News just in

[shunyadragon]

Wow. Do all Democrats get as excited about death and destruction as you do?

Actually the Republicans are getting excited and enthusiastic about the brutal death, destruction, war crimes, bombing hospitals, schools and apartment builds, and the mass graves of civilians left by Russians when the retreated. They are real devoted Wagner fans.

[One Bad Pig]

All the news that's fit to ignore....

Two people have been arrested one week after a shooting that left 9 children injured. D'Angelo Robinson, Sr., 35, and an unnamed 15-year-old male are in custody on aggravated assault charges. Robinson, Sr. is in the Muscogee County Jail tonight while the juvenile suspect is in custody at the Regional Youth Detention Center.

On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 10:11 p.m., Columbus Police Officers responded to that shooting in the 4400 block of Warm Springs Road (Shell Gas Station). Nine victims, all under the age of 18, were treated for non-life threatening injuries at local hospitals.

Immediately following that incident, and for the next 7 days, investigators continued to interview witnesses, gather information, analyze evidence and were ultimately able to establish probable cause to issue arrest warrants for the two suspects.

Robinson, Sr. is charged with 8 counts of Aggravated Assault. The juvenile suspect, whose name will not be released at this time, has been identified as a validated gang member. He is charged with one count of Aggravated Assault. Additional charges are pending.

[rogue06]

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Patrick Wojahn, a close friend of Pete Buttigieg -- who mentored him when he became mayor of College Park, Maryland (just outside of Washington D.C.) -- has been arrested on 56 counts of possession and distribution of child pornography.

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Buttigieg and Wojahn

The WaPo describes it this way (all in an article that somehow manages to forget mentioning that he's a Democrat or closeness to old Joe's Transportation Secretary in the 25 paragraph long story)

Authorities have accused Wojahn of uploading and sharing dozens of videos to the social media app Kik in early January that depicted explicit sexual acts involving prepubescent boys and adult men. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children flagged the suspicious Kik account to the Prince George’s County police on Feb. 17, authorities said, and investigators obtained a warrant to search Wojahn’s College Park home on Feb. 28. During that search, police said in court documents, Wojahn waived his Miranda rights and told investigators that the Kik account was his. Police also said that Wojahn “advised that he has viewed and possessed files depicting child pornography,” according to court papers.

There is no truth to the rumor that old Joe has asked Wojahn to replace Sam Brinton at the Energy Department.

They traced him because the Kik account with the kiddie porn on it had his his official government email listed as the recovery email.

[Starlight]

Patrick Wojahn, a close friend of Pete Buttigieg -- who mentored him when he became mayor of College Park, Maryland

This seems to get the chronological ordering wrong. The guy was elected mayor, and is gay, so reached out to Pete to ask for some advice about the subject because Pete had experience with that. It's not like they were lifelong best friends.

[Starlight]

In news just in, Lauren Boebert announced she's now a grandmother... at age 36. Ooof.

She claimed this was a good thing and praised teen mums.

The audience at the event, Mums for America, seemed stunned rather than pleased.

Family values? Inability to keep it in their pants? Or too stupid/uneducated to use contraception?

[CivilDiscourse]

In news just in, Lauren Boebert announced she's now a grandmother... at age 36. Ooof.

She claimed this was a good thing and praised teen mums.

The audience at the event, Mums for America, seemed stunned rather than pleased.

Family values? Inability to keep it in their pants? Or too stupid/uneducated to use contraception?

Maybe him and his girlfriend read one of those books that taught them how to hook up, meet people anonymously, etc. In the school library.

Or, maybe you are shaming them because you don't like her, and want to take it out on teens.

[rogue06]

This seems to get the chronological ordering wrong. The guy was elected mayor, and is gay, so reached out to Pete to ask for some advice about the subject because Pete had experience with that. It's not like they were lifelong best friends.

Nobody said they were "best friends forever" but they did become close friends.

[Starlight]

In yet the latest example of "it's always projection with conservatives" a guy who spray painted "groomer" on the sides of 2 libraries during pride week, has been found to himself be in possession of child porn.

It's always projection with conservatives.

[Starlight]

In yet the latest example of "it's always projection with conservatives" a guy who spray painted "groomer" on the sides of 2 libraries during pride week, has been found to himself be in possession of child porn.

It's always projection with conservatives.

It never rains but it pours. We also got today the revelation that the 79-year old Republican Lt Gov of Tennessee has been enthusiastically following a 20 year old gay man on Instagram and Facebook, liking nearly-naked pictures of him, posting racy comments on them, and encouraging the lad to contact him.

