Authored by John Lott Jr via RealClearPolitics.com,

If you only read the New York Times editorials, you’d believe that political violence in America is a “right-wing” problem. The Times has been warning of violence from the right for years, but on Nov. 19 and 26, they wrote two long editorials making these claims. The violence stems from the lies “enthusiastically spread” by Republican politicians. Democrats’ only complicity was their $53 million in spending on “far-right fringe candidates in the primaries.” The fringe candidates, it was hoped, would be easier to beat in the general election. 

Both editorials mention the mass murderer in Buffalo, New York, as a political right-winger. But they have been doing that all year. In May, the Times claimed he was of the right because he was racist and listened to a video on a “site known for hosting right-wing extremism.” 

The headline in the Times announced:

“Replacement theory, espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre, has been embraced by some right-wing politicians and commentators.”

You wouldn’t know it from reading the Times, but the Buffalo killer was yet another mass murderer motivated by environmentalism. 

In his manifesto, the Buffalo mass murderer self-identifies as an “eco-fascist national socialist” and a member of the “mild-moderate authoritarian left.” He expresses concern that minority immigrants have too many children and will damage the environment. “The invaders are the ones overpopulating the world,” he writes. “Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment.”

The murderer argues that capitalists are destroying the environment, and are at the root of much of the problem.

“The trade of goods is to be discouraged at all costs,” he insists.

Overpopulation and the environment are hardly signature conservative issues.

It’s certainly not something you’ll hear Donald Trump talk about at his rallies. And while some Republicans believe in limiting international trade, it’s certainly not for environmental reasons.

The Buffalo murderer’s manifesto has word-for-word similarities to those of the mass shooters in 2019 at a New Zealand mosque and at an El Paso Walmart. 

But the New York Times has consistently referred to the New Zealand mosque attacker as “far-right,” and tried to link the murderer to President Donald Trump’s supposedly racist language. The Times describes the El Paso murderer as having “echoed the incendiary words of conservative media stars” who have spoken out against illegal immigration.

But conservatives don’t usually declare that “conservatism is dead” and that “global capitalist markets are the enemy of racial autonomists.” Nor do they call themselves “eco-fascist” and profess that, “The nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China.”

The El Paso murderer had the same sentiments.

“The decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations … The next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.”

All three of these deranged killers made minorities their principal target. But they’ve done so out of a crazy environmentalist determination to reduce the human population by whatever means necessary. 

The news media and politicians who constantly warn about the world’s imminent end can’t bring themselves to acknowledge the environmentalist connection, even though climate activists time and again agree that overpopulation is part of the problem. “It does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question: Is it okay to still have children?” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019. She also warned that the “‘world will end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”

Similarly, President Biden fans the flames of alarmism when he claims that “climate change poses an existential threat to our lives … this is code red.”

Of the 82 mass public shootings from January 1998 to May 2021, 9% have known or alleged ties to white supremacists, neo-Nazis, or anti-immigrant views.

But many of those, such as the Buffalo murderer, are environmentalist authoritarians.

Another 9% of mass public shootings are carried out by people of middle eastern origin, despite them making up only 0.4% of the US population. Whites and Hispanics are underrepresented as a share of the population. Blacks, Asians, and American Indians commit these attacks at a slightly higher rate than their share of the population.

Seventy-one percent of mass public shooters have no identifiable political views.

Even violence against pro-life people and organizations this year has been over 22 times more frequent that violence against pro-choice groups.

The New York Times, like the Washington Post and other news outlets, is intent on construing any racist as a conservative, right-winger. But they aren’t. And if there’s any ideological cause that really is sparking violence, it’s environmental extremism.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the massive wave of retail thefts at company stores will lead to higher prices or closed stores if the problem persists. 

“Theft is an issue. It’s higher than what it has historically been,” McMillon told Squawk Box’s hosts. 

“We’ve got safety measures, security measures that we’ve put in place by store location. I think local law enforcement being staffed and being a good partner is part of that equation, and that’s normally how we approach it,” he continued.

