572 Comments

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average state legislator."

~~ W.T.F. Mencken

The Oregon leg last summer passed an especially stupid bill regarding special education that my at least equally stupid school district interpreted in the most onerous way possible. Fuq 'em all.

Expand full comment

Dude,

Amazon's "just walk out!" store wasn't AI, it was a thousand human beings looking at footage and trying their best to charge the correct customer appropriately. The faked AI even more than it's currently being faked. "AI Art" is no different than a password generator.

And they think we can shove vaccines into lettuce.

Expand full comment

All I can hear them saying is "precious bodily fluids." They don't seem to know they're (the wrong) characters from a sixty-year-old movie masterpiece.

Expand full comment

These imbeciles need to find something imaginary to be scared of, so they can ignore the very real hellscape they are creating with climate change, forever chemicals, mass extinction, invasive species, resource depletion, overconsumption and population... The thing about real problems is that they are challenging to solve, whereas an imaginary problem that is never gonna happen anyway can simply be wished or legislated out of its (non)existence

Expand full comment
founding

“No, I do not know any specific examples. But certainly they are developing this process." Why, oh why does no one ever respond with "who are "they"? Name three, if you've "read up" on this nonsense, as you claim."

Expand full comment

It's the same dodge as "people are saying" when they're spouting bullshit. I wish the media in particular would actually call them on that shit and ask "which people?"

Expand full comment

edit to add: Turns out I was wrong about vaccines being absorbed before the stomach. Today I learned something. That guy is still an idiot though.

“They can raise this stuff so cheap,"

Citation needed. If it is cheap, it is cheap for medicine, not cheap for food. Growing vaccines in lettuce won't make the lettuce cheaper, it will make it more expensive. It makes the medicine cheaper.

" and I’ve been reading about it talking about putting it in and lettuce "

Citation needed. I can imagine that as a way to mass produce a vaccine cheaper than producing it in a lab. That doesn't mean they are going to waste their expensive lettuce by feeding it to people.

"and mass medicate everybody,"

Citation needed. mRNA vaccines and problably all currently existing vaccines will be destroyed by your stomach acid. I'm sure there are vaccines conceivable that can be orally ingested, but generally speaking they're applied by injection because they won't work otherwise. Doctors don't inject because they like stabbing people, they inject because that works best.

"like they do with fluoride in the water. "

Fluoride is not vaccine, you do understand that, right? Fluoride is a naturally occuring nutrient in all water, it is just present in different concentrations. What they did was look where people where healthiest for the areas where fluoride has an effect, measure the fluoride level there, and bring all other water to that level of fluoride. The alternative was moving everyone in the USA to Portland or any of the other areas where the natural water where the normal water has a perfect level of fluoride.

"I mean, who could control the dose? "

This is exactly why nobody puts medicated food in the supermarket. It is already illegal to sell as food anything with a dangerous amount of anything.

"If you’re, if you eat a lot of lettuce, you’re gonna get a lot of mRNA, if you don’t eat any won’t get any. "

Citation needed. Vaccines aren't all mRNA based. mRNA is harmess when eaten. mRNA is already in lettuce (because lettuce is a plant, and plants have their own mRNA just like every other plant or animal). mRNA is digested, not absorbed in your digestive tract.

"And they’re actually talking about other vegetables that they’re trying to put this in. "

Citation needed. Hang on, let me go back and add that to every previous statement of yours.

"And my question is, would this have to be sold at a drugstore? "

No, that is already against the law.

"Would you still buy it in a grocery store? "

No, tha tis already against the law.

"Why don’t we just outlaw this stuff completely? "

Good luck outlawing everything alive. All plants and animals use mRNA. It's almost as bad as trying to outlaw water.

"We don’t have any idea what its gonna do to our children? "

That's not a question, it doesn't need a question mark. It isn't going to be fed to children, that would be dumb, wasteful, ineffective, and illegal. Also, you're wrong: We do know exactly what feeding plants with vaccine mRNA in them does to children: Nothing. It would be a very expensive way to feed children lettuce.

"I mean, to us and old people anything? "

This isn't even a sentence. Are you OK? And to take a stab in the dark at what you mean: It won't affect old people either.

"I mean, is this stuff locked out of a science fiction movie? "

I have no idea what verb you were going for, but "locked" isn't it. You might want to do a dementia test.

"I mean, it’s, it’s ridiculous. It’s changes your DNA, "

No it doesn't.

"mRNA changes your DNA when if you have your DNA tested now, and you eat a bunch of this, lettuce take a bunch of these MRNA vaccines, and you go back and get your DNA tested again, it’s gonna be a little different. "

DNA tests are notoriously bad. A reporter sent her DNA to dog DNA testing companies , and she came back as 30% Malamute for the first, lots of other breeds for the other DNA testing companies and only a few companies noticed it wasn't dog DNA.

"It’s not going to be the same as it was that you were born with that you got from your parents. "

Lies.

