Newsworthy but not its own thread worthy

Originally Posted by pelham456

kama sutra is considered a masterpiece. shall we let little kids leaf thru that?

Are you trolling? There is a difference between a work that not only shows but is fundamentally about explicit sex acts vs. a statue which happens to include a flaccid penis.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by pelham456

i don't think she should have been fired, but why even show this to kids in the first place? it's a masterpiece to adults; to kids it's just gonna be "we saw a wee-wee in class today!!"

when they're old enuf to read playboy, they're old enuf to see pervy old statues. 16, 18, i dunno. but not 10-11!

Statues depicting nudity can be found in public places across Italy: should these places ban kids from entering?

[ghost2509]

Missouri: the new haven for pot smokers in US Midwest

AFP
yahoo.com
Ulysse BELLIER
March 26, 2023

Sisters Juree Burgett and Tanya Knight, both in their 60s, smell various marijuana buds, assessing their options at a trendy dispensary in Missouri. They drove three hours from Kansas -- where recreational cannabis use is still illegal -- to make their purchase.

"They will not legalize it in Kansas. They won't give us medical (usage)," says 64-year-old Burgett, clad in a denim jacket.

The shop with a drive-through window is in a rundown part of Kansas City, just off the highway and over the border into Missouri, the largely conservative Midwestern state that is the latest to legalize the recreational use of cannabis.

The new regulation, approved by voters in a referendum in November, has sparked an economic boom for the "Show Me" state, fueled by thousands of pot smokers from the eight states along its borders, most of which have not legalized the drug.

For Burgett, making the long drive is "easier than getting it off the streets."

She ends up buying chewing gum infused with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, one of the popular edibles in a country where more than half of the 50 states have decriminalized marijuana in some form.

Burgett, who worked as a dietician, and Knight, a pastry chef by training, are now both retired.

Before Missouri's new law took effect, the pair used to drive from Kansas to Colorado -- an eight-hour trip in each direction -- to make their purchases. The mountain state was one of the first to liberalize its cannabis consumption laws.

That journey "cost us more money, almost as much as the marijuana," said Knight, who suffers from arthritis and depression.

"Now, we just go three hours. And it's really good for you. It's really good," she added, a small packet in her hand and a smile on her face.

- 'Crazy' -

Of the states on Missouri's border, only Illinois has moved to decriminalize recreational cannabis use, meaning that dispensaries like the one in Kansas City -- one of several Proper Cannabis locations -- are sitting on a potential gold mine.

At that particular outlet, more than half of the buyers are from outside Missouri.

"We're surrounded by so many states. They're just coming to us from everywhere. It's crazy," says employee Chris Brown, his straggly hair escaping from a multicolored hat.

Across Missouri, cannabis sales in February -- when recreational use was legalized -- totaled $103 million, as compared with $37.2 million the month before, according to the state's health department.

"That really blew us away," said Jack Cardetti, spokesman for the Missouri Cannabis Trade Association (MoCannTrade), which projects the local market will soar to more than $1.2 billion in a year's time.

- Big profits -

Twenty minutes from the store where Brown works, in the city of Independence, an unmarked building is nestled between frost-covered fields and giant warehouses.

Beyond the security gates is a production facility with 30,000 square feet (2,800 square meters) of cannabis plants.

Louie Sebald, wearing a hoodie and sporting a thin mustache, is the director of cultivation for Illicit Gardens, which runs the plant. In three weeks, it will be operating at full capacity -- 1,500 pounds (680 kilos) of buds a month.

The ceilings are lined with LED lamps, drip irrigation systems and sensors to monitor humidity and other variables. An eerie green glow dimly illuminates the hallways and cannabis dryers.

Sebald, 35, is hiring. The facility needs to move from 130 to nearly 170 employees, working around the clock. Statewide, the sector employs 13,000 people, mainly in rural areas where industrial and farm work is dwindling.

He explains the math: "If you're producing for $400 (a pound), and you're selling for $2,300," the profits are clear.

- 'Then we'll go on home' -

The industry in Missouri is not starting from zero. For the past two years, medical marijuana use has been legal.

The success of that initiative -- jobs created, no major pushback or incidents reported, no political backlash -- helped fuel the campaign for recreational use for Election Day 2022.

In the end, 53 percent of voters said yes to pot in a conservative-leaning state.

At the Illicit Gardens facility, one employee carefully flips buds, while in the room across the hall, products are packaged up. Joints are rolled on site as well.

"We buy just one, then we'll stop somewhere, smoke it," says Knight.

"Then we'll go on home."

