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Navy SEAL War Crimes Witness Says He Was the Killer

In stunning testimony that may upend the war crimes trial of Chief Edward Gallagher of the Navy SEALs, a SEAL medic told the court on Thursday that he — not the chief — had killed a wounded captive in Iraq.

The medic, Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, testified that he watched Chief Gallagher stab the prisoner, a teenage ISIS fighter, in the neck, but that the stab wound did not appear to be life-threatening. After the chief walked away, Special Operator Scott told the court, he pressed his thumb over the captive’s breathing tube until he died.

“I knew he was going to die anyway, and wanted to save him from waking up to whatever would have happened to him,” Special Operator Scott said, adding that he had seen other captives tortured and killed by Iraqi forces.

He testified after being granted immunity from criminal prosecution for the events and actions that he would discuss on the stand. A Navy official said that he could still face nonjudicial punishment, including being dropped from the SEALs or discharged from the Navy entirely.

Did he do it, or is he just exploiting immunity to try to be a lightly punished fall guy?

See this screen grab from the Hacker News site.

If you can't read it, it is page 3, containing two adjacent news items:

65. Lockheed has an opening for engineers with VAX eperience for the F22
66. The New York couple donating millions to the anti-vax movement

Coincidence that these items are adjacent?

Or some evil alien conspiracy?

AMD’s “special binning” the 16-core Ryzen 3950X to make it “your best gaming part”

It would be interesting to see an 8-core, 2 chiplet Ryzen. 4 working cores on each, up to 4 completely broken. Select the 4 best cores, pump up the clocks. Gamers will probably prefer that over 12 or 16 cores.

AMD EPYC Rome Specs Leak: From 8 Cores Up to 64 Cores

Supposedly, Intel's Ice Lake (mobile) will own AMD:

Intel Ice Lake benchmarked - i7 performs better with lower TDP than Ryzen 7 3750H-APU

Intel Core i7-1065G7 – 10nm Ice Lake Incoming, Surpasses AMD’s 12nm Picasso Ryzen 7 3750H in Latest CPU Benchmarks

Warren emerges as potential compromise nominee

I've predicted that Warren will be the 2020 Democratic candidate for some time now. But now it's going to require Biden shoving his foot in his mouth or otherwise getting heavily attacked (and there's a lot of inconvenient stuff in his long political career). The meat grinder debates on June 26th and 27th (Wednesday and Thursday) should help with that.

Some potential good news for Warren:

1. She is in the first debate night.
2. Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Buttigieg are in the second group. Warren's closest competition is Beta O'Joke. The two groups were randomly selected.
3. She will literally be center stage, along with Beto, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar. Position is based on polling.

Maybe I'm wrong and being separated from Biden and Sanders will mean lower viewership and less chances to directly confront her top opponents. What do you think?

Biden/Sanders, Warren/O'Rourke to be center stage at first debate

The event is hosted by NBC News, MSNBC and Telemundo, and will air live across all three from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET both nights. The debate will stream online for free on NBC News' digital platforms, including NBCNews.com, MSNBC.com, the NBC News Mobile App and OTT apps, in addition to Telemundo's digital platforms.

Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow and José Diaz-Balart will moderate the debate, NBC announced last week.

When I was young, it was uphill both ways, and in plain ASCII, no GUI.

You had to memorize a stack of manuals -- that couldn't be removed from the computer room because they were bolted (literally) to the table. Young people learned to type properly, otherwise you would have to DUP the card you were punching up to the column where you made the mistake. There was no backspace -- the hole is punched into the card and can't be un-punched. And stand up straight. Pay attention. Don't drop your deck of cards on the floor -- that's a real mess to sort out.

So awful what happened in Cleveland. 2016 Republican National Convention, remember that one? As you know, RNC "delegates" chose me -- very proudly -- as OFFICIAL Nominee for President. Great moment in the history of our Country, right? But outside, a horrible person with absolutely NO RESPECT was doing one of the worst things anyone can do. Burning the Flag of our beloved Country -- U.S. A. The same one that so many men, and a few women died for. Or, not the same but the latest version of it. And the Cleveland Police did their jobs brilliantly, they arrested him very quickly for that one. But now, all charges dropped. And Cleveland( City) is paying the Perpetraitor $225,000. Can you believe it? It should never be allowed to happen again! Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag. If they do, there must be consequences -- perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail! foxnews.com/us/cleveland-225g-american-flag-burner-gop-convention

Big thanks to Senator Steve Daines. Senator Kevin Cramer. And, Steve Womack in House. Who are doing the Amendment against burning our incredible Flag. This one's a real NO BRAINER, folks!!! foxnews.com/politics/trump-backs-bill-to-ban-flag-burning-a-no-brainer

Notre Dame Cathedral holds first mass since devastating fire, with attendees in hardhats

We're gonna need a harder hat.

Today is a very special day. The 244th. Birthday of my magnificent Army. pic.twitter.com/MyypBVGMoW

And by the way, it's also the Birthday of your favorite President. I've been getting so many wonderful phone calls about that one. And so many beautiful gifts. I get calls and gifts all the time. Some from foreign governments. Should I immediately call the FBI about these calls and gifts? How ridiculous! And by the way, I didn't get a call from Ayatolla Homenni. Or a gift -- nor a gift. No gift from Iran yet. But the day isn't over, they still have time. To give a beautiful Birthday present to me -- or to my great, and very brave soldiers. But of course I would give it to the FBI or report it to the attorney-general. Of course you would do that.

