This is bad — really bad, even worse than the pun in the above headline. Let’s go to the video:
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether this patenting of human genes — possibly your human genes — described in the video is legal. (Here’s a lawyer explaining the issues in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics for you, if you’re into that sort of thing.) Apparently, they’re not that likely to win — although they did win at a lower level — but even the attempt is an example of a corporate action best expressed as, spelling things out in the language of amino acids, “GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”! We’ll have more on the story as it develops — unless they repossess the body parts we need to type it for you. (By the way, people have been unable to get cancer tests because they can’t afford the royalties they have to pay Myriad Genetics due to their patent, so this is sort of “life-and-deathy.”)
This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about this or whatever else you’d like, within broad bounds of reason and decorum.
Benghazi
Mark Mardell, the BBC’s North American editor, issued a mea culpa of sorts today after Jonathan Karl at ABC News dropped his bombshell that proves beyond any doubt that the Obama Administration lied about its involvement in editing the CIA’s talking points surrounding the September 11 attack on our consulate in Libya.
In a piece titled, “After Benghazi revelations, heads will roll,” Mardell writes, “In the interests of full disclosure I have to say I have not in the past been persuaded that allegations of a cover-up were a big deal.” He adds, “It seemed to me a partisan attack based on very little.”
That all changed with today’s revelations. Mardell now believes:
This is the first hard evidence that the state department did ask for changes to the CIA’s original assessment.
Specifically, they wanted references to previous warnings deleted and this sentence removed: “We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.”
There’s little doubt in my mind that this will haunt Hillary Clinton if she decides to run for president, unless she executes some pretty fancy footwork.
State department spokesperson Victoria Nuland is directly implicated, and the fingerprints of senior White House aides Ben Rhodes and Jay Carney are there as well.
If the rest of the mainstream media shows the integrity Mr. Mardell just did, the Obama Administration is about to finally be held accountable for an unforgivable coverup that started back in September and has lasted straight through to today.
Put all your chips on this one for 2016, skally! After all, it worked in 2012!
Wait – wasn’t it Fast & Furious – aka “Obama Murdergate” – that brought down the President in 2012??
It was all part of the same very complicated plot.
Well at least your honest about the motivation here.
Hillary 2016 scares the crap out of you people, and you’re getting a head start on trying to discredit her. You want to impeach her before she even runs.
Like my Italian friend says, “throw enough spaghetti on the wall and you might get a ravioli.” Good luck with that.
One can hope that Hillary’s demonstrated negligence, incompetence, deception and willingness to throw her own people under the bus will be enough to keep her out of the WH.
One can hope the right’s desperate attempt to make a mountain out of a mole hill will push them closer to being totally irrelevant.
You can circle your wagons and get all of the little girls with their pink BB guns shooting targets that look like Hillary and Barack, but it won’t bring back the diplomats, or change the fact that people like you are going the way of the dinosaur.
I’m sure that you can find other like minded people to jump up and down with about how you want your country back, but times are a changing.
Obama and Clinton didn’t kill the diplomats in Benghazi, and you should concentrate on those people, rather than worry about when what label was attached to the real villains.
Find the killers, bring them to justice.
Or carry on with your tantrum.
How about some human genes in your rice???? “Since about 2006, Ventria has been quietly cultivating rice that has been genetically modified (GM) with genes from the human liver for the purpose of taking the artificial proteins produced by this “Frankenrice” and using them in pharmaceuticals. With approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Ventria has taken one of the most widely cultivated grain crops in the world today, and essentially turned it into a catalyst for producing new drugs.”… the problem is it is being cultivated in open fields and can accidently endup in others farms.
“.. the times are a changing .”
That’s what we said in the 60’s! We also said “we won’t get fooled again.”
The joke is on all of us.
OC Register Dearthwatch!
