I'd have HYUFD as clear favourite, as his posts most often ellicit that reaction (from me, at least). But I do think Leon could be in with a chance if he puts his mind to it. Or even Casino on one of his Wokefinder General rants.
Hard to call though if we all use them as surrogate likes.
Cyclefree's comments on the police are usually WTF moments.
Presumably the removal of 'flag' and 'off topic' mean that RCS and OGH will no longer be troubled by emails advising that a 'flag' or 'off topic' have occurred?
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
I'd have HYUFD as clear favourite, as his posts most often ellicit that reaction (from me, at least). But I do think Leon could be in with a chance if he puts his mind to it. Or even Casino on one of his Wokefinder General rants.
Hard to call though if we all use them as surrogate likes.
Cyclefree's comments on the police are usually WTF moments.
It’s hard to give any other reaction to stories about officers being affectionately nicknamed “rapist” or “wifebeater” by colleagues.
Can I just say that I like the Like button. And emojis.
I felt there was potential for confusion between 'off topic' and 'flag'. Why don't we just have 👍 and 👎?
+1 plus a MERDE button
And a blue tick button that people can pay £15 per month for which confirms a poster is important and amazing and allows the poster to give multiple likes to their own posts.
I'd have HYUFD as clear favourite, as his posts most often ellicit that reaction (from me, at least). But I do think Leon could be in with a chance if he puts his mind to it. Or even Casino on one of his Wokefinder General rants.
Hard to call though if we all use them as surrogate likes.
I'd have HYUFD as clear favourite, as his posts most often ellicit that reaction (from me, at least). But I do think Leon could be in with a chance if he puts his mind to it. Or even Casino on one of his Wokefinder General rants.
Hard to call though if we all use them as surrogate likes.
Cyclefree's comments on the police are usually WTF moments.
True. But directed at the police, rather than cyclefree. I'm feeling this WTF is riddled with ambiguity. When I see it, I might almost wonder 'WTF'
I'd have HYUFD as clear favourite, as his posts most often ellicit that reaction (from me, at least). But I do think Leon could be in with a chance if he puts his mind to it. Or even Casino on one of his Wokefinder General rants.
Hard to call though if we all use them as surrogate likes.
Cyclefree's comments on the police are usually WTF moments.
Like laughing, you can WTF with me or WTF against me.
I'd have HYUFD as clear favourite, as his posts most often ellicit that reaction (from me, at least). But I do think Leon could be in with a chance if he puts his mind to it. Or even Casino on one of his Wokefinder General rants.
Hard to call though if we all use them as surrogate likes.
Cyclefree's comments on the police are usually WTF moments.
True. But directed at the police, rather than cyclefree. I'm feeling this WTF is riddled with ambiguity. When I see it, I might almost wonder 'WTF'
Well, yes, that's what I meant, but I realise as you say it was ambiguous.
If Putin is indeed on on his way out, and top Russians are leaving for the U.S, and senior US Senators are confirming multiple outlandish UFO sources, this could be one of the most appropriate days ever for a WTF button.
I expect at least one WTF for this post, and will be offended if not received.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I will believe that when we know the full impact of blowing the Nova Kakhovka dam. It was used for both powering and irrigating a very important agricultural area.
English cricket stands accused of being racist, sexist and elitist at its core in a damning report that immediately forced an unreserved apology from authorities.
In its landmark 316-page review, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket demands “urgent reform” while laying bare deep-rooted discrimination across the game.
The England and Wales Cricket Board, which is found to be “unfit for purpose” in tackling discrimination complaints, accepts the findings will “shock and disappoint many”.
Among 44 separate recommendations for the ECB, the report took aim at the sport’s establishment, by finding:
Women have been abandoned as “second-class citizens”, routinely experiencing misogyny with “unequal access, pay and treatment”.
As a result, the ECB must oversee equal pay on average at domestic level by 2029 and international by 2030.
Dominance of private schools in cricket’s talent pathway plays a key role in determining “discriminatory outcomes across the game”.
On that basis, the MCC should scrap the annual fixtures between Eton and Harrow as well as Oxford and Cambridge at Lord’s.