Squawk Box’s Rebecca Quick then pointed out how certain cities have changed shoplifting rules, making it harder for police to prosecute criminals. She asked McMillon: “Does that matter?” 

He responded: “If that’s not corrected over time, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close.” 

Besides Walmart, Target complained last month about an organized retail crime wave, resulting in a massive hit on profits this year. The retailer employed theft-deterrent merchandising strategies, but that wasn’t enough to stop criminals from running off with everything on the shelves. 

Target’s latest earnings report revealed gross profit margins were reduced by $400 million this year due to shrinking, the industry’s term for theft and product loss.

Target CFO Michael Fiddelke said, “We know we’re not alone across retail in seeing a trend [crime wave] that I think has gotten increasingly worse over the last 12 to 18 months.” 

Organized retail crime has exploded under the Biden administration while progressive-run cities implement social justice reform. Such policies have backfired and fueled a nationwide crime wave. 

Walmart and Target blame thefts on organized crime gangs. Stores have deployed on/off duty police and shatterproof glass cabinets to guard high-value items. 

US retailers have demanded Congress do something. The US Chamber of Commerce has described the looting as a “national crisis.”  

Walmart could follow Walgreens Pharmacy’s playbook and begin closing stores in Democrat-controlled cities to mitigate theft. 

Here’s the full interview:

Update (2245ET): With 95% of votes counted, a number of mainstream media outlets have called the Georgia Senate Runoff election for incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock.

Well over 1 million people went to the polls Tuesday. That followed record-breaking early voting in the runoff, in which about 1.85 million in-person and mail-in votes had been tallied by Dec. 2, the last day of early voting.

Mr. Warnock’s victory means that Democrats will control the Senate 51-49 starting in January, slightly increasing their hold on the chamber they have controlled since early 2021, when Mr. Warnock was first elected, along with his Georgia Democratic colleague Sen. Jon Ossoff.

The win means Democrats will have control of Senate committees outright and will no longer have to adhere to a power-sharing agreement with the GOP.

*  *  *

Georgia voters will head to the polls on Tuesday to settle the final Senate contest in the country between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and football legend Herschel Walker, following a four-week runoff that has attracted a flood of outside spending.

The outcome of Tuesday’s vote will determine whether Democrats will have a 51-49 Senate majority, or will maintain the 50-50 control of the chamber which often resulted in the party kowtowing to centrist Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ).

Atlanta voters were greeted Tuesday morning with 40-degree weather with rain.

The contest between Walker and Warnock pits the state’s first black senator and senior minister against Walker, who has the support of former President Donald Trump. If Warnock wins, it would solidify Georgia’s status as a battleground state heading into the 2024 election, AP reports. If Walker wins, it would reflect limited Democratic gains in the state – particularly in light of Republicans marking wide-ranging victories across the state in last month’s midterm elections.

In that election, Warnock led Walker by about 37,000 votes out of almost 4 million cast but fell shy of a majority, triggering the second round of voting. About 1.9 million votes already have been cast by mail and during early voting, an advantage for Democrats whose voters more commonly cast ballots this way. Republicans typically fare better on voting done on Election Day, with the margins determining the winner.

Last month, Walker, 60, ran more than 200,000 votes behind Republican Gov. Brian Kemp after a campaign dogged by intense scrutiny of his past, meandering campaign speeches and a bevy of damaging allegations, including claims that he paid for two former girlfriends’ abortions — accusations that Walker has denied. -AP

On Monday Walker campaigned with his wife, Julie, where he thanked supporters and backed off the attacks on Warnock.

“I love y’all, and we’re gonna win this election,” he told supporters at a winery in Ellijay, adding “I love winning championships.”

As far as campaign spending, Warnock’s has spent around $170 million vs. Walker’s $60 million or so, according to federal disclosures. Their respective party committees have spent more, according to the report.

During the campaign Warnock attacked Walker’s rocky past – claiming the ex-NFL star paid for two former girlfriends abortions, while Walker was forced to admit during the campaign that he fathered three children out of wedlock whom he had never publicly acknowledged.

