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Saturday, December 22, 2012

News Morning News

Posted by Chelsea Kellogg on Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 9:12 AM

Genetically Altered Salmon Approved by FDA: I'm not a scientist but something makes me very nervous about eating genetically altered fish. Specifically this quote from WaPo, "[It's] an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon and has been given a gene from the ocean pout, an eel-like fish."

Gifford Pinchot National Forest to Receive Unwelcome Visitors: The Bureau of Land Management approved the drilling of 63 holes at the foot of Mount St. Helens, The Columbian reported yesterday. A Canadian company, Ascot Mining, will be prospecting for the site of a possible future full scale mine and environmental groups are furious.

Possible Fight Club in Oak Harbor: There are no witnesses who will corroborate, but officers think the death of one man and hospitalizations of others may spawn from an underground fight club. No one will talk though, due to the first rule of fight club.

Bomb Explodes During Rally in Peshawar: The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the blast and the death of a provincial minister.

Will Sony and Panasonic Become Names of the Past? Asks this AlJazeera feature, which dissects the slow fall of Japanese tech companies from predominance.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The California ban on therapists trying to use "gay-conversion therapy" has been stymied in federal appeals court, with a panel ruling the ban must be blocked until its constitutionality can be determined.

Another Pitbull Attack: Look at that poor adorable dog who was attacked by a mean pitbull near Tacoma.

NRA's Wayne LaPierre Speaks Meme: Apparently LaPierre's most ~~idiotic~~ memorable lines, were just jacked from popular gun internet memes.

Goodwill Shoplifter Fires Gun: Under pursuit by the Port Orchard Goodwill employees, the alleged shoplifter pulled a gun and fired several gunshots, though luckily no one was hurt.

Twinkies Are Coming Back: According to the Spokesman Review, Hostess will split its brand or essentially sell the rights to make Twinkies or Wonder Bread or Devil Dogs or Sno Balls individually.

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Comments (31) RSS

Newest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I can understand owners, or even valued employees at a small business pursuing shoplifters, but I do not understand minimum wage employees taking any sort of risks beyond simply working for a profit extracting machine.

On top of that, shouldn't Goodwill have a let them go policy? Perhaps even one against reporting shoplifting against anyone except egregious hipsters?

Posted by The Coup - I Love Boosters! on December 23, 2012 at 4:17 PM

Oh, and gang rapes of women in New Delhi on public bus DOWNTOWN.

Then the protests against that were attacked by police, tear-gassed, and Net feed blocked.

But, hey, not like that matters.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on December 22, 2012 at 11:51 PM

@26. Thanks for saying that.

Posted by Sandiai on December 22, 2012 at 10:20 PM

@1. Also, their advanced growth makes them more vulnerable in the wild, so no worries there.

Posted by gnot on December 22, 2012 at 2:35 PM

@1 - Good worry. The ones that are farmed in ocean pens escape a lot. I do wonder though, if it is even possible for farmed salmon to (inter)breed, because they don't have the knowledge to do that whole river of birth struggle. I'd be more worried that the homogenous genetics of the farmed populations are vulnerable to disease, which would affect wild salmon.

Posted by gnot on December 22, 2012 at 2:32 PM

@Sandiai - You should know I seriously heart your avatar. Good choice.

Posted by Pridge Wessea on December 22, 2012 at 2:14 PM

@24. "What did they turn out to be lesbians?"

"No, fight club."

Posted by Sandiai on December 22, 2012 at 1:57 PM

@23 - 30 Rock, season 3, episode 18 ("Jackie Jormp-Jomp").

Posted by Chelydra_serpentina on December 22, 2012 at 1:26 PM

"Fight Club." Snort. A story about dudes feeling alienated. BECAUSE THAT STORY HASN'T BEEN TOLD BEFORE.

Wake me up when there's a story about women feeling alienated and finding a way back to wholeness through violence.

Posted by TVDinner

on December 22, 2012 at 12:58 PM

@10, 13, 16. Wipe your ass, boy.

Posted by heywhatsit!? on December 22, 2012 at 12:54 PM

@18, I thought Fight Club was really good. I prefer the more usual movie genres typical of my age and gender (middle-aged female), but I really enjoyed Fight Club.

Posted by Sandiai on December 22, 2012 at 12:49 PM

My dog (who happens to be a formerly stray pitbull) doesn't like dogs, and is good at digging. It's why I don't leave her unattended in my yard or let her run around off leash. Jesus christ, people. If your unattended dog doesn't get in a dogfight, it'll eventually get hit by a car. Do it right or don't have a dog.

