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Italy circumcision kills toddler, with one man charged

A two-year-old boy has died from blood loss following a failed circumcision at a migrant centre in Italy. The boy's twin brother also underwent the procedure in Rome's north-western suburb of Monterondo and is recovering in hospital.

A 66-year-old man has been charged with murder, according to Italian media. Some 5,000 circumcisions are performed in Italy each year but more than a third are carried out illegally, according to health charity Amsi.

Cultural non-profit group Arci said the procedures had taken place at a refugee centre it runs with the local council in Monterondo. "It is a tragedy that leaves us speechless," Arci said in a statement on Facebook, adding that it would take civil action once those responsible for the child's death had been determined by police.

The two boys, who have not been named, were born in Italy in 2017 to a Nigerian mother who has five other children in Nigeria. Local media say the mother had asked for the operations in respect for Nigeria's Islamic traditions, despite being Catholic herself.

The medical credentials of the doctor are reportedly being questioned by police. Ansa said the man arrested was an American citizen of Libyan origin.

There's a lot of snark I could put here but I'll just go with "Merry Christmas!"

This is not a disclaimer, just a reminder: in case you've already forgotten what you clicked on, this is a personal journal entry. Taking it as anything else will cause you to be mocked thoroughly.

Ever wonder why SoylentNews doesn't have a Patreon option? Have a read and if you still have any questions, I'll be happy to explain why I'm going to flatly refuse to write the necessary code even in the event that management decides it's a thing we should support.

These lines in particular annoy me:

But secondly as a membership platform, payment processing is one of the core value propositions that we have. Payment processing depends on our ability to use the global payment network, and they have rules for what they will process.

Bull fucking shit. We're a long damned way from Social Justice assclowns having enough stroke to get Visa and Mastercard to bend their knee to whatever their manufactured outrage of the moment is. If you're going to take a position that loses you money, that's your right. At least have the balls to own your position though.

My friend Norman King has been working part-time for me to list all the homepage URLs of VC Portfolio Companies.

Earlier this evening I tried to list a certain robotics company but was unable to figure out where they were. That company did mention their "acquisition" by another robotics firm, so I looked there to, only to be turned away empty handed.

So I googled for "Foocorp Location", whereupon Wikipedia yielded the insight that they were out of business. It also said that the robotics firm that had acquired them had only bought their IP.

HOWEVER!

Neither Foocorp nor their IP-acquiring company claimed Foocorp had any open positions. I expect the continued existence of their site enables them to sell off their existing inventory.

So.
There.

Sigh. Kids These Days.

LG Newsroom

I didn't quite realize these were a thing. Something like this would be nice to replace a family member's old projector (it has 3 VGA inputs but no HDMI), but I'm sure this specific model will be priced out the ass. It might make a lot of sense for some people though since it's much more compact than a large TV and you won't have people blocking the image when they stand up.

LG is also planning to sell roll-up OLED TVs in 2019. I don't see how that approach is better than this short throw projector. Maybe the projector makes some fan noise, or maybe the roll-up has better brightness/HDR.

My deeply troubled friend quite clearly wants romance.

A far-wiser mentor of mine advised me that for me to allow that would do _both_ of us a grave disservice. Even so, I've been reluctant to put a stop to what presently is barreling along turned all the way up to 11: Full-Hormonal.

The very best that I can really hope for is to be there when she's hungry for food - which she's actually not, not very much, and even then she's largely living off of peanut butter and honey - as well as giving her a safe place to sleep, to the extent she's not engaged in her relentless search for her next fix.

She quite clearly _hopes_ to get clean somehow, someday. I want to facilitate that. My far-wiser mentor advised me to encourage anything she does that is positive. But so far, also she has is hope for "someday".

She's not in as much denial as I've known lots of others to be. She knows very well that this stuff is bound to kill her someday. She's quite dismayed to have woken up in the back of an ambulance after she unwittingly shot fentanyl then "got NarCanned" but not as dismayed as she would have been had that fentanyl actually killed her.

From time to time she'll ask me whether I object to The Monkey On Her Back. Quite clearly I do, but always I say "It is _your_ decision, and yours _alone_". I know this from hard experience with other addicts I have known.

Someone mailed it - anonymously - to me in the slammer. I recall that it was an award winner for the fourteenth year of that particular award, but not which award that was.

It is written in the first person, with the protagonist reporting that he's just about to be discharged after five years in a mental hospital. I _think_ he was a physicist.

In other news, as I write this I'm blasting Beth Hart's and Joe Bonamassa's "I'll Take Care Of You" turned all the way up to 11: Mutually Assured Destruction.

Good Times.

I've had a lot of background checks, in my lifetime. In my teens, twenties, and early thirties, the Navy did a bunch of them. In my thirties and forties, employers did a number of them. I've never actually thought about them much, they're just part of life, ya know?

Now, guns. When I was fourteen, I bought my first gun - a private purchase from an individual, with no licensed firearms dealers involved. So, of course no background check, not even in today's world.

