could just spark some empathy up instead of feeling hurt, their lives would start getting better and easier.

I admit it, sometimes my first impression is to be defensive, when I have a moment to think about it it all comes from the discomfort from discovering an unpleasant little thing about me. I'm feeling less to be defensive about these days.

Your posting isn't about you or me, its about a cultural experience that folks who look like me don't know or ignore. Most importantly folks who look like me need to realize the Black experience didn't happen in a vacuum, we were part of it and most often not necessarily a good part of it. Like PoC discovering their past, people who look like me need to discover the darker side of our own past and American experience and reconcile it. You provide a good place for us to start our work.

What the fuck did you do Roseanne????

A single 3D-printed burger currently costs over $300,000 to make
By James Plafke 01.22.2013 :: 3:00PM EDT @jplafke

https://www.geek.com/news/a-single-3d-printed-burger-currently-costs-over-300000-to-make-1536823/




We’ve mentioned Modern Meadow — a company that is practicing a variant of 3D printing, called 3D bioprinting — before. Instead of using resin like standard 3D printing, or a material more easily sent through a printer for food-printing like melted chocolate that then hardens, Modern Meadow uses material somewhat creepily called “bioink”.

In order to print live cells, the engineers perform biopsies on animals and collect stem cells, or other special cells. Because stem cells are basically magical (this not a technical term), they can not only turn into other cells, but replicate themselves. Once they replicate enough times, the engineers load them into a bioprinter cartridge, which creates something of a bioink — a material made of many live cells. When the bioink is printed, the living cells link together and form living tissue.



Though it might be easier to print edible, dead-tissue meat, Modern Meadow is facing a couple fairly large hurdles. For one, convincing the world to eat lab-grown meat might not be so easy. Another significant hurdle is that though Modern Meadow hasn’t grown something like a burger or steak as of yet, the price of one would be astronomically high. Another team of researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands has been growing animal cells to produce strips of lean muscle, with the goal of creating an artificial hamburger. Though the team doesn’t use bioprinting, they do use a somewhat related process of having stem cells replicate and create live tissue in a mold. Unfortunately, creating an entire burger would currently cost over $300,000.

If this all seems a little nutty, Modern Meadow has managed to raise some backing from prominent figures, such as Peter Thiel, who was one of Facebook’s early investors. There’s no word yet on when the company will be able to print a burger (or even a slider!), but if it can, it will be interesting to see how much it’ll cost, and if people can be convinced that “synthetic” meat is truly edible.





But only G*d can create a tree.

Dignity and justice for all

https://www.joneswrightforda.com/

The people of San Diego County, and even California, have overwhelmingly supported progressive criminal justice reform in recent elections. The stage for change has been set. I’ve heard you loud and clear, and I’m here to follow through. Let’s show San Diego County what true justice looks like.

I believe that every segment of every community must be involved in public safety. Every resident of San Diego County deserves to feel safe at home, at work, at school, and in public.

I believe that public safety does not have to come at the expense of our constitutional rights. Every victim deserves dignity, justice, support, and empowerment.

I'm running for District Attorney to show the connection between criminal justice reform, the world we want to live in, and the role of the District Attorney. I know that prosecutors can and should be an instrument for needed reforms. They can be a bridge between communities of color and law enforcement in an effort to heal San Diego County’s divides.

Join me!

Yours in Justice,

Geneviéve Jones-Wright

?1499233385



Another important office we need a progressive candidate to win.

Source: Huffpo


Democratic Lawmaker Gives Scott Pruitt Brutal Reality Check During Senate Hearing
Burn.

By Rebecca Shapiro

Sen. Leahy to EPA Admin. Pruitt on claims of flying first class for security reasons:

“What a silly reason you had to fly first class ... Nobody even knows who you are.” pic.twitter.com/rAWKEwyQEO
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 16, 2018

<snip>

In response to one of his lavish habits ― he flies only first or business class because of security concerns, according to Pasquale Perrotta, who recently resigned as Pruitt’s head of security ― Leahy mocked Pruitt.

“What a silly reason you had to fly first class,” Leahy said. “Because of a danger to you, you had to fly first class ... Nobody even knows who you are.”

Pruitt’s office maintained that he received death threats, but details on those claims are murky at best. Perrotta wrote in a memo last year that disapproving passengers were “lashing out” at Pruitt and that first or business class accommodations would prevent such encounters.

<snip>


Pruitt’s flying habits and 24/7 security detail have cost taxpayers since he began leading the EPA. A weeklong trip to Italy last summer cost taxpayers $120,000.




Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/patrick-leahy-scott-pruitt-epa_us_5afc81d4e4b06a3fb50d14f0

FBI Search Of CIA Leak Suspect Turned Up Photos Of Sex Assault On Unconscious Friend
The government suspects that Joshua Adam Schulte gave documents to WikiLeaks, but they’re holding him on child pornography charges.


By Ryan J. Reilly
Toru Hanai / Reuters

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joshua-schulte-wikileaks-cia-hack_us_5afb56fce4b06a3fb50b8e79

WASHINGTON ― A 30-year-old former CIA employee the federal government suspects ― but has not charged with ― giving a massive trove of agency documents to WikiLeaks is also facing charges in Virginia, where he’s accused of snapping photos as he sexually assaulted a passed-out friend as she lay on the floor of his bathroom.

<snip>

The FBI also sent along photos they obtained from one of Schulte’s phones to prosecutors in Loudoun County, where he lived when he worked for the CIA. The photos, taken in April 2015, show a woman “passed out on the floor” of his bathroom and being sexually assaulted. The unnamed woman has been referred to as Schulte’s friend and former roommate.

<snip>

“The victim remembers the night in question. It was one of the few nights that she passed out and didn’t remember what occurred. She could also, apparently, identify the bathroom, which was the bathroom where she was staying as a roommate of Mr. Schulte’s,” a federal prosecutor said at a hearing in January. The government told the judge that the woman was unconscious at the time, and was unable to identify Schulte as assaulting her. But prosecutors in Virginia, the federal government told the court, were evidently able to confirm that the pair of hands depicted assaulting the woman belonged to Schulte.

But even if it wasn’t Schulte who assaulted the victim, the federal prosecutor said it was “outrageous that Mr. Schulte would keep these types of images of someone who is supposed to be his friend on his phone” and contended it “shows more than just someone who wants to look at things; it shows someone who cannot control their impulses.”

<snip>

Schulte was recently assigned a federal public defender after his private attorney dropped out. The Times reported that Schulte’s family had spent most of their savings on legal fees.

Meanwhile, Schulte remains in federal custody. Evidently a fan of Ayn Rand, he’s also begun writing lengthy, pseudonymous essays about the injustices of the federal criminal system for “John Galt’s Legal Defense Fund,” according to the Post and the Times. The Facebook page, a reference to the hero of Atlas Shrugged, had just two likes as of Tuesday.

Ryan Reilly is HuffPost’s senior justice reporter, covering the Justice Department, federal law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs. Have a tip? Reach him at ryan.reilly@huffpost.com or on Signal at 202-527-9261.

Longtime Trump Lawyer Slams Giuliani As ‘Polarizing Figure’ Who Shouldn’t Deal With Mueller
Giuliani may also be trying to “aggrandize himself,” Jay Goldberg said.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/former-trump-lawyer-giuliani-polarizing_us_5afc093de4b06a3fb50c3c8a

By Willa Frej

Jay Goldberg, the attorney who represented President Donald Trump for almost two decades, doesn’t think Rudy Giuliani is fit to be handling the legal team tasked with handling special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Not only is Giuliani not sufficiently experienced, Goldberg said, but he also may be in it for his own gain.

“I think he’s a polarizing figure,” Goldberg said of the former New York City mayor on MSNBC’s “The Beat With Ari Melber” on Tuesday. “There are those people who think he was a wonderful prosecutor but he has no record managing a defense of someone who’s accused of wrongdoing. I told him that I didn’t think that Giuliani was the right person for him to select. I thought there were much better people that he could use in terms of negotiating with Mueller.”

Giuliani is misguided if he thinks he can scare Mueller into winding down the investigation, Goldberg added.

Jay Goldberg on why he told Trump that Giuliani was not “the right person for him to select”

“I thought that there were much better people that he could use” to negotiate with Mueller pic.twitter.com/qDSq9OEAq1
— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) May 15, 2018

And to go on cable television and make revelations ― he was referring to Giuliani telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the $130,000 that Trump’s current lawyer Michael Cohen paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels came from Trump himself ― without fully debriefing the client points to “the height of unpreparedness,” Goldberg said.

<snip>

“There has been no evidence presented of collusion or obstruction, and it is about time for them to end the investigation,” Giuliani told Bloomberg News on Tuesday. “We don’t want to signal our action if this doesn’t work ― we are going to hope they listen to us ― but obviously we have a Plan B and C.”