Tennessee is the state currently pushing the strongest anti-LGBT laws. It's all projection.

[CivilDiscourse]

In yet the latest example of "it's always projection with conservatives" a guy who spray painted "groomer" on the sides of 2 libraries during pride week, has been found to himself be in possession of child porn.

It's always projection with conservatives.

Stereotype much?

[Starlight]

This week scientists reported the successful creation of an offspring from two male parents. It's in mice, but there's no biological reason AFAICT why the same couldn't be done in humans.

Using a stem cell from one of the males, they converted the chromosomes from XY to XX and converted it to an egg cell, and then fertilized it from another male mouse. The offspring was completely normal.

The creators of this technology are primarily touting it as a way to avoid some inherited genetic disorders by knocking out chromosomes and bringing in others. But it seems like the greater demand is going to be from married same-sex couples who want to have biological children together.

[Starlight]

Schumer's announced the Senate will hold a vote to repeal the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) from 1991 and 2002 (both Iraq AMUFs)! Hopefully this (a) passes, and (b) marks a reduction in US military activity!

I sure don't say this often, but congrats to Schumer! (ok I'll admit I still think he should be primaried).

[Diogenes]

This week scientists reported the successful creation of an offspring from two male parents. It's in mice, but there's no biological reason AFAICT why the same couldn't be done in humans.

Using a stem cell from one of the males, they converted the chromosomes from XY to XX and converted it to an egg cell, and then fertilized it from another male mouse. The offspring was completely normal.

The creators of this technology are primarily touting it as a way to avoid some inherited genetic disorders by knocking out chromosomes and bringing in others. But it seems like the greater demand is going to be from married same-sex couples who want to have biological children together.

successfully eradicated trisomy 16, a model of Down’s syndrome, in PS cells

This reminds me of the dystopian song "In The Year 2525". I would highly doubt the primary purpose isn't to cater to gay couples. There's a meme of Peter Griffin from Family Guy saying "ah sweet man made horrors beyond my comprehension", this seems to fit the bill. We're fast moving towards designer babies and this is just another step. Since this will be likely praised by the gay community, bioethical concerns go out the window, just as it does for the trans community.

[Diogenes]

Schumer's announced the Senate will hold a vote to repeal the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) from 1991 and 2002 (both Iraq AMUFs)! Hopefully this (a) passes, and (b) marks a reduction in US military activity!

I sure don't say this often, but congrats to Schumer! (ok I'll admit I still think he should be primaried).

Media stunt.

[Starlight]

We're fast moving towards designer babies and this is just another step.

We have designer babies already: It's called choosing the parents. If you want a whiter child: Marry someone who is white. If you want a taller child: Marry someone who is tall. If you want a smart child: Marry someone who is smart.

People have been creating "designer babies" in this way since humanity began.

Scientifically, the idea of scientists doing anything in particular to create "better" babies is pretty absurd and is about a billion times more movie than reality. This is because while some really serious genetic conditions can be localized on the genome, and hence knocked out reasonably easily via methods like the one mentioned which replace a whole chromosome with another chromosome, things we would consider potentially "good" traits that a parent might want to have in their child (e.g. intelligence) are not localized within the genome and are massively distributed across the genome so you'd have to be doing individual gene editing on a super massive scale and science is not remotely close to having a good understanding of how such massively distributed traits function or what side effects gene editing on that scale might have if we could even do it. So while scientists might be able to help people with serious genetic disorders have a child that didn't inherent their serious genetic disorder, the idea of someone giving a list of positive traits they want the child to have and scientists making this happen is orders of magnitude different.

So for the foreseeable future (50-100 years) designer babies is going to be pretty much limited to picking the parents, which is how it's been done since humanity began.

Since this will be likely praised by the gay community, bioethical concerns go out the window, just as it does for the trans community.

Since society one the whole now seems fine with same sex parenting, and fine with surrogates giving birth to implanted eggs, the only potential concern I can see here is around whether the child would suffer any physiological damage by being created via this method. Looking at the science of what they are doing, I can't think of a reason there could be any problem with the offspring. But just because I can't think of a reason, doesn't mean there might not be one, and extensive testing on mice and other animals should be able to tell us that. The paper reported no issues with the mice offspring in their experiment who appeared normal in all respects and went on to have children of their own. But certainly I would want to see further testing of this done, and done in other species, before it was approved for use in humans. Fortunately many animal species have much shorter lifespans than humans so we can see the results of this in multiple generations of multiple animal species in quite a short time period.