[pelham456]

i'll leave that to the italians, but i certainly don't think minors can enter similar exhibits in the US.

it's a slippery slope. what about modern art involving similar images? maplethrope comes to mind.

or the creepy neighbor who wants to show your daughter the pix of david himself? i think even the defenders here would have a problem with someone drawing attn to the genitalia. but if it's not pornographic, then what's wrong with saying "ok, missie, check out that section. get a real good look. here, let me zoom in...." ??

it's ART, after all, right?

methinks most ppl have a cursory look then quickly avert their gaze.

if u can't even look openly at it, how can u condone showing it to children?

[ghost2509]

Serial sperm donor who fathered 550 children sued for increasing incest risk

The Telegraph
yahoo.com
James Crisp
March 27, 2023

A serial sperm donor who has fathered 550 children is being sued amid accusations his prolific donations increases the risk of accidental incest.

The Netherlands’ Donorkind Foundation is taking Jonathan Jacob Meijer to court to stop him donating sperm and accuses him of lying about the number of children he has fathered.

Dutch sperm clinic guidelines say donors should donate a maximum of 25 children or to 12 women to prevent inbreeding, incest or psychological problems for donor children.

'Possible consequences make me sick to my stomach'

The civil case is being brought by a Dutch mother of one of Mr Meijer’s children, who has been named only as Eva and had the child in 2018.

‘If I had known he had already fathered more than 100 children I would never have chosen him,’ she said.

‘If I think about the consequences this could have for my child I am sick to my stomach.’

Donorkind wants the court to order Mr Meijer to stop donating and to find out which clinics he has donated to.

It also wants all his sperm in storage to be destroyed unless it is reserved for a woman who already has one of his children.

"We are taking action against this man because the government is doing nothing," Donorkind foundation chairman Ties van der Meer said.

“He has a global reach via the internet and he does business with large, international sperm banks.”

Donation blacklist

Mr Meijer, 41, a musician from The Hague, is on a Dutch donation blacklist but has continued to donate abroad, including in Denmark and Ukraine, Donorkind said.

The 41-year-old has also approached prospective parents looking for home insemination online and on social media and shown no signs of changing his behaviour, the foundation said.

Mr Meijer, who now lives in Kenya, sometimes used the alias Ruud, when offering to be a sperm donor, the AD newspaper said.

He refused to comment when questioned by AD and Dutch broadcaster NOS.

The Dutch gynaecologists’ association NVOG raised the alarm about Mr Meijer in 2017 after it emerged he had fathered at least 102 children through ten different clinics in the Netherlands.

Last year, Donorkind said it had identified ten doctors who had illegally used their own sperm to create children in the Netherlands, which is working on a central register of sperm donors.

[pelham456]

Originally Posted by reclaimer

There is a difference between a work that not only shows but is fundamentally about explicit sex acts vs. a statue which happens to include a flaccid penis.

yes on sex acts vs. body parts, but the sex acts here are CARTOONS. a case could be made that that is actually the less pornographic of the two.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by ghost2509

Missouri: the new haven for pot smokers in US Midwest

The way I see it, the growing, selling, and possession of cannabis and its by-products in the US, should be federally decided on a nationwide basis and not by individual states.

Personally, I haven't smoked a joint in a very long time, but think it is unjust for people to be put in the slammer just because they have a toke or an ounce of the stuff.

In doing so, the illegal drug business run by criminals could be stamped out.

The current climate is similar in a few ways to the prohibition of the 1920': people were still drinking, but there were no controls over quality, and gangsters made huge profits.

[pelham456]

Originally Posted by alexora

The way I see it, the growing, selling, and possession of cannabis and its by-products in the US, should be federally decided on a nationwide basis and not by individual states.

it has been federally decided on a nationwide basis, and that decision is: "illegal".

what u actually mean is it should be federally decided in the OTHER direction!

on that, i agree with u. it is silly to have most states making it "legal", while having to add "...but technically, still illegal under federal law".

but such is life in these disunited states. lot of laws where state and federal law come into conflict. that's where courts come in.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by pelham456

it has been federally decided on a nationwide basis, and that decision is: "illegal".

what u actually mean is it should be federally decided in the OTHER direction!

No, I'm not: if at a federal level cannabis is illegal, so be it - no state should override this.

However, if and when they decide it should be legal, then this would have to apply to all states.

This would make it possible to both pro and anti people to lobby a single source (Capitol Hill), and not have to deal with the current 'patchwork' of individual states.

[alexora]

A great testament to engineering:

Inside Britain's biggest sewer
under London's River Thames

For decades London’s Victorian-era sewers have discharged raw sewage into the River Thames after heavy rain.

But that could be about to change, thanks to a vast tunnel that’s been built underneath the river.

Seven metres wide, 25km long and costing nearly £5bn it’s designed to divert sewage to a treatment plant in east London.

Our environment correspondent Jonah Fisher was given a rare opportunity to ride a bike along the tunnel before it fills up with sewage.

Source (including video):

http://bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-65091803