Iran is a nation of terror and they've changed a lot since I've been President, I can tell you. They were unstoppable and now they are in deep, deep trouble. They were screaming "oh, death to America." They haven't been screaming "death to America" lately, did you notice? That's because of me. If the Ayatolla calls and says "oh, we don't like your opponent, death to 1% Joe" am I supposed to report him to the FBI?

So busy today, working hard. I call it a Working Birthday (@foxandfriends). But hopefully we'll have time for a little piece of cake. We love cake, don't we? Little celebration of my tremendous SUCCESS. And even the enemies of the American People( also my enemy) Fake News CNN has to admit I'm doing magnificently. New CNN poll, 54% AGAINST Impeachment. Great number, isn't that a great number? Believe me, it would be even greater if Rasmussen did the poll. Folks are starting to see there was NO COLLUSION. ZERO COLLUSION. And very very little Obstruction. Almost no Obstruction. Thank you America!!!

The Dark Implications of Facial Swap Filter Technology

Last month, Serena Lee was just another bubble tea-addicted New Jersey college student who loved to watch The Office while searching for her future beau on Tinder.

Except, actually, she wasn't. Lee was actually a male Princeton student named Sean who "got bored while cramming for finals and decided to catfish people with the new Snapchat filter."

Yep, that one. The one that makes men look like beautiful women and women look like men you'd cross the street to avoid. The one that's so popular that a lot of people who left Snapchat are re-downloading it just to see what the hype is all about. Snapchat's "gender-swapping" filter, which came out in early May of this year, quickly became a social media hit. And Lee wasn't the only one who immediately used it to pose on Tinder — there's a whole trend of catfishing-for-jokes, which consists almost entirely of men pretending to be women.

While on a surface level the filter may seem like harmless fun, its implications, both conceptual and practical, are deeply troubling. Besides spawning this real-life catfishing phenomenon, which tells us nothing new about men online, Snapchat's employment of face alteration technology along the axis of gender enforces stereotypical ideas of male and female appearances, and raises questions about how we should employ such identity-altering (or concealing) technology in the first place.

Student uses gender-bending Snapchat filter to catch cop allegedly seeking underage sex

A college student wanted to take down potential predators on Tinder. So, he posed as a teen girl using Snapchat's new gender filter — and ended up catching a cop allegedly looking to hook up with a minor.

Ethan, a 20-year-old from the San Francisco Bay Area, used the Snapchat filter to pose as a 16-year-old girl named Esther. He created a Tinder account as a 19-year-old girl, but said he was communicating with San Mateo Officer Robert Davies as a 16-year-old, police say.

Alabama becomes seventh state to approve castration for some sex offenses

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday signed into law a measure requiring anyone convicted of sex crimes with children younger than 13 to be chemically castrated as a condition of parole.

Under the new law, offenders required to undergo the reversible procedure must begin the treatment at least a month before their release dates and continue treatments until a judge finds that it's no longer necessary.

Ivey, a Republican, made no public statement about the measure. She had given little indication whether she supported the measure until Monday, the last day she could sign the bill.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Steve Hurst, a Republican representing Calhoun County, who said that if he had his way, offenders would be permanently castrated through surgery.

Chemical castration in the United States

Chemical castration is generally considered reversible when treatment is discontinued, although permanent effects in body chemistry can sometimes be seen, as in the case of bone density loss increasing with length of use of DMPA.

[...] When used on men, these drugs can reduce sex drive, compulsive sexual fantasies, and capacity for sexual arousal. Life-threatening side effects are rare, but some users show increases in body fat and reduced bone density, which increase long-term risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. They may also experience gynecomastia (development of larger-than-normal mammary glands in males).

When used on women, the effects are similar, though there is little research about chemically lowering women's sex drive or female-specific anaphrodisiacs, since most research focuses on the opposite, but anti-androgenic hormone regimens would lower testosterone in women which can impact sex drive or sexual response. These drugs also deflate the breast glands and expand the size of the nipple. Also seen is a sudden shrinking in bone mass and discoloration of the lips, reduced body hair, and muscle mass.

[...] Despite its long history and established use, the drug has never been approved by the FDA for use as a treatment for sexual offenders.

[...] The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida opposes the administration of any drug that is dangerous or has significant irreversible effect as an alternative to incarceration; however, they do not oppose the use of antiandrogen drugs for sex offenders under carefully controlled circumstances as an alternative to incarceration. Law professor John Stinneford has argued that chemical castration is a cruel and unusual punishment because it exerts control over the mind of sex offenders to render them incapable of sexual desire and subjects them to the physical changes caused by the female hormones used.

Some people have argued that, based on the 14th Amendment, the procedure fails to guarantee equal protection: although the laws mandating the treatment do so without respect to gender, the actual effect of the procedure disproportionately falls upon men. In the case of voluntary statutes, the ability to give informed consent is also an issue; in 1984, the U.S. state of Michigan's court of appeals held that mandating chemical castration as a condition of probation was unlawful on the grounds that the drug medroxyprogesterone acetate had not yet gained acceptance as being safe and reliable and also due to the difficulty of obtaining informed consent under these circumstances.

Sounds like it negatively impacts the health of the individual, and they are coerced into doing it (would you rather be stabbed to death in prison?). #StateTransgender