Posted by moth ball on December 22, 2012 at 12:05 PM

@18

In my view, no; but I think you should read the novel.

Posted by seatackled on December 22, 2012 at 11:50 AM

I've never seen 'Fight Club.' Should I bother?

Posted by mr. herriman on December 22, 2012 at 11:29 AM

They should add some Twinkie genes to that fucking salmon monstrosity.

Posted by zombie eyes on December 22, 2012 at 11:18 AM

In order to get a gun license, one must:

Prove they are not endangering themselves nor general public by passing a psychological evaluation...The psychological evaluation must be repeated every 5 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politic…

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on December 22, 2012 at 10:53 AM

Cool that even Rep. Don Young of Alaska is fighting the frankenfish approval.

Posted by seatackled on December 22, 2012 at 10:52 AM

The NYTimes story about "Super Salm" didn't say why scientists selected the ocean pout. As I wrote on Cornichon this morning, http://www.cornichon.org/2012/12/meet-yo…, it's because the pout's blood contains a sort of fishy antifreeze; it doesn't go dormant in the freezing arctic waters but continues to grow.

Posted by Cornichon

on December 22, 2012 at 10:49 AM

Games Without Frontiers

Under the Firearms Act (Cap. 114) Laws of Kenya. Anyone who is 12 years or older can apply to privately own a gun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politic…

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on December 22, 2012 at 10:44 AM

MeNeedz SpellChex

Posted by NotSean on December 22, 2012 at 10:39 AM

@5 hehe. I do sound a little doomy gloomy aluminum foil hat.

Nah, nothing pulled from a acience journal. Just semi-educated conjecture. Mankind has little record of changing bahavior to fit the environment. We, instead, change te environment to fit our behavior.

The future: you want to save polar bears? Just engineer them a little bit so that they can enjoy constantly warm weather and to eat the corn husks from the crops we grow to feed our cars. Ez. Done.

Posted by NotSean on December 22, 2012 at 10:34 AM

The Constitution of Pakistan guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. The province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa permits the ownership of heavy weaponry including the use of rocket-propelled grenades, short, medium, and long-range rockets, anti-aircraft guns, mortars, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politic…

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on December 22, 2012 at 10:30 AM

@8 or they just sold handguns, a customer could've used then to stop the bad guy. Assuming that customer was a good guy.

Posted by CbytheSea on December 22, 2012 at 10:28 AM

If those Goodwill employees had all had guns, they could have killed the shoplifter before he made it out the door, and nobody would have been hurt.

America #1!

Posted by this guy I know in Spokane on December 22, 2012 at 10:27 AM

I see the GMO thing turning into the animal control issues they still battle in Oceania, rats show up so they get cats to kill them, cats kill everything else so they bring something kill the cats, etc. People will probably create animals to kill the animals they created.

Posted by CbytheSea on December 22, 2012 at 10:27 AM

That picture of Bubbles is heartbreaking. Poor thing, glad he's alive though.

Posted by lizlemon on December 22, 2012 at 10:24 AM

@3

Just like we're going to use nuclear bombs to dig canals. And special order lizard heads on our babies. Upload our brains to the 'Net. Inevitable.

You get all this reading Wired, right? You do realize Wired is The Weekly World News with big words and a slick graphics department?

Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

on December 22, 2012 at 10:22 AM

The Hostess story is from the AP and out of New York. Not really "according to the Spokesman-Review." To be nitpicky.

Posted by g on December 22, 2012 at 10:16 AM

Mankind is the engineering master of Earth's surface. We dominate it and make it domour bidding. We can grow, demolish, drain, flood, bore, fly, and orbit at will. We can completely control mighty rivers. Earth is silly putty to us. When we miss the old days, we just build something that looks like that.

It is our inevitable destiny to do the same with genetics. There will be horrible mistakes along the way but, in short time, most of what was once regarded as nature will be superceded by designer substitutes and well-intended proxies.

What I mean: we're not going to save the whales or polar bears or the rainforests. We're going to engineer 'better' ones that can thrive the future we've caused.

Posted by NotSean on December 22, 2012 at 10:00 AM

One word: Blinky.

Posted by originalcinner on December 22, 2012 at 9:32 AM

Genetically altered Salmon make me nervous because anything humans are involved with has a downside. And if these fish somehow escape into the wild, I fear that their growth rates may give them an advantage over native species and that would be disastrous.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on December 22, 2012 at 9:28 AM