Walker, a multi-millionaire and successful businessman, has campaigned on his business achievements and philanthropic activities – though he was caught exaggerating, saying he employed hundreds of people and grossed tens of millions of dollars in sales, when in fact he employed eight people and had around $1.5 million in average annual sales.

By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk

US allies are steaming mad at Biden for his climate change war. Let’s discuss who fired the first shot and who is escalating the war.

The Wall Street Journal comments Biden Starts a Climate Trade War

Wasn’t President Biden going to end Donald Trump’s destructive trade wars against allies? Apparently not. His “super aggressive” climate protectionism—to quote French President Emmanuel Macron—is infuriating U.S. friends and may set off a subsidy and tariff war.

U.S. allies are upset about the Inflation Reduction Act’s generous subsidies for domestically manufactured green technologies. In his trip to Washington last week, Mr. Macron said the U.S. subsidies may “perhaps fix your issue but you will increase my problem.” They’re really a problem for everybody.

The dispute involves tax credits for electric-vehicle and battery production. The IRA’s $7,500 consumer tax credit are restricted to EVs assembled in North America. Most foreign auto makers make EVs abroad and export them because the global and U.S. markets are still small.

The law also offers generous tax credits for domestic EV battery production, including a $35 per kilowatt-hour credit for U.S.-made battery cells, plus $10 per kilowatt-hour for domestically produced modules. These credits are expected to shave the cost of producing an EV battery by 30% to 40% and reportedly prompted Tesla to reconsider plans to make battery cells in Germany.

A Toyota spokesman in Canada spoke the truth: “While the IRA is being presented in many quarters as key legislation to fight climate change, in reality it is an act of trade protectionism.” The Canadian Steel Producers Association has warned that U.S. steel producers would also indirectly benefit from the climate subsidies without incurring carbon costs.

WTO Subsidy Violations 

Under WTO rules, Biden is offering illegal subsidies.  The EU’s game is illegal tariffs. 

EU Tries to Convince Trading Partners Its Carbon Tax is Not a Tax

Please recall my July 6 post EU Tries to Convince Trading Partners Its Carbon Tax is Not a Tax

The EU wants to stop “carbon leakage”. Supposedly a carbon tax will do the trick.

In order to keep profits up in the EU, the EU resorted to CBAM, a carbon border adjustment mechanism designed to cut emissions by creating financial incentives for greener production and by discouraging “carbon leakage.” 

The US way of doing business was to hand out subsidies to favored union businesses, especially GM. 

Since direct handouts are more efficient at graft than tariffs, the EU is now steaming mad. 

Inflationary Practices

Trump started trade wars with most of the world. Biden has escalated them. 

Both the EU’s CBAM initiative and Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act are inflationary. They raise prices on the end consumer by shutting out foreign competition. 

De-carbonization and deglobalization are both very inflationary. The Fed will have to kill a lot of demand to make up for competing idiotic trade and energy policies. 

For more on the IRA please see my November 30 post The EU is Very Worried About Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

Late Monday evening, the US Army awarded Textron Inc’s Bell unit with the contract to build the next-generation helicopter, ending years of fierce competition between Lockheed Martin Corp.-Boeing Co. to replace the aging fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks by 2030. 

The Army’s “Future Vertical Lift” award went to Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft, similar to the V-22 Osprey. The new aircraft can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but rotate massive props to fly like a fixed-wing aircraft at impressive speeds. 

“The V-280’s unmatched combination of proven tiltrotor technology coupled with innovative digital engineering and an open architecture offers the Army outstanding operational versatility for its vertical lift fleet,” Bell said in a statement.

“We are honored that the US Army has selected the Bell V-280 Valor as its next-generation assault aircraft.

“We intend to honor that trust by building a truly remarkable and transformational weapon system to meet the Army’s mission requirements. We are excited to play an important role in the future of Army Aviation,” Scott C. Donnelly, Textron’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. 

Shares of Textron jumped significantly on the news, back at their highest since April…

Textron didn’t release the terms of the contract. However, Bloomberg noted the contract was worth up to $1.3 billion, with development expected to take approximately 19 months. 