Racism is “entrenched”, with 75 per cent of black and more than 80 per cent of Asian cricketers experiencing discrimination.
Cricket’s complaints systems are “confusing”, “overly defensive” and “not fit for purpose” for both victims and those accused.
Scrapping the Eton and Harrow and Oxford and Cambridge matches would be outrageous and do nothing to resolve any of the problems identified in the report anyway
I agree, third rate dumps like Harrow and Oxford need their moment in the sun.
It is also hardly private schools fault most state schools prefer to play football than cricket even in the summer.
Children prefer football, it doesn’t require pitches to be prepared and doesn’t require more equipment.
Heck most schools switched to softball for the reasons above 20 odd years ago
You will note that cricket is dying in the West Indies because basketball require less equipment and less space.
If you want more cricketers from non-private schools, shutting down participation from private schools won’t work. It’s not as if there is a fixed number of places for playing cricket. If anything, there is a massive shortage of players.
What you need to do is outreach to pull in state schools. This requires actual work and money.
This is being done in rowing - a couple of clubs have been setup specifically as charities to offer rowing to state schools. In addition they’re the talent scouting programs for British Rowing.
The other thing that can make a serious difference is encouraging adult late entry. That is, teaching people the sport later in life. Again, something that rowing is getting into.
No, you’re not going to find the next champion, but If you want to improve community connection and the atmosphere in clubs, this makes a massive difference. Also if you are worried about seeming stale, pale and make, this makes a big difference, rapidly.
It also provides a good income stream to the club - if you provide good coaching, interested adults will pay serious money for it.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
No, it's not exactly the point. There was good evidence in the Russian case, which simply doesn't exist for the Covid pandemic: ...H1N1 reappeared in 1977 and the strain of the Russian flu was almost identical to one that had been isolated in 1950. This feature of the 1977 strain has been interpreted as pointing towards an anthropogenic origin of the virus, and the pandemic is the only documented human epidemic believed to result from research activity..
You are correct to point to the absence of evidence in China - but interpreting that as evidence for a lab leak is just nonsense.
Covid was a novel virus. The more likely hypothesis is that it's of natural origin. That certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a lab leak, but that unexciting conclusion is all you have.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
Agree. Same here. I would like to know why it is likely rather than possible? The lack of openness just means it is more difficult to ascertain.
English cricket stands accused of being racist, sexist and elitist at its core in a damning report that immediately forced an unreserved apology from authorities.
In its landmark 316-page review, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket demands “urgent reform” while laying bare deep-rooted discrimination across the game.
The England and Wales Cricket Board, which is found to be “unfit for purpose” in tackling discrimination complaints, accepts the findings will “shock and disappoint many”.
Among 44 separate recommendations for the ECB, the report took aim at the sport’s establishment, by finding:
Women have been abandoned as “second-class citizens”, routinely experiencing misogyny with “unequal access, pay and treatment”.
As a result, the ECB must oversee equal pay on average at domestic level by 2029 and international by 2030.
Dominance of private schools in cricket’s talent pathway plays a key role in determining “discriminatory outcomes across the game”.
On that basis, the MCC should scrap the annual fixtures between Eton and Harrow as well as Oxford and Cambridge at Lord’s.
Racism is “entrenched”, with 75 per cent of black and more than 80 per cent of Asian cricketers experiencing discrimination.
Cricket’s complaints systems are “confusing”, “overly defensive” and “not fit for purpose” for both victims and those accused.
Scrapping the Eton and Harrow and Oxford and Cambridge matches would be outrageous and do nothing to resolve any of the problems identified in the report anyway
I agree, third rate dumps like Harrow and Oxford need their moment in the sun.
It is also hardly private schools fault most state schools prefer to play football than cricket even in the summer.
Children prefer football, it doesn’t require pitches to be prepared and doesn’t require more equipment.
Heck most schools switched to softball for the reasons above 20 odd years ago
You will note that cricket is dying in the West Indies because basketball require less equipment and less space.
If you want more cricketers from non-private schools, shutting down participation from private schools won’t work. It’s not as if there is a fixed number of places for playing cricket. If anything, there is a massive shortage of players.
