Secret biowarfare lab on Hanson Place

Those guys were wearing bomb disposal suits, not hazmat gear. Hazmat in NYC is almost always handled by the FDNY.

metulj wrote: [quote=Jack Krohn]
And, please, enough with the insinutations that AIDS is germ warfare. When personal responsibility plays a paramount role in protecting oneself, adopting an external locus of control hardly saves lives.

AIDS is not biowarfare: true. Being a hemophiliac and contracting HIV has shit little to do with "personal resposibility." Being a Botswanan baby who caught it from his mother via breastfeeding has shit little to do with it either. Hell, his mother got it via an "male rejuvenation ceremony" that requires two things: a hymen and ancient folk traditions and that has shit little to do with "personal responsibility." Who the fuck are you? Ralph Reed?

all of that is true, metulj. but in defense of jack: most new infections in the US could be prevented by behavior change. this is not to assign "blame" or "fault" to those who become infected -- who among us has not engaged in unsafe behavior at one time or other? those who are unlucky are not less "good". (and, of course, since the most common means of infection is psychologically fraught, it's optimistic to expect that safe behavior always be a straightforward and automatic choice.) but while superstitious beliefs about a racially assymetrical epidemic are understandable given past government practice (tuskeegee, anyone?), the important thing is to empower people to feel in control of their own destinies, so that they will feel that their behavior makes a difference and therefore feel motivated to make safer choices. fatalism is not the most useful outlook to have/encourage/tolerate, and failure to confront that attitude is at best unhelpful, and possibly both condescending and deadly.