The Last Battle?

- Posted by Wyatt Burp

I’m setting this post to publish three weeks delayed from when I’m writing it. I’m in Las Vegas at the moment, and I’ve learned that about a dozen Posses have all gathered here for an assault on a Federal base. I’m holding back the publishing date so as not to be responsible for giving away their plans.

Click here to read the full post

LOCKED UP

by Margaret Anthony Dain

Federal officials revealed today that they have had the Internet sensation known as “Video Veronica” in custody for months, perhaps over a year.

“She was apprehended with a group of other seditionist fighters in the course of their attacking a federal facility,” Army spokeswoman Major Cheryl Tee confirmed to a group of reporters at a briefing.

“Video Veronica” first became famous in a Web clip unearthed by the Rocky Mountain News.  Appearing covered in bruises before a backdrop of garbage in a broken-down squat, she described the rough treatment she claimed to have received as a test subject in a federal disease laboratory. The Post Times later identified her as Charity “Veronica” Walker, a teenager from Denver’s Mar Lee neighborhood.

Congressional hearings revealed that a few Westerners, mostly teen delinquents, were used to test a bioweapon intended to narrowly target so-called “Posse” insurgents. Repeated exposure to an anesthetic gas used to maintain order was found to have poisoned some test subjects, resulting in liver damage, hospitalization, and even death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also revealed that the “Soapy” epidemic (for Staphylococcus epidermis, or S. epi) sweeping through the Las Vegas refugee district was the same strain cooked up in federal beakers. Video Veronica became a presidential campaign symbol, as then-candidate Chester Standard promised to close the labs. 

Today’s announcement of her re-arrest drew angry protests from Westerner-rights groups, who have been frustrated by what they see as a lack of progress on that campaign promise.

 “Of course we don’t condone it if Ms. Walker engaged in terrorist acts,” said James Deivele, an attorney with the pro-Western Equal Citizenship Rights Union (ECRU). “But if you told me a year ago that this president would lock her up before setting any of the other children free, I’d have said you were being incredibly cynical. Yet here we are.”

Deivele was referring to Congress’s recent bipartisan move blocking the president from releasing any person known to be infected with Soapy into any uninfected community. Until recently the disease looked to have been contained in Las Vegas, which has left few options. 

And even releasing the test subjects to an ordinary hospital there in Las Vegas has become controversial, with some using the Video Veronica example to charge that the test subjects may have been radicalized during their time in the lab.

“We don’t know what kind of indoctrination this Video and others like her have exposed these kids to,” said Rep. Boyce Caldwell (W–FL), a retired colonel and author of My Country, All of It: A Plan to End Terrorism NOW!  “Just having her loose we had a bioterror weapon running around, maybe responsible for this outbreak. They’ve got their smallpox, they’ve got their pile of blankets. You let any more of them free and who knows what they’ll try.”

Soap Against Soapy [sidebar]

The Soapy bacteria is closely related to Staphylococcus aureus, the germ responsible for the “staph infections” long common in hospitals.  Aureus lives on the skin of about 30 percent of all people. Staphylococcus epidermis lives on the skin of 70 percent of us.

Soapy has two of its better-known cousin’s nastier traits: the toughness to resist most common antibiotics and the ability to make a poison called “alpha toxin.” Together these add up to a painful, hard-to-treat skin problem that can in some cases be fatal.

Health officials continue to recommend that anyone who has traveled to Las Vegas recently visit a doctor for tests as soon as possible. In the meantime, regular bathing should reduce your danger even if you’ve been exposed. Washing reduces the number of bacteria on your skin, making active infection less likely.

ROLLED UP [separate box]

A series of border stings and targeted raids has disrupted a major smuggling ring, military police announced today. The ring, made up largely of Cajuns, transported millions in weapons and other banned items from Nebraska into Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. Police have made close to 200 arrests.