What you need to do is outreach to pull in state schools. This requires actual work and money.
This is being done in rowing - a couple of clubs have been setup specifically as charities to offer rowing to state schools. In addition they’re the talent scouting programs for British Rowing.
The other thing that can make a serious difference is encouraging adult late entry. That is, teaching people the sport later in life. Again, something that rowing is getting into.
No, you’re not going to find the next champion, but If you want to improve community connection and the atmosphere in clubs, this makes a massive difference. Also if you are worried about seeming stale, pale and make, this makes a big difference, rapidly.
It also provides a good income stream to the club - if you provide good coaching, interested adults will pay serious money for it.
Agreed. Forget schools and instead set up out-of-school cricket clubs. Football clubs mainly recruit from this route now, unlike in past decades when the route to professional football was via schools and local authority teams.
English cricket stands accused of being racist, sexist and elitist at its core in a damning report that immediately forced an unreserved apology from authorities.
In its landmark 316-page review, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket demands “urgent reform” while laying bare deep-rooted discrimination across the game.
The England and Wales Cricket Board, which is found to be “unfit for purpose” in tackling discrimination complaints, accepts the findings will “shock and disappoint many”.
Among 44 separate recommendations for the ECB, the report took aim at the sport’s establishment, by finding:
Women have been abandoned as “second-class citizens”, routinely experiencing misogyny with “unequal access, pay and treatment”.
As a result, the ECB must oversee equal pay on average at domestic level by 2029 and international by 2030.
Dominance of private schools in cricket’s talent pathway plays a key role in determining “discriminatory outcomes across the game”.
On that basis, the MCC should scrap the annual fixtures between Eton and Harrow as well as Oxford and Cambridge at Lord’s.
Racism is “entrenched”, with 75 per cent of black and more than 80 per cent of Asian cricketers experiencing discrimination.
Cricket’s complaints systems are “confusing”, “overly defensive” and “not fit for purpose” for both victims and those accused.
Scrapping the Eton and Harrow and Oxford and Cambridge matches would be outrageous and do nothing to resolve any of the problems identified in the report anyway
I agree, third rate dumps like Harrow and Oxford need their moment in the sun.
It is also hardly private schools fault most state schools prefer to play football than cricket even in the summer.
Children prefer football, it doesn’t require pitches to be prepared and doesn’t require more equipment.
Heck most schools switched to softball for the reasons above 20 odd years ago
You will note that cricket is dying in the West Indies because basketball require less equipment and less space.
If you want more cricketers from non-private schools, shutting down participation from private schools won’t work. It’s not as if there is a fixed number of places for playing cricket. If anything, there is a massive shortage of players.
What you need to do is outreach to pull in state schools. This requires actual work and money.
This is being done in rowing - a couple of clubs have been setup specifically as charities to offer rowing to state schools. In addition they’re the talent scouting programs for British Rowing.
The other thing that can make a serious difference is encouraging adult late entry. That is, teaching people the sport later in life. Again, something that rowing is getting into.
No, you’re not going to find the next champion, but If you want to improve community connection and the atmosphere in clubs, this makes a massive difference. Also if you are worried about seeming stale, pale and make, this makes a big difference, rapidly.
It also provides a good income stream to the club - if you provide good coaching, interested adults will pay serious money for it.
Agreed. Forget schools
If you don't work for the DfE, you've missed your career.
Please can I impose on the good nature of everyone here and ask if anyone has an answer to a technical Local Government Finance question?
Does anyone know why local authorities want their Council Tax paid in 10 equal payments, rather than once a month for a year? I have been paying for my Council Tax by standing order (for 12 months) for the last 20 years or so, but my Council is now threatening me with a Magistrates Court summons if I don't pay up the full amount by tomorrow or set up a direct debit. What is their authority for doing this? Is it legislation, or their own local by-law?
I have a perfectly good payments record (I have lived in the same house for over 30 years) and I cannot work out why they are having a hissy fit now.
I know that back in the 1970s, in the days of local Rates, the authorities needed two months to prepare their annual accounts, but that was in an age before computers, on-line banking and Excel spreadsheets. Surely their systems can cope with me paying in 12 equal instalments rather than 10? FWIW, I want to pay in monthly instalments because that's how I get paid, and it makes my budgeting easier.
