God is non-binary? Prasad out at FDA. Mississippi State on probation?
God is non-binary?
Somehow Jasmine Crockett lost a double digit lead and her primary to a little known state representative who opines that there are 6 genders and God is non-binary. I kid you not. James Talarico a really progressive Presbyterian seminarian, was dismissed by Crockett as “just another white man of privilege.” As expected, Crockett got 80 percent of the black vote but Talarico got 60 percent of the white vote (mostly college educated). He also got 60 percent of the Latino and Asian vote. His rather progressive interpretation of Christianity was not an issue in his campaign as he stressed in his Spanish language ads “faith and family and jobs and bringing people together.”
But you can be certain that whoever wins the republican runoff will hammer to death that Talarico does not oppose boys playing girls sports, he says that abortion is justified in the Bible, he favors gender surgeries and therapies for children and says that God is “non-binary.” Don’t forget that Talarico is a seminary student and justifies his views based on his interpretation of the scriptures. During a debate to stop gender-altering surgeries, he commented “In committee, I listened to 15 hours of testimony about this bill. The worst part, for me, was the number of Christians who used scripture to justify hurting children. Even on this floor today, a member tried to justify a hateful amendment in the name of God’s law.” I bet there are a bunch of people all of a sudden wishing Jasmine Crockett had won.
Trump who has stayed silent is probably being pushed to endorse Cornyn in the runoff against Paxton. But Paxton has a significant lead over Cornyn in the polls (if that means anything anymore). If Paxton beats Cornyn, the democrats are sure to make this a race about character – of which Paxton is sorely lacking. Talarico will lean hard into a populist, anti-corruption message. He already argues that America’s affordability crisis is a direct result of corruption and wants billionaire money out of politics (save George Soros?). He calls Paxton “the most corrupt politician in America.” So Texas politics, like the past presidential elections will face a Hobson’s Choice. Come on, can’t we do better than this?
Prasad out at the FDA
The Wall Street Journal may have gotten Vinay Prasad, head of the FDA’s biologics division ousted (again). Prasad was fired once and then brought back. The Journal had reported that Dr Prasad had withdrawn approval of UniQure’s gene therapy treatment for Huntington’s disease for lack of a placebo control test. Huntington’s disease afflicts about 40,000 patients in the U.S. and there are no current treatments that slow its progression. But UniQure’s therapy slowed progression by 75% compared to the natural course of the disease. However, UniQure could not conduct a placebo trial as demanded by Dr Prasad because recruiting patients with a rare and debilitating disease for a placebo trial can be difficult if not unethical. Under Prasad the FDA has rejected at least 23 rare disease therapies. UniQure said Monday it aims to seek approval in Europe and the U.K., so patients may have to leave the U.S. to get treated. But maybe with Prasad forced out, the FDA will exercise some regulatory flexibility. Like over at Commerce, the advisory committees on vaccines and rare diseases were fired and replaced with folk sympathetic to the views of RFK jr. So Prasad was making decisions without the advice of experts in the field – which seems to be par for the course under Kennedy. It will be interesting to see how his ouster affects decision making at the FDA.
Mississippi State should get the death penalty!
Mississippi State (the other bulldogs) has broken the NCAA rules governing special benefits. Not once but twice! Shouldn’t it get the death penalty? One violation was that it hosted three golf recruits at a golf outing where the recruits played a round of golf. Mississippi State paid the $150 cost of the outing – a clear violation of NCAA rules. The second violation was that a recruit for the men’s track and field team brought his girlfriend on an official visit. She was not an approved guest and was provided lunch on the visit. The cost of the meal, $22.54, was a clear violation of NCAA rules and had to be paid back by the recruit. Mind you, LSU has just been reported to be paying its football team over $40 million which is just fine – so long as the school didn’t pay for the lunch of a wide receiver’s girlfriend at McDonald’s.
Lastly, I would be remiss if I ignored the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. My favorite book of all time and one of the most influential books of all time.
haroldblackphd.com 
In the age of NIL, MSU’s violations are an absolute joke.
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Actually the NCAA is an absolute joke.
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I want to go backwards today….
Mississippi State is simply one example of the “anything goes” nature of college athletics these days. One one hand, they’re paying these kids rock star money for throwing, catching, kicking, and swatting balls of all sorts. On the other hand, violations of $150 could bring down the university. Everyone at the NCAA is running scared of lawsuits, and allowances for portals, NILs, etc has run amok. As usual, I – and all other fans – have the answer for these problems…how about treat them as they now are – employees! Here is your employment contract, your non-compete, and other requirements for how you come to work each day (meetings, performance reviews, salary/pay adjustments, etc.). At least this way, the open range free agency that these kids operate in would be subject to a non-compete requirement. Something has to change.
