What's Happening? It? (TRIGGERS UPON TRIGGERS)

[Burnt Hill]

New deep background/history lead?

Trigger warning: anecdotal evidence ahead. I worked for a pizza place in the PNW for several years, which was owned by a Bulgarian husband & wife. It was a real hole in the wall joint, not particularly good pizza. Business was fairly steady, not outstanding, but I often wondered how it remained in business, especially when he would buy certain amenities for the place that seemed totally extraneous (like a huge neon-sign, the kind you can program with whatever text on it you want). Most of the other employees were either Bulgarian or Russian (aside from a few other young Americans like myself).

One day (out of the three or so years I worked there), the owner was paid a visit by a couple "well-dressed men." They arrived in a very shiny sports car & wore clean-cut expensive suits. They spoke in Italian (or perhaps Bulgarian, I confess my ears wouldn't know the difference). Though I couldn't understand the language, it was obvious that my boss was kissing their asses in a major way. I assumed at the time, only half-jokingly, that these guys were 'the bank,' and that the whole business was a front for a money laundering operation of some kind.

So yeah, I doubt that this is at all uncommon.

Hey there are easily twice as many pizzarias than MacDonalds in the US.
At one point most of them were run by, or shook down by *the* mob.
Though that signage may have been supplied by a vendor.

[OP ED]

I do not think Wikileaks is Russian propaganda...I do not think the emails are forgeries ...I just want to know why Wikileaks did not....has not leaked anything on Trump or the RNC

(Because Trump himself is a very small fish, his boasting aside)

(And the RNC criminals with the worst records didn't endorse HIM)

(They might also have better security on their servers)

[guruilla]

Hill-arious debunk by the Onion.

Stunning wit & rigor, really.

[seemslikeadream]

I do not think Wikileaks is Russian propaganda...I do not think the emails are forgeries ...I just want to know why Wikileaks did not....has not leaked anything on Trump or the RNC

(Because Trump himself is a very small fish, his boasting aside)

(And the RNC criminals with the worst records didn't endorse HIM)

(They might also have better security on their servers)

small fish that is going to be presdent of the U. S.

RNC criminals so that makes them just fine and dandy with Wikileaks?

better security...what a joke

[DrEvil]

Here's a project I'm interested in, for the sake of science: I'd like to use CRSPR/cas-9 technology to edit the genomes of certain pathogens so that they can attack certain molecular regulatory mechanisms involved in hematopoietic differentiation. I will identify the molecular basis of these mechanisms using ENCODE and similar functional genomics resources. Also, I intend to tune the attacks so that they will find success only along stretches of the genome that contain genetic variants specific to Ashkenazi Jews, using data from sources such as HGP and HapMap. As a side project, I might also create another line that targets the YRI (West-African) haplotypes.

This is OK, right? It's for the good of science, after all. I'm just proving that it can be done.

Thank God I'm an aartist.

Yeah, well obviously it's satire. Except the technical part. It isn't science fiction, it is totally feasible. Might take a few years, and certainly would require a P4 lab and appropriate levels of funding, but all the technical elements are public knowledge.

OT, but hasn't this been attempted before? Pretty sure I read something years ago (probably here on RI) about Israel and possibly South Africa looking into this.
Also: Could you do one that targets pedophiles?

[slomo]

Here's a project I'm interested in, for the sake of science: I'd like to use CRSPR/cas-9 technology to edit the genomes of certain pathogens so that they can attack certain molecular regulatory mechanisms involved in hematopoietic differentiation. I will identify the molecular basis of these mechanisms using ENCODE and similar functional genomics resources. Also, I intend to tune the attacks so that they will find success only along stretches of the genome that contain genetic variants specific to Ashkenazi Jews, using data from sources such as HGP and HapMap. As a side project, I might also create another line that targets the YRI (West-African) haplotypes.

This is OK, right? It's for the good of science, after all. I'm just proving that it can be done.