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
No, it's not exactly the point. There was good evidence in the Russian case, which simply doesn't exist for the Covid pandemic: ...H1N1 reappeared in 1977 and the strain of the Russian flu was almost identical to one that had been isolated in 1950. This feature of the 1977 strain has been interpreted as pointing towards an anthropogenic origin of the virus, and the pandemic is the only documented human epidemic believed to result from research activity..
You are correct to point to the absence of evidence in China - but interpreting that as evidence for a lab leak is just nonsense.
Covid was a novel virus. The more likely hypothesis is that it's of natural origin. That certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a lab leak, but that unexciting conclusion is all you have.
I am not interpreting it as evidence for or against a lab leak, I am saying that US intelligence is wrong to interpret it as interpreting that as evidence against a lab leak. It tells us nothing either way.
"More likely hypothesis" is simply question-begging, and "unexciting" implies an element of juvenile thrill-seeking which is simply not there. Why is a theory of disastrous incompetence particulary outre where a natural evolution one is not? Lab leaks happen, we have established. Incompetent disasters happen (Bhopal, Chernobyl). What's exciting about them?
Please can I impose on the good nature of everyone here and ask if anyone has an answer to a technical Local Government Finance question?
Does anyone know why local authorities want their Council Tax paid in 10 equal payments, rather than once a month for a year? I have been paying for my Council Tax by standing order (for 12 months) for the last 20 years or so, but my Council is now threatening me with a Magistrates Court summons if I don't pay up the full amount by tomorrow or set up a direct debit. What is their authority for doing this? Is it legislation, or their own local by-law?
I have a perfectly good payments record (I have lived in the same house for over 30 years) and I cannot work out why they are having a hissy fit now.
I know that back in the 1970s, in the days of local Rates, the authorities needed two months to prepare their annual accounts, but that was in an age before computers, on-line banking and Excel spreadsheets. Surely their systems can cope with me paying in 12 equal instalments rather than 10? FWIW, I want to pay in monthly instalments because that's how I get paid, and it makes my budgeting easier.
Any help gratefully received.
A few years ago, I didn't receive the council tax bill and made no payment at all for four months. When we worked out what had happened, they just told me they needed payment in full by the end of the year. So unless there has been a change in the law, which is of course possible, they are talking bollocks.
I would demand they show their reasoning.
Magistrates court is a pretty empty threat at the moment I would have thought. It would take months to get anywhere and by then you'll have paid most of it anyway.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
Aside from anything else “the nightmare of circumstantial evidence” - as was explicitly stated in the Fauci/Farrar emails at the beginning of the pandemic
What the fuck is she expecting Sunak to do about nuclear armed Yugoslavia x 10? Another five point plan? Linkedin post?
Ensure that the nation's popcorn supplies don't run out?
Send Truss to run Russia.
Ensuring better quality governance in both the UK and Russia.
What could possibly go wrong?
Truss and Putin likely have much in common. Both faced anti-growth coalitions - afterall, Putin is only trying to grow the Russian state - somewhat literally, if quite unsucessfully - with his SMO
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
Er, yes they have dismissed it. @kinabalu did yesterday
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
Er, yes they have dismissed it. @kinabalu did yesterday
Are you defining “dismiss” as saying “definitely didn’t happen” or something less?
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
No, it's not exactly the point. There was good evidence in the Russian case, which simply doesn't exist for the Covid pandemic: ...H1N1 reappeared in 1977 and the strain of the Russian flu was almost identical to one that had been isolated in 1950. This feature of the 1977 strain has been interpreted as pointing towards an anthropogenic origin of the virus, and the pandemic is the only documented human epidemic believed to result from research activity..
You are correct to point to the absence of evidence in China - but interpreting that as evidence for a lab leak is just nonsense.
Covid was a novel virus. The more likely hypothesis is that it's of natural origin. That certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a lab leak, but that unexciting conclusion is all you have.
I am not interpreting it as evidence for or against a lab leak, I am saying that US intelligence is wrong to interpret it as interpreting that as evidence against a lab leak. It tells us nothing either way.