Fox's Tucker Carlson Abruptly Ends Contentious Interview After Dem Calls Him Out for Being More Bothered by Cursing Than Kids Being Shot

In a new campaign ad, New Mexico Democratic congressional candidate Pat Davis—a former cop—bluntly declared "F*ck the NRA."
By Tana Ganeva / Raw Story
May 15, 2018, 8:53 PM GMT

https://www.alternet.org/foxs-tucker-carlson-abruptly-ends-contentious-interview-after-dem-calls-him-out-being-more-bothered

<snip>

In a new campaign ad, New Mexico Democratic congressional candidate Pat Davis—a former cop—bluntly declares "Fuck the NRA. Fuck the NRA. Fuck the NRA."

On Tuesday night, he appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Don't let big tech control what news you see. Get more stories like this in your inbox, every day.

"So that's the ad? 'F' the NRA? kind of moronic, no?" Tucker asked Davis.

"It started a whole other conversation about guns and I'm grateful for that," Davis replied.

"But ... doesn't it degrade you? You used the 'F-word' in an ad!?" Carson incredulously wondered.

"Being polite has not made our schools any safer ... it hasn't protected police officers like I used to be," Davis said, in reference to the fact that many officers are trained to fear that any suspect they approach might be armed.

"If a curse word on TV offends you more than pictures of dead children in Parkland or Newtown ... then your priorities are all wrong," Davis concludes.

The interview promptly disintegrated.

Melania Trump had major surgery today and Trump is not by her bedside at the hospital

By Vinnie Longobardo
Published on May 14, 2018

https://washingtonpress.com/2018/05/14/melania-trump-had-major-surgery-today-and-trump-is-not-by-her-bedside-at-the-hospital/

It almost goes without saying that Donald Trump is the worst husband imaginable. His first two wives got more than their fair share of his despicable behavior, and his current spouse Melania has had to suffer through the revelations of his serial infidelities with porn stars and Playboy models.

Trump didn’t mention the mother of his youngest son Baron at all in his Mother’s Day message yesterday, focusing instead on his own mother, and has admitted that he was too busy to get her a birthday present, despite having a huge White House staff at his disposal that could have been delegated to buy something on his behalf.

Even worse, as it was disclosed today by the first lady’s office that Melania Trump was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington, DC for kidney surgery, she went to the hospital alone with her husband nowhere near her side.

The first lady was experiencing a kidney problem that her spokespeople described as benign but that required medical attention, according to CNN. She is expected to be staying in the hospital for several days following the surgery.

With Trump sitting in the White House while his wife undergoes a major operation, one would imagine that the only excuse he could give for not accompanying his wife to the hospital would be a schedule so packed with crucial agenda items of global importance that he simply could not be torn away or the world would fall apart.

As The List author Amy Siskind reports on Twitter, however, Trump’s day today mostly consisted of “executive time,” according to his officially published schedule.

First Lady Melania Trump had surgery today, but @realDonaldTrump didn’t come with her because of his busy Monday schedule. pic.twitter.com/dvSs3akNjO

— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) May 14, 2018

The tensions in the presidential marriage have been obvious for quite a while, particularly since the Stormy Daniels affair became public knowledge, with Melania obviously slapping Trump’s hand away any time he tried to reach for it.

Of course, one could make the excuse that with daily revelations of the massive corruption within his administration and the twin threats of the Mueller probe and the Stormy Daniels case, Trump needs to spend any free time he has in consultation with his attorneys. Perhaps a consultation with a new divorce lawyer would be useful as well.

Source: NYT


Gina Haspel Now Says CIA Shouldn’t Have Conducted Its Interrogation Program
She repeatedly refused to weigh in on its morality at her confirmation hearing.

By Igor Bobic
Aaron Bernstein / Reuters

WASHINGTON ― Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, says the agency shouldn’t have used its infamous enhanced interrogation techniques, a week after she repeatedly refused to take a stand on the program’s morality at her Senate confirmation hearing.

In a letter sent on Monday to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Haspel said that the controversial methods that sought to gain information from terrorism suspects in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks “did damage to our officers and our standing in the world.”

“While I won’t condemn those that made these hard calls, and I have noted the valuable intelligence collected, the program ultimately did damage to our officers and our standing in the world,” Haspel said in the letter, first obtained by CNN. “With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken.”

At her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, Haspel told lawmakers she would not restart the agency’s torture program ― which included waterboarding ― if confirmed as the CIA’s director. But she repeatedly dodged the question of whether it was appropriate.


<snip>

?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale for her letter.

Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gina-haspel-torture-warner_us_5afaf308e4b0200bcab90391

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She finally found religion.