The FDA’s bias should be two-fold: protection of the masses, and hope for the hopeless. If I am otherwise dying of a terminal, untreatable disease that will – based on clear medical authority – take my life, what is the harm in my submitting to a hopeful therapy that might save my and many others’ lives? The wild right wing of the GOP has created this somewhat silly petard of vaccine’s being harmful – meanwhile, thousands of kids in South Carolina now walk with the Measles, otherwise conbsidered eradicated, due to flimsy (at best) evidence of potential links to autism (well, it has to be SOMETHING, right?). RFK, Jr is a charlatan – and Marty McKary has been sucked into the vortex. We need legitimate players here – just like you referenced with the nutjob Surgeon General nominee.
And Texas….when will we see people selected and elected because of their character, positions, and beliefs – and not their skin color? If a candidate for office held the right, sane and moral positions and requirements for office, I couldn’t care less what their color, sex, creed (because i don’t think a Muslim is fit for office), or regionality is – just give me a great candidate. Had Barack Obama held correct fiscal, moral, and political positions, I would have happily and enthusiastically voted for him. The same goes for Hillary Clinton. And even Jasmine Crockett. But the truth is that they all disqualify themselves based on what they say and believe – not because of their race, creed or any other non-character based qualification.
Which brings us to Talarico. We have a tendency in this post Christian culture to believe that because someone “attends seminary” that they are a righteous person. But righteousness is only found through the life, death and resurrection of one man in the Christian faith. This guy is simply a heretic. And sadly – Texans deserve better than Ken Paxton as the alternative. Where is the strong hispanic female with Mexican parents???
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I agree with everything about whether a Muslim “is fit for public office.” I presume you men fit to serve in a non-Muslim country. You may be too young to remember the debate about whether Catholics – and JFK – were fit for public office. Some might say the same about radical fundamentalists of any religion. Tomorrow’s post should be of particular interest to you.
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I want to go backwards today….
Mississippi State is simply one example of the “anything goes” nature of college athletics these days. One one hand, they’re paying these kids rock star money for throwing, catching, kicking, and swatting balls of all sorts. On the other hand, violations of $150 could bring down the university. Everyone at the NCAA is running scared of lawsuits, and allowances for portals, NILs, etc has run amok. As usual, I – and all other fans – have the answer for these problems…how about treat them as they now are – employees! Here is your employment contract, your non-compete, and other requirements for how you come to work each day (meetings, performance reviews, salary/pay adjustments, etc.). At least this way, the open range free agency that these kids operate in would be subject to a non-compete requirement. Something has to change.
The FDA’s bias should be two-fold: protection of the masses, and hope for the hopeless. If I am otherwise dying of a terminal, untreatable disease that will – based on clear medical authority – take my life, what is the harm in my submitting to a hopeful therapy that might save my and many others’ lives? The wild right wing of the GOP has created this somewhat silly petard of vaccine’s being harmful – meanwhile, thousands of kids in South Carolina now walk with the Measles, otherwise conbsidered eradicated, due to flimsy (at best) evidence of potential links to autism (well, it has to be SOMETHING, right?). RFK, Jr is a charlatan – and Marty McKary has been sucked into the vortex. We need legitimate players here – just like you referenced with the nutjob Surgeon General nominee.
And Texas….when will we see people selected and elected because of their character, positions, and beliefs – and not their skin color? If a candidate for office held the right, sane and moral positions and requirements for office, I couldn’t care less what their color, sex, creed (because i don’t think a Muslim is fit for office), or regionality is – just give me a great candidate. Had Barack Obama held correct fiscal, moral, and political positions, I would have happily and enthusiastically voted for him. The same goes for Hillary Clinton. And even Jasmine Crockett. But the truth is that they all disqualify themselves based on what they say and believe – not because of their race, creed or any other non-character based qualification.
Which brings us to Talarico. We have a tendency in this post Christian culture to believe that because someone “attends seminary” that they are a righteous person. But righteousness is only found through the life, death and resurrection of one man in the Christian faith. This guy is simply a heretic. And sadly – Texans deserve better than Ken Paxton as the alternative. Where is the strong hispanic female with Mexican parents???
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Dang, Pat. This is what I was about to write on sports:
..”Has college sports ever been transparent. My understanding is NIL/ transfer players are employees that can call in sick. When’s the last time someone said academics..”
…..we are thinking alike.
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In the medical world , A …..”hypothesis or model is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive of an experimental observation that disproves the idea in question. That is, one of the possible outcomes of the designed experiment must be an answer, that if obtained, would disprove the hypothesis..”..
I got that fm St. Jude’s Hospital, which is more reliable than govt.
I went to a church where the minister said ‘God our father and mother’. The church’s original building was where the Boston Tea Party was planned. So don’t make the ministry mad ..
I don’t know about God’s identity- and I remember a UT professor who gave the hypothesis we are a colony left behind by space aliens.
As far as abortion and God , I ll just leave Hosea 13:16 .
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There is a science fiction short story that all the junk deposited in the yards of folk in Appalachia when competed made a grid that suddenly transports all the residents back to their native planet.
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