"More likely hypothesis" is simply question-begging, and "unexciting" implies an element of juvenile thrill-seeking which is simply not there. Why is a theory of disastrous incompetence particulary outre where a natural evolution one is not? Lab leaks happen, we have established. Incompetent disasters happen (Bhopal, Chernobyl). What's exciting about them?
But surely (if I understand you correctly) you are now saying that either is possible with no known higher probability on either. There are lab leaks. New viruses appear naturally. Both are possible.
So why is the lab leak more likely in your opinion as opposed to a possibility, just as the wet market is a possibility.
I'm just not getting the 'more likely' element here.
Please can I impose on the good nature of everyone here and ask if anyone has an answer to a technical Local Government Finance question?
Does anyone know why local authorities want their Council Tax paid in 10 equal payments, rather than once a month for a year? I have been paying for my Council Tax by standing order (for 12 months) for the last 20 years or so, but my Council is now threatening me with a Magistrates Court summons if I don't pay up the full amount by tomorrow or set up a direct debit. What is their authority for doing this? Is it legislation, or their own local by-law?
I have a perfectly good payments record (I have lived in the same house for over 30 years) and I cannot work out why they are having a hissy fit now.
I know that back in the 1970s, in the days of local Rates, the authorities needed two months to prepare their annual accounts, but that was in an age before computers, on-line banking and Excel spreadsheets. Surely their systems can cope with me paying in 12 equal instalments rather than 10? FWIW, I want to pay in monthly instalments because that's how I get paid, and it makes my budgeting easier.
Any help gratefully received.
A few years ago, I didn't receive the council tax bill and made no payment at all for four months. When we worked out what had happened, they just told me they needed payment in full by the end of the year. So unless there has been a change in the law, which is of course possible, they are talking bollocks.
I would demand they show their reasoning.
Magistrates court is a pretty empty threat at the moment I would have thought. It would take months to get anywhere and by then you'll have paid most of it anyway.
Pay in 10 instalments because fighting them to pay in 12 lots is not worth the candle (unless OP is skint). That 10 is standard across the country suggests there might be a reason for it, but that's not important.
English cricket stands accused of being racist, sexist and elitist at its core in a damning report that immediately forced an unreserved apology from authorities.
In its landmark 316-page review, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket demands “urgent reform” while laying bare deep-rooted discrimination across the game.
The England and Wales Cricket Board, which is found to be “unfit for purpose” in tackling discrimination complaints, accepts the findings will “shock and disappoint many”.
Among 44 separate recommendations for the ECB, the report took aim at the sport’s establishment, by finding:
Women have been abandoned as “second-class citizens”, routinely experiencing misogyny with “unequal access, pay and treatment”.
As a result, the ECB must oversee equal pay on average at domestic level by 2029 and international by 2030.
Dominance of private schools in cricket’s talent pathway plays a key role in determining “discriminatory outcomes across the game”.
On that basis, the MCC should scrap the annual fixtures between Eton and Harrow as well as Oxford and Cambridge at Lord’s.
Racism is “entrenched”, with 75 per cent of black and more than 80 per cent of Asian cricketers experiencing discrimination.
Cricket’s complaints systems are “confusing”, “overly defensive” and “not fit for purpose” for both victims and those accused.
Scrapping the Eton and Harrow and Oxford and Cambridge matches would be outrageous and do nothing to resolve any of the problems identified in the report anyway
I agree, third rate dumps like Harrow and Oxford need their moment in the sun.
It is also hardly private schools fault most state schools prefer to play football than cricket even in the summer.
Children prefer football, it doesn’t require pitches to be prepared and doesn’t require more equipment.
Heck most schools switched to softball for the reasons above 20 odd years ago
You will note that cricket is dying in the West Indies because basketball require less equipment and less space.
If you want more cricketers from non-private schools, shutting down participation from private schools won’t work. It’s not as if there is a fixed number of places for playing cricket. If anything, there is a massive shortage of players.
What you need to do is outreach to pull in state schools. This requires actual work and money.