Not a great week for the traditional print newspapers (except for the papers by the beaches), but the OC Weekly continues is slow climb and the Voice of OC continues its ridiculously fast charge up the hill. They’ve really been earning it of late, too. It was a good week for this blog, for the Liberal OC (which broke into the “top million” category — welcome, folks!) and for Pedroza’s blogs, where his paying for sponsorship on Facebook really seems to have paid off in the short term.
As for the Register’s reliable slide: next week it will probably fall out of the top 7,000 blogs — meaning that it will have gone down about 1,000 ranks since the beginning of April. In that stratum, 1,000 ranks is a whole lot — probably much more than the almost 1/3 of a million ranks New Santa Ana has slipped in the past six weeks after starting at around rank 1,200,000. The Register will say that it’s being made up for by subscriptions; all I can say is that, for their sake, I sure hope so.
Final note: yes, it really is true (though just an amazing coincidence) that the total gain in ranks by Liberal OC (316,895) is within 1 of the total loss of ranks by New Santa Ana (316,896). Given the recent history of these two blogs, it’s poetic justice that exactly what has been taken from the latter has gone to the former.
And while we’re on the subject of shit… the Texas fertilizer plant that blew up, only had $1 million in liability insurance. http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-fertilizer-plant-insurance-20130504,0,4743622.story
And none of you libs have provided any information on how Texas regulations in this regard are deficient as compared to other states.
Is it “Benghazi-gate” yet?
Not quite…keep stirring! 🙂
Skally,
My guess is this is a rampant *business* problem. You could substitute SONGS if you like. These businesses aren’t concerned with safety — employee or public. It’s all about profit and that goes for infrastructure as well. Remember a few years ago when the bridge fell in Minnesota?
I’m guessing the businesses and homes that were lost or damaged…not to mention the people killed are concerned about anything else other than how will they recover. I don’t know if homeowners insurance covers a house getting destroyed by a fertilizer plant.
Leaving Portlandia ….. (by way of OC) – or Portlandia and OC, 2 peas in a pod.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/003691-leaving-portlandia
Aren’t you libs the least bit embarrassed that BHO was pushing the video lie to the UN and everyone else 2 weeks after he knew that it was an AQ related planned attack?
BREAKING NEWS! 12 people shot at Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans. Get used to it people…it’s the New America…gunshots, bombings….anywhere large groups will gather. Citizens will complain about it and in the next breath complain government has too much control aka Big Brother. Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day!
If it was a Romney Administration IRS targeting liberal organizations Vern & Greg would have their panties all in a bunch over that.
Yeah, I heard on Rachel Maddow that the IRS was caught giving extra close attention to Tea Party organizations, if that’s what you’re referring to. That needs to stop, there needs to be apologies and whoever decided to do that needs to be disciplined. Okay?
OK, I agree.
I only heard a bit of the story, on Rachel, as I was walking through the room…
(which, by the way, was MSNBC reporting on gov’t wrongdoing under the Obama administration)
I haven’t been following the story, but has anyone discussed whether they had probable cause?
If, for example, the Tea Party Convention had a well-attended seminar called “how to evade your federal taxes while still doing all of the partisan work you want” and it was the subject of chatter among Tea Parties groups for months afterwards, then you’re damn right that they should be more likely to investigate such groups. Ditto if such a seminar had come from liberal groups — except we tend not to do that sort of thing.
I only heard enough of the story to hear that Rachel strongly disapproved and agreed there needed to be some kind of investigation and consequences, so I assume there must be something there.
And if you’re suggesting that if the shoe were on the other foot, you’d be a paragon of objective non-partisanship…
…we ain’t buyin’ it.
Yeah, well, I try to speak up against wrongdoing when I see it, but we do it with a little more passion when it’s our side getting fucked with…. which does seem to happen a lot more anyway since ours is the side that sticks up for the poor and weak.
Panties? As in women’s underwear? Do you like to think of Vern and I wearing women’s underwear, skally? If so, please find a better fantasy.
I haven’t had time to follow this developing story, but this morning I did see this: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/13/1208761/-IRS-targeted-church-for-speaking-out-against-White-House-two-days-before-the-president-s-reelection