Thank God I'm an aartist.

Yeah, well obviously it's satire. Except the technical part. It isn't science fiction, it is totally feasible. Might take a few years, and certainly would require a P4 lab and appropriate levels of funding, but all the technical elements are public knowledge.

OT, but hasn't this been attempted before? Pretty sure I read something years ago (probably here on RI) about Israel and possibly South Africa looking into this.
Also: Could you do one that targets pedophiles?

Indeed, I recall there are sources that reveal an interest in ethnic-specific bioweapons. I also recall Israel being the main bad actor. But I couldn't be bothered to go back and look for those sources. My main point is how technically feasible it is today. Mostly because of CRSPR. ENCODE helps, because we know a lot more about epigenetic regulatory mechanisms than we did a few years ago. Much easier to fuck shit up that way.

Re: targeting pedophiles (or any behavior): you could probably fuck up the neurotransmitter machinery and also the neuroendocrine system. But I doubt you could do it in a way that was very specific to one very complex behavior. (I know you were joking, but it's worth a straight answer.)

[Burnt Hill]

"The Germans must realize that where there is pizza, there’s the Mafia.”

...And where there's Mafia, there's the international pedophile network known as Catholicism which operates above official suspicion on every continent. A tradition? I don't know how you could miss/deny it.

The Mafias link to prostitution is more incriminating.
But not really supporting evidence in this discussion.

[Elvis]

Indeed, I recall there are sources that reveal an interest in ethnic-specific bioweapons.

Hi Slomo and everyone, I know this is going OT, but wanted to say that I first heard about the idea of ethnic-targeted bioweapons in this rather bizarre sentence in PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses":

And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf


(I hate to break a vow but if anybody's counting, I guess I'm ending my year-long self-imposed exile from RI a bit early. Started reading the forum again right before the election, got hooked again.)

[slomo]

Yeah. It's pretty awful. What's even worse is that a hack scientist such as myself can figure out how to do it pretty easily, with the information and technology that is available in 2016.

I just lack access to the funding and the P4 lab.

Oh, and the amorality.

[slomo]

^^^^ Just an addendum on what appears to be disturbing (if OT) information.

People are actively trying to do this with cancer, out in the open. That is, find ways to very specifically target the genotypes of various tumors as a way to treat cancer with minimal side effects. A very good thing, in my opinion. CRSPR is a key technology, and viewed as a major breakthrough for that reason.

But all it would take is a switch from TCGA to HapMap as your basis for candidate targets, and you could turn the technology towards ethnic-specific bioweapons. Obviously, there are technical details that would take a few years to figure out, and I definitely do not have the required expertise. But many people do.

[Harvey]

I first came across the idea in a David Brin story decades ago but later on discovered a chillingly thorough treatment by Stephen Baxter in his book Titan from 1997. Americans release a deadly virus with a genetic trigger specific to Han Chinese. Dead and dying, the Chinese initiate a retaliatory strike in the form of a comet nucleus which they nudge out of it's orbit toward Earth, an impact with enough energy to destroy the entire world. Topical...

[conniption]

oops...

[norton ash]

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers gingers

[conniption]

...
(I hate to break a vow but if anybody's counting, I guess I'm ending my year-long self-imposed exile from RI a bit early. Started reading the forum again right before the election, got hooked again.)

WB, Elvis.
You have been missed.

[justdrew]

I do not think Wikileaks is Russian propaganda...I do not think the emails are forgeries ...I just want to know why Wikileaks did not....has not leaked anything on Trump or the RNC

(Because Trump himself is a very small fish, his boasting aside)

(And the RNC criminals with the worst records didn't endorse HIM)

(They might also have better security on their servers)

small fish that is going to be presdent of the U. S.

RNC criminals so that makes them just fine and dandy with Wikileaks?

better security...what a joke

RNC/republican/trump stuff will be out in February is my bet.