This is being done in rowing - a couple of clubs have been setup specifically as charities to offer rowing to state schools. In addition they’re the talent scouting programs for British Rowing.
The other thing that can make a serious difference is encouraging adult late entry. That is, teaching people the sport later in life. Again, something that rowing is getting into.
No, you’re not going to find the next champion, but If you want to improve community connection and the atmosphere in clubs, this makes a massive difference. Also if you are worried about seeming stale, pale and make, this makes a big difference, rapidly.
It also provides a good income stream to the club - if you provide good coaching, interested adults will pay serious money for it.
Agreed. Forget schools and instead set up out-of-school cricket clubs. Football clubs mainly recruit from this route now, unlike in past decades when the route to professional football was via schools and local authority teams.
Actually, it is rather the reverse - the club I row for, essentially, offers all the local state schools, rowing as a games option. Obviously for a limited number of pupils, but we do free summer courses and taster events etc to get them to try it.
So all the schools send over a group of students x times a week.
We've got several junior crews hammering the opposition at various regattas, as a result.
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
Er, yes they have dismissed it. @kinabalu did yesterday
Are you defining “dismiss” as saying “definitely didn’t happen” or something less?
I believe he said “so lab leak is debunked”. Which is quite emphatic wording
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
No, it's not exactly the point. There was good evidence in the Russian case, which simply doesn't exist for the Covid pandemic: ...H1N1 reappeared in 1977 and the strain of the Russian flu was almost identical to one that had been isolated in 1950. This feature of the 1977 strain has been interpreted as pointing towards an anthropogenic origin of the virus, and the pandemic is the only documented human epidemic believed to result from research activity..
You are correct to point to the absence of evidence in China - but interpreting that as evidence for a lab leak is just nonsense.
Covid was a novel virus. The more likely hypothesis is that it's of natural origin. That certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a lab leak, but that unexciting conclusion is all you have.
I am not interpreting it as evidence for or against a lab leak, I am saying that US intelligence is wrong to interpret it as interpreting that as evidence against a lab leak. It tells us nothing either way.
"More likely hypothesis" is simply question-begging, and "unexciting" implies an element of juvenile thrill-seeking which is simply not there. Why is a theory of disastrous incompetence particulary outre where a natural evolution one is not? Lab leaks happen, we have established. Incompetent disasters happen (Bhopal, Chernobyl). What's exciting about them?
They are exciting enough to have provided a very good living for the leading proponents of the thrift from their social media streams.
It's not question begging; the simple fact is that novel human viruses are almost always of zoonotic origin.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
No, it's not exactly the point. There was good evidence in the Russian case, which simply doesn't exist for the Covid pandemic: ...H1N1 reappeared in 1977 and the strain of the Russian flu was almost identical to one that had been isolated in 1950. This feature of the 1977 strain has been interpreted as pointing towards an anthropogenic origin of the virus, and the pandemic is the only documented human epidemic believed to result from research activity..
You are correct to point to the absence of evidence in China - but interpreting that as evidence for a lab leak is just nonsense.
Covid was a novel virus. The more likely hypothesis is that it's of natural origin. That certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a lab leak, but that unexciting conclusion is all you have.
I am not interpreting it as evidence for or against a lab leak, I am saying that US intelligence is wrong to interpret it as interpreting that as evidence against a lab leak. It tells us nothing either way.
"More likely hypothesis" is simply question-begging, and "unexciting" implies an element of juvenile thrill-seeking which is simply not there. Why is a theory of disastrous incompetence particulary outre where a natural evolution one is not? Lab leaks happen, we have established. Incompetent disasters happen (Bhopal, Chernobyl). What's exciting about them?
But surely (if I understand you correctly) you are now saying that either is possible with no known higher probability on either. There are lab leaks. New viruses appear naturally. Both are possible.
So why is the lab leak more likely in your opinion as opposed to a possibility, just as the wet market is a possibility.
I'm just not getting the 'more likely' element here.
And neither accidental lab leak nor wet market reflects well on China; nor do they make the slightest difference to fighting the pandemic.
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
Er, yes they have dismissed it. @kinabalu did yesterday
Are you defining “dismiss” as saying “definitely didn’t happen” or something less?