Second gun, I was fifteen. Walked into the sporting goods store, and told them I wanted a 30-30 for deer hunting. Guy took a Winchester model 94 off the shelf, showed it to me, I liked it, and handed over $75 + tax, and got a receipt for it. Manager asks me how old I am, I say fifteen, and he picks the rifle up, and says I have to have my dad approve of the sale before I can have my Winchester. Hell, I wasn't even sure my dad WOULD approve.

Got the old man to come in to town with me, and give my purchase his aproval. He asks, "Where in the hell did you get $75?" I told him "I earned it, what did you think I was mowing lawns for?" We walked into the store together, the manager says "Hi", dad asks, "Did my kid pay you for a rifle?" Manager says "Yes, paid cash for it." Dad says, "Well, let him have it." That was all the "background check" that it took to buy a rifle back then.

Today? Well, I don't need or want a nice gun. The kids would just haul it off, and I might see it sometimes. I walked into the store, and asked for their cheapest .22 rifle. Dude says he has an automatic for a hundred bucks. I ask "That's NEW, for a hundred bucks?" Yep. Savage Arms, model 62. Good enough - it may not be highly accurate, but as long as it doesn't blow up (I'm remembering a Japanese made .22 that blew up in my kid brother's face decades ago) it's good enough.

"You'll have to do a background check, Sir." "Well, Okay, how long does that take?" "About half an hour." "And then, I have to wait for five days?" "Only if the computer rejects your application is there any wait."

So, he sits me in front of a computer, and I start answering questions.
"Are you a felon?" "no"
"Are you loony toons?" "no"
"Have you killed anyone lately?" "no"
"Are you an illegal alien?" "no"
"If a veteran, were you dishonorably discharged?" "no"
"Please rate the following people's performance, on a percentage scale, and add a one or two sentence explantion to each rating"
"1. Bill Clinton" "55% - might have been a good president if he weren't a draft dodging crook."
"2. George W. Bush" "60% - just too damned dumb to be any better."
"3. Barrack H. Obama" "50% - he should have run for office in a Muslim country."
"4. Donald H. Trump" "56% - he's a slightly classier crook than Clinton, but not as intelligent, and he has good looking women around him."

I'm waiting for the results of my background check, when people started gathering around. I'm feeling conspicuous, like maybe I've not only failed, but they are waiting for the SWAT team to come get me. The manager finishes his entries on the computer, and turns to me, with a tear in his eye.

"Mister, we haven't had anyone pass this background check with such a high score. Your score is so high, we want to give you this gun."
Everyone applauded, I got my gun, and walked out of the store with it. It's just that painless!

It's just awesome, people. Now I wish I had asked about a nicer, more expensive rifle.

I bought the humble bundle hacking books on sale for myself for Christmas because I'm tired of knowing enough to possibly get myself in trouble but not enough to stay out of trouble.

Some interesting reading, so far.

About 15 books total...DRM free and charitable giving. Nice.

Statement festival: 'Man-free' event found guilty of discrimination

Statement, a women-only festival in Sweden, has been found guilty of discrimination by Sweden's Discrimination Ombudsman (DO).

The DO said that describing an event as "male-free" breached the country's anti-discrimination laws.

The publicity issued in the run up to the event "discouraged a certain group from attending", the regulator added.

The event's organisers said in a Facebook post that they are "too busy changing the world" to respond.

"It's sad that what 5,000 women, non-binaries and transgender experienced as a life-changing festival made a few cis [cisgender] men lose it completely," the post added.

[...] The DO's ruling acknowledged the man-free rule was not enforced at the festival, held earlier this year, adding that "no differentiation based on sex was made between visitors at entry".

As nobody suffered damage from the festival's restrictions, it added, no financial penalties would be imposed.

Journal for K.

So, I should be really happy and excited: tomorrow I start as a pharmacy technician at a fairly prestigious institute in Madison, Wi. No, not going to tell you where. I've wanted to do this for so, so long, and really--considering I can look at a molecule and give you at least a decent approximation of what effects it will have, this is an excellent fit. But I'm still nervous, if only because so many horrible things have happened to me and the idea of stability and a long-term career seems alien, like something I'm not "allowed" to have if that makes sense. So I'm afraid it'll be taken away from me like so many other things have been.

Wish me luck. I want to get PTCB certified as soon as possible and make a lifelong career out of this, slowly working my way up the ladder and making a positive contribution to the lives of many people. Maybe, though I don't dare to dream, this could even include going back to school and getting involved in the drug-discovery process, especially for new antibiotics or non-addictive painkillers. Other interests include changing hospital spaces to reduce infection and increase patient well-being--think "copper alloy railings, enclosed UVC-light air pumps, and lots and lots of sunlight" and so on--and nutrition, though I fear my low-carb lifestyle is sufficiently against current medical orthodoxy to make this a non-starter and even politically dangerous.

But whatever happens, for the first time in ages, it feels like time has begun to flow for me again. That feeling of being a sort of solid ghost is disappearing. And that can only be a good thing, right? I just hope it doesn't all go to hell...