonderland was based upon. The photograph is problematic as it displays Liddell, fully nude, from a frontal angle. It’s unclear if the photograph was taken by Carroll or only linked to him, and it’s not completely clear as to whether or not the girl in the photograph is actually Liddell. The image isn’t permitted to leave France, so any study upon the subject must be conducted within the borders of the country. In 1993, Carroll expert Edward Wakeling deemed the photo to be not of Liddell after repeated examination and comparison to other images of Liddell. Nicholas Burnett, a picture conservationist with specialized knowledge in 19th century photography technology has stated that he believes the inscription upon the photograph which states “Lorina Liddell, Carroll, Col, MC” is actually a dealers notation which states what the photograph is of, where it came from, and denotes that it’s part of a collection, hence the abbreviation “col”. It’s unclear what “MC” stands for as the Musée Cantini does not use this abbreviation, but it could possibly stand for “Musée Cantini”. Carroll photographed the Liddell girls during the 1860’s which is crucial because the photograph in question has a slow growth mold which is difficult to reproduce fraudulently, beneath a thin layer of egg white albumin used as an outer coating. This photograph is known to have been cropped as the negative is larger than the print which is impossible to achieve unless the photograph itself was cut down. Carrol favored using an Ottawa Walls folding camera which is the same kind of camera which created the photograph in question. Finally, the print was made from a wet collodion negative which is a printing technique which Carroll is known to have used. If the photograph was from a later date, it would have used a paper negative which would have caused it to appear less crisp and clear. The evidence seems to suggest that Carroll did indeed take and develop the photograph. Forensic comparative analysis using modern scientific methods of comparing one photograph to another were used to examine the photograph and experts concluded that the girl in the photograph, is indeed Lorina as the eyes, specifically the epicanthic fold of the eyes, matches that of photographs of Lorina when she is in her adult years, as well as her elder years. The nose provides another example of evidence as the width of the nose at the nasion, meaning the point between the eyes and the bridge of the nose, the width of the alae (pronounced “ail-ee”) which is the spongy part of the side of the nose, and the nostrils are all broadly consistent with later photographs of Lorina. The lips provide further evidence, and perhaps the most interesting of all the compiled evidence as the lips definitively show a Cupid’s bow upon the upper lip, but also a lower lip which is prominent and protruding upon the right side, but not the left. These features forensically demonstrate that there is moderate likelihood that the photograph of the pubescent girl is indeed Lorina. The leader of the forensics team which evaluated the evidence at hand has gone on record to state that because no court case involved, it can confidently be stated that the photograph in question is in fact Lorina, however it should be noted that if a court case were pursuant, the evidence presented may not be enough to garner a conviction as its lacking solid, definitive proof, beyond and to the exclusion of reasonable doubt