I believe he said “so lab leak is debunked”. Which is quite emphatic wording
You twit. He was winding you up. As you well know @kinabalu is a sensible chap and just pulling your chain as has @TheScreamingEagles several times over the last few days. You are a bright lad and you know full well this is what they were doing.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
No, it's not exactly the point. There was good evidence in the Russian case, which simply doesn't exist for the Covid pandemic: ...H1N1 reappeared in 1977 and the strain of the Russian flu was almost identical to one that had been isolated in 1950. This feature of the 1977 strain has been interpreted as pointing towards an anthropogenic origin of the virus, and the pandemic is the only documented human epidemic believed to result from research activity..
You are correct to point to the absence of evidence in China - but interpreting that as evidence for a lab leak is just nonsense.
Covid was a novel virus. The more likely hypothesis is that it's of natural origin. That certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a lab leak, but that unexciting conclusion is all you have.
I am not interpreting it as evidence for or against a lab leak, I am saying that US intelligence is wrong to interpret it as interpreting that as evidence against a lab leak. It tells us nothing either way.
"More likely hypothesis" is simply question-begging, and "unexciting" implies an element of juvenile thrill-seeking which is simply not there. Why is a theory of disastrous incompetence particulary outre where a natural evolution one is not? Lab leaks happen, we have established. Incompetent disasters happen (Bhopal, Chernobyl). What's exciting about them?
But surely (if I understand you correctly) you are now saying that either is possible with no known higher probability on either. There are lab leaks. New viruses appear naturally. Both are possible.
So why is the lab leak more likely in your opinion as opposed to a possibility, just as the wet market is a possibility.
I'm just not getting the 'more likely' element here.
And neither accidental lab leak nor wet market reflects well on China; nor do they make the slightest difference to fighting the pandemic.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
What an odd statement from Lukashenka. Don't make a hero out of Putin, hmm.
Lukashenka: I said: in no case do not make a hero out of me, not out of me, not out of Putin, not out of Prigozhin, because we missed the situation, and then we thought that it would resolve, but it did not resolve. And two people who fought at the front collided. There are no heroes in this case.
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
Er, yes they have dismissed it. @kinabalu did yesterday
Are you defining “dismiss” as saying “definitely didn’t happen” or something less?
I believe he said “so lab leak is debunked”. Which is quite emphatic wording
You twit. He was winding you up. As you well know @kinabalu is a sensible chap and just pulling your chain as has @TheScreamingEagles several times over the last few days. You are a bright lad and you know full well this is what they were doing.
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
Er, yes they have dismissed it. @kinabalu did yesterday
Are you defining “dismiss” as saying “definitely didn’t happen” or something less?
I believe he said “so lab leak is debunked”. Which is quite emphatic wording
You twit. He was winding you up. As you well know @kinabalu is a sensible chap and just pulling your chain as has @TheScreamingEagles several times over the last few days. You are a bright lad and you know full well this is what they were doing.
Nonetheless, he said it. Whatever his motives
True. Can't deny it, but you know you are dancing on a pin head.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
And it came from a bat. And they don’t sell bats at Wuhan market, nor is there a culture of eating them. And the guilty bat species don’t live within 1000km of Wuhan
The nearest likely bat vectors are in Yunnan. How on earth would a bat get from Yunnan to Wuhan?
Well, there’s always the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which regularly went down to Yunnan to collect bats, and bring them back to Wuhan
Jesus felching Christ, do we really have to go through all this AGAIN??
Please can I impose on the good nature of everyone here and ask if anyone has an answer to a technical Local Government Finance question?
Does anyone know why local authorities want their Council Tax paid in 10 equal payments, rather than once a month for a year? I have been paying for my Council Tax by standing order (for 12 months) for the last 20 years or so, but my Council is now threatening me with a Magistrates Court summons if I don't pay up the full amount by tomorrow or set up a direct debit. What is their authority for doing this? Is it legislation, or their own local by-law?
I have a perfectly good payments record (I have lived in the same house for over 30 years) and I cannot work out why they are having a hissy fit now.
Citizens Advice says "You’re usually asked to pay in 10 instalments. You have the right to ask to pay