The Army said V-280 will “provide transformational increases in speed, range, payload, and endurance to replace a portion of the Army’s current assault and utility aircraft fleet.”

Douglas Bush, Army assistant secretary for acquisition, told reporters at the Pentagon Monday that the selection of the V-280 “is our chance to move to the next step in this vital program.” Army officials said if all contract options were exercised, it could rise to $7 billion, including the first initial low-rate production of the next-generation helicopter. 

The Army has been testing and evaluating another aircraft besides the V-280: A coaxial lift compound rotor helicopter called Defiant X, built by the Lockheed-Boeing team.

Lockheed-Boeing group released a statement that the fight to win the contract wasn’t over: 

“We remain confident Defiant X is the transformational aircraft the US Army requires to accomplish its complex missions today and well into the future,” the group said. “We will evaluate our next steps after reviewing feedback from the Army.”

Rapid modernization efforts are underway for the US military. Last Friday, the Air Force unveiled the next-generation bomber called the B-21 Raider. 

Authored by Jeff Deist via The Mises Institute,

Does America simply lack the political will to face economic reality?

In the teeth of the Depression, Treasury secretary Andrew Mellon famously told President Herbert Hoover to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate”—in other words, to resist bailing out any industry through state intervention. This was a tough sell even in those days, and of course Hoover succumbed to politics and took the opposite approach, greatly and needlessly damaging the US economy for decades to come.

Less often quoted are Mellon’s follow-up words to Hoover: Liquidation would “purge the rottenness out of the system,” so “people will work harder” and “live a more moral life.”

Mellon, having lived most of his life in an America without a central bank, understood economic recessions as necessary cures rather than ills to be avoided. But he also understood the human price that would be paid in the aftermath of a period of phony economic prosperity. Only hard work and personal sacrifice, person by person and town by town, could get America out of its economic mess. Fiscal and monetary policy would provide no free lunch, as millions of Americans learned the hard way in the 1930s.

Fast-forward to 2022, and it’s hard to imagine Janet Yellen calling for liquidation or telling Americans to improve their moral fiber. Nobody votes for austerity or personal responsibility, and any politician or bureaucrat or central banker who even suggests it is doomed today.

Yet this mythology of austerity persists, that a stingy federal Treasury and reticent central bank don’t intervene enough in economic crises. Consider this howler from Paul Krugman back in 2011, apparently delivered with a straight face: “One thing is clear: Mellon-style liquidationism is now the official doctrine of the G.O.P.” Keep in mind he wrote this several years into the most “extraordinary” monetary intervention in the history of the world—one which ultimately saw the US Fed purchase several trillions’ worth of Treasury debt from the “market”! Yet for Krugman, it is never enough.

As the bruising midterm elections recently demonstrated, America is a deeply unserious country. A serious political discussion at the federal level would center on existential structural problems of war and peace, debt and the dollar, and entitlements. But these issues can be addressed only by real austerity and real pain. So instead, we distract and divert ourselves worrying about whether Donald Trump should be allowed on Twitter. We argue over flu viruses, guns, transgenderism, climate, and abortion (none of which the federal government has the slightest jurisdiction over) rather than the material standard of living we will leave our grandchildren.

This is possible only because millions of Americans, maybe a majority, are simply economics deniers. They either don’t believe economic laws exist or think economics can be overcome by legislation, regulation, or central bank actions. And there are plenty of deniers among the ranks of professional economists! The profession does itself no favors when it cheerleads for politics, providing an intellectual veneer for interventionism. Human nature makes us want to believe untrue things, but economics should help disabuse Americans of political fantasies.

Let’s face it: the US is not a free-market economy because we don’t much believe in markets, despite our lip service. Most Americans, and virtually all political, media, academic, corporate, and banking elites, believe economic intervention (fiscal and monetary stimulus) form the basis of our economy—not production and saving.

