Item Lulu and Nana: First genetically modified babies born in China, researcher says
How were Lulu’s and Nana’s genes modified? The inner life of cells is difficult to explain without jargon, but He Jiankui (himself a father of two girls) does a fairly commendable job. He said an egg from the twins’ mother, Grace, was fertilised artificially with sperm from their HIV-positive dad. Along with the sperm, He’s team “also sent in a little bit of protein and instructions for a gene surgery,” one that “removed the doorway through which HIV enters to infect people”. A test conducted before the embryos were implanted inside their mother showed the procedure had “worked safely, just as intended”.
Now I’m not saying this didn’t happen, but I am saying it’s China, and stories from that great country often resemble those from once-Soviet countries. If it did happen, how many babies did he have to cycle through before he got two that worked? And do I read the story right the one baby he edited one way, the second another? Isn’t that odd? That plus some other curious ways the media are putting it make be doubt.
After I wrote the above, it was reported the fellow in question has “gone missing“, which is Chinese for sayonara, baby.
Item Columbia University Promotes Letting Students Grade Themselves
According to a Columbia University PowerPoint presentation Trusting Students to Assess Themselves, inclusive grading starts by “trusting students to assess themselves.”…
Teachers don’t know how to grade or don’t want to take the time.
Not to worry. Columbia university will ask students to sign a pledge card so they won’t cheat. That’s sure to fix everything.?
I know, I know; who cares, right? I do, only for this bold prediction: within two years of implementing this, if if happens, we’ll see a movement to guilt white students into giving themselves failed grades. STEM whites will ignore the demands, mostly, while cucked majors will see a sea of Ds. You heard it here first.
Item In the #MeToo era, theologians publish ‘Women’s Bible’
GENEVA (AFP) –
Tired of seeing their holy texts used to justify the subjugation of women, a group of feminist theologians from across the Protestant-Catholic divide have joined forces to draft “A Women’s Bible”.As the #MeToo movement continues to expose sexual abuse across cultures and industries, some scholars of Christianity are clamouring for a reckoning with biblical interpretations they say have entrenched negative images of women.
The women we know from translations and interpretations of Bible texts are servants, prostitutes or saints, seen dancing for a king or kneeling to kiss Jesus’ feet…
“A lot of people thought they were completely outdated with no relevance to today’s values of equality,” the 33-year-old told AFP, standing under the towering sculptures of Jean Calvin and other Protestant founders on the University of Geneva campus…
Parmentier points to a passage in the Gospel of Luke, in which Jesus visits two sisters, Martha and Mary.
“It says that Martha ensures the “service”, which has been interpreted to mean that she served the food, but the Greek word diakonia can also have other meanings, for instance it could mean she was a deacon,” she pointed out.
First note the dateline. Quelle suprise, n’est-ce pas? Second, women “servicing” men also had other denotations that did not mean deacon. Such as wife.
Besides, there was no Church then and perforce no deacons, because none then knew what Jesus was about to do.
“We are fighting against a literal reading of the texts,” Parmentier said, pointing for instance to letters sent by Saint Paul to nascent Christian communities.
Reading passages from those letters, which could easily be construed as radically anti-feminist, as instructions for how women should be treated today is insane, she said.
“It’s like taking a letter someone sends to give advice as being valid for all eternity.”
God bless Saint Paul.
Item Video shows explosion at border agent’s gender-reveal party that sparked Arizona wildfire
My entry for the Most 2018 Headline.
Item Mark Hamill calls for an end to electing male leaders
“Star Wars” star Mark Hamill declared Tuesday that it’s time to stop electing men to leadership roles in government.
The liberal actor, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the “Star Wars” franchise, told his nearly 3 million Twitter followers that he’s ready to let women “take charge completely.”
“For centuries, men have had their chance to rule government with middling-to-poor results,” Mr. Hamill wrote.
“Who’s ready to let women take charge completely? Just women. I know I am,” he said.
We believe, Mark; we believe you.
Meanwhile, if women ruled everywhere, we’d have a new war every 28 days.
(I know, I know. This Doom wasn’t from last week. I still have a huge Doom backlog.)
Hamill might be up to something. Merkel has managed what no other German male leader managed, becoming the boss of Europe.
Even now, resigning as CDU leader, she has positioned another woman to be the next leader of Germany.
Actually “sayonara” in Chinese is “zhai zhien”.
I read this was to create babies that would never get HIV. Now, if that was true, the Chinese would deliberately infect these babies around age 16 or so with HIV in order to know if it worked, wouldn’t they? Plus, HIV and AIDS can mutate at any point. Seems a lot of work for possible zero benefit. IF they did something, I doubt this was what was done. Plus, the Chinese have zero reason to announce anything they do. Seems more smoke and mirrors for something else. (A genetically—or at least extremely altered—-baby was already whipped up in England from three egg/spern donors. Nothing new. Yawn.)
Only complete idiots for parents send their kids to universities. This will come back to bite when the neurosurgeon who gave himself A’s kills your grandchild because he’s incompetent. But hey, parents WANT this.
As for the “women’s bible”, people have created their own religions in their own image for centuries. God has a solution for that, in the next life. In this life, men end up slaves to women, again, a thing they obviously are just fine with. Men seem to enjoy abuse now. Apparently Bruce Jenner isn’t the only male who had his “nads” removed.
So gender reveal parties are causes of wildfires. Outlaw them.
Mark Hamill was in a serious accident in the past and has limited to zero cognition as far as I can tell. This could easily be a result of brain deterioration from said accident. He does read lines well, but you can achieve the same thing with CGI at less cost. Plus, Hamill is probably into masochism……
With a father like Darth Vader, who wouldn’t want women to rule galaxies far far away?
Gesundheit, Kent.
Bitte, mien herr.
“Trusting Students to Assess Themselves” at Columbia University. Doom? I think not.
Doom would be if the Feds mandated student self-assessments for the whole country. Or, perhaps more likely, if the Feds mandated that employers couldn’t discriminate in hiring graduates whose GPA was self-assessed.
But even before that, there would surely be lawsuits. As a practical matter, college students are paying for a grade that they can stand on to get a job; any learning that occurs is a side benefit.
Wasn’t it a president of Columbia University who wrote a book purporting to show that the Catholic Church was the enemy of science?