"This is dangerous stuff. "

No it isn't.

"We need to study it, "

That is true for everything, which is easier if you can cheaply mass produce it by, for example, growing it in an easy to grow plant.

"probably need to outlaw it."

That would make studying it impossible. Also, what do you mean with "it"? mRNA? Absurd, that's everywhere. Vaccines? Absurd, that would kill millions. Selling a product that was genetically modified to produce vaccines as food? Absurd, that is already illegal and it would be extremely expensive with no upsides. The law, the free market, common sense, logic, and ethics all are against it.

" I mean, I can’t imagine. When I first read about this, I thought this can not be true. But you keep reading about it. And it is true.”"

Citation needed.

Expand full comment

“Don’t eat any, won’t get any” should be a tshirt.

Expand full comment

The panic never ends. It’s baffling how much time these people waste on needless, irrational fears. I lost two siblings and my father in the span of about 7 years. It really changed my perspective on the value of time, and about the quality of each day. I just can’t imagine spending hours drafting legislation about vaccines being hidden in lettuce. But, I guess life seems long to some and you gotta do something.

Expand full comment

I'm very sorry for your loss. In their case, it's not like they actually want to spend their time governing and solving real, actual problems affecting their constituents. So performative bullshit it is.

Expand full comment

Unfortunately, we are heading toward a country where most rational, healthy choices are being mischaracterized by bad actors who make money off selling misinformation. Vaccines are already under attack, and that’s only going to get worse. Measles and other diseases we have long considered defeated are starting to make a comeback, thanks in large part to misinformation. More parents are choosing not to protect their children, because they are being told lies about imagined risks. The same people are even suggesting SPF skin and even sunglasses aren’t necessary or even healthy, as they are part of corporate efforts to make money and control us, or something. When gas stove leaks are linked to illness in children, they immediately panic and insist the government, no! Joe Biden himself! is coming to take your stove. Why is all this happening? My theory is that all these false beliefs are born out of the proliferation of misinformation on social media platforms. Clickbait outrage is a booming industry. Unless and until there are stricter regulations and penalties for distributing false information, particularly involving public health, this problem will grow steadily worse, until most long-accepted safety standards are accepted only along party lines.

Expand full comment

"Clickbait outrage is a booming industry" is the key problem, I think. The right wing outrage machine is pretty profitable.

Expand full comment

I look forward to reading about some snarky vegetarians who sue to have meat where the animal has had vaccines be labelled as a drug.

Expand full comment

Republicans have absolutely no worries about secretly being slipped a vaccine they don't want in their lettuce. I mean, lettuce? Republicans?

I don't suppose they give a fuck about all the shit they're absorbing from their factory-farmed beef.

Expand full comment

Brilliant story. We SHOULD be able to buy mRNA Lettuce if we choose to do so! NO MORE JABS! NO MORE JABS! NO....! Geez, we'd save many more lives and allow those ignorant geniuses to perish, because they know better.

That's it, I'm selling this jacked up lettuce and I might not even label it. It grows in the ground. Rabbits can eat as much as they want....

Expand full comment

Then, after the last unvaxxed Republican shuffles off, it'll just be us and the rabbits.

Expand full comment
founding

Imagine the peace and quiet, just sensible people and rabbits minding their own business, no boogymen waved in our faces, gaslighting a thing of the past. And a whole lot fewer road rage incidents. Truly, a golden age.

Expand full comment

Mr. DNA, Mr. Kamikazi

Here to spread some genes now

Mr. Kamikazi, Mr. DNA

He's an altruistic pervert

https://youtu.be/AhK5A71nIos?si=VP0OX1pfOg1J423Z

Expand full comment

Ta, Robyn. Like MAGAts eat salad. I can't read that name without thinking of Nicely Nicely Johnson from Guys and Dolls.

Expand full comment

Good point, MAGAts would NEVER eat salad. They'd be naturally stronger than any benefits salad could ever provide to them (allegedly).

Expand full comment

I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat plants.

Expand full comment

Wait, are you saying there's food "beyond" salad?

Expand full comment

You can't spell RoMAiNe without M-R-N-A!

Wake up, sheeple!

🤣🤣🤣

Expand full comment

Uh huh. So. Terror of vaccines in lettuce is the new right wing crazy dread they are promoting. Here I thought they hadn't moved beyond the old canard that the Covid vaccine is going to cause multitudes to drop dead or develop cancer. (They certainly are still pushing that. In fact they are still citing the "work" of characters like Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche as evidence that it's definitely gonna happen. "A global catastrophe without equal," in Bossche's own deathless words.

Cripes, and I got vaccinated and also boosted not once but several times, even though my immune system is low due to Non-Hodgkins' Lymphoma, and I'm 77, and by some freak of chance I'm spry and healthy even though right wingers panic-mongeering should have me dead and buried by now.

Well, I'm going to die eventually, or maybe not so eventually, and when I do I suppose that'll prove they were right all the time.

Expand full comment