So, what would a serious America do to correct our disastrous economic path? This may seem like an academic or rhetorical question, but it’s worth laying out the actual steps necessary to build a real economy rather than a fake one dependent on monetary or fiscal interventionism. As Dr. Mark Thornton recently explained, these steps may be conceptually simple even as they are wildly beyond political imagination today:

• a wholesale adoption of laissez-faire economic doctrine by national politicians;

• immediate deep tax and regulatory reductions;

• immediate sharp reductions in government spending at every level (leaving federal spending well below federal revenue);

• rigorous entitlement cuts, using some combination of means testing and raising age eligibility for both Social Security and Medicare;

• rigorous defense spending cuts of at least 50 percent, combined with a radically reduced US military footprint overseas;

• cessation of new debt issuance by the US Treasury;

• cessation of active monetary “policy” by the Federal Reserve Bank, meaning no intervention with respect to the money supply, interest rates, or credit and debt markets (including US Treasurys);

• a radical reduction in the Fed’s balance sheet by letting existing Treasurys mature and roll off;

• an entirely hands-off approach allowing the US dollar to float freely relative to other currencies and commodities;

• an express policy against bailouts or subsidies of any kind to any industry or company, regardless of the severity of an economic downturn;

• allowing troubled industries or companies, no matter how big, to fail—through bankruptcy and asset sales; investor losses; and firing boards, management, and employees when restructuring is possible;

• actively encouraging business and individuals to save (through market/floating interest rates);

• elimination of any price ceilings or floors on prices, wages, and profits;

• elimination of any unemployment subsidies to individuals, along with abolition of minimum wage laws; and finally,

• the immediate sale of federal land and other assets to reduce debt service on the $31 trillion in Treasury obligations and to restore worldwide confidence in the US economy.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a real program of austerity looks like. That these actions are politically unfeasible—complete nonstarters—shows how politics dominates economics in America. The profession charged with explaining how no free lunch is possible instead mostly operates as a handmaiden to the state and its bosses. But politics won’t fix this, and we won’t vote our way out of trouble.

The best path forward is at the state and local levels, attempting to build regional economies with less fragility in the face of the warring, borrowing, spending, and devaluing mania of Uncle Sam.

Nearly one week after the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season ended, an incredibly rare tropical disturbance formed over the central subtropical Atlantic.

The National Hurricane Center released a tropical weather outlook on Tuesday, explaining the storm has a 50% chance of becoming the 15th named storm of the season over the next two 2-5 days. 

“Environmental conditions appear marginally conducive for development and a subtropical or tropical storm could form in the next couple of days,” NHC said. However, it added:

“By Thursday night or Friday, the low will move northeastward over cooler waters and interact with a mid-latitude trough, limiting subtropical or tropical development of the system.”

Christianne Pearce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tampa Bay office, told Tampa Bay Times the storm doesn’t threaten Florida or the US as it moves northeast into even cooler waters. 

“The probability of having a storm this late in the season is very low because the waters out there are a lot cooler.

“We just have different atmospheric phenomenon happening that kind of put a damper on those things developing,” Pearce said.

The Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1 and concludes on Nov. 30. Tropical storms and hurricanes forming in December are rare. According to Fox 35 Orlando, data between 1851 to 2017 showed that 2% of tropical storms formed outside “off months” (December to May) of the season. 

Keep an eye on the Atlantic’s tropical region over the next few days. If the storm does form, it will be named “Owen.”

Authored by Peter Wilson via The Epoch Times,

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says Canada is planning to increase its number of warships in the Taiwan Strait as a message to China that the waters are not its national property.

“We will continue to enforce the international rules-based order when it comes to the Taiwan Strait. And that’s why also we had a frigate going through the Taiwan Strait this summer, along with the Americans, [and] we’re looking to have more frigates going through it,” Joly told the Financial Times.

“We need to make sure that the question of the Taiwan Strait is clear and that it remains an international strait.”

The Taiwan Strait is a stretch of international waters less than 200 kilometres wide separating Taiwan from mainland China. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin had said at a regular news briefing in Beijing on June 13: “There is no such thing as international waters in international maritime law. … Relevant countries claim that the Taiwan Strait is in international waters with the aim to manipulate the Taiwan question and threaten China’s sovereignty.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Joly’s comments come less than two weeks after she unveiled Canada’s new Indo-Pacific Strategy, during the announcement of which the Foreign Affairs Minister referred to China as an “increasingly disruptive” global power.

The new strategy also includes a pledge by the federal government to spend $2.2. billion on investments in the region over the next five years.

Joly said Canada will be “committing to new military assets” in the Indo-Pacific, and later told reporters in Bucharest, Romania, where she is attending a NATO foreign affairs ministers’ meeting, that Canada must “play a role in the security” of the Indo-Pacific.

“We need to invest in deterrence because we believe … it is the best way to, at the end of the day, respect international norms,” she said.

More Military

Before Joly announced the strategy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Canadian Armed Forces will also be increasing its presence in the Indo-Pacific region, with additional investments by the federal government to support them.

“We’ll be making new investments to enhance the Canadian Armed Forces engagement in the region,” Trudeau told reporters in Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 18. “This will support our allies, Japan and South Korea, and all of us in the Pacific.”

Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy also says China continues to disregard “international norms” as a means toward becoming the region’s “leading power.”

“China’s assertive pursuit of its economic and security interests, advancement of unilateral claims, foreign interference and increasingly coercive treatment of other countries and economies have significant implications in the region, in Canada and around the world,” the strategy reads.

Joly previously said Canada will “challenge China when we ought to, and we will cooperate with China when we must” when speaking to reporters in Toronto, on Nov. 9.

“Its sheer size and influence makes cooperation necessary to address the world’s existential pressures,” she said.

However, while recently speaking to reporters in Bucharest, Joly also reacted to a report from the Pentagon released several days ago saying China is on pace to almost quadruple its number of nuclear warheads by 2035.

Joly said Canada is “taking note definitely” of China’s increasing nuclear capacity and said Canada will “make sure we have better intelligence capacity across the region” in the near future.

“We are a Pacific nation, we need to make sure that we play a bigger role,” she said, according to the Financial Post.

“Since this part of the world is so important for us, we need to be a reliable partner because for too long we weren’t.”

Knives are out for Elon Musk, after the richest man in the world bought Twitter, began reinstating the accounts of ‘political prisoners’ banned by wokelings for unpopular speech, and then began releasing evidence of 2020 election interference via the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Remember, the FBI and other official bodies went around warning Facebook and Twitter about a Russian hacking campaign right before the Hunter laptop story hit, and said companies appear to have gladly complied with said ‘tap on the shoulder.’

So now, Musk’s Neuralink – a medical device company, is now under federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations (Anthony Fauci’s ‘cruel’ puppy experiments are just fine, by the by), according to information leaked to Reuters from somewhere.

Neuralink is developing a brain implant in the hopes of helping paralyzed people walk again (and probably put your Tesla in valet mode by just thinking about it). According to Reuters, the federal probe was opened months ago, but disclosed just now, for some reason.

The probe was opened by the US Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General at the request of a federal prosecutor, who alleges that Neuralink has committed violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

The investigation has come at a time of growing employee dissent about Neuralink’s animal testing, including complaints that pressure from CEO Musk to accelerate development has resulted in botched experiments, according to a Reuters review of dozens of Neuralink documents and interviews with more than 20 current and former employees. Such failed tests have had to be repeated, increasing the number of animals being tested and killed, the employees say. The company documents include previously unreported messages, audio recordings, emails, presentations and reports. -Reuters

In total, approximately 1,500 animals have been killed – including over 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, since 2018 according to records reviewed by Reuters.

Why were so many animals killed? Because evil Elon demanded results, and fast!

Through company discussions and documents spanning several years, along with employee interviews, Reuters identified four experiments involving 86 pigs and two monkeys that were marred in recent years by human errors. The mistakes weakened the experiments’ research value and required the tests to be repeated, leading to more animals being killed, three of the current and former staffers said. The three people attributed the mistakes to a lack of preparation by a testing staff working in a pressure-cooker environment. -Reuters

Fauci’s puppies, meanwhile, had their heads locked in mesh cages with hungry sand flies so that the insects could ‘eat them alive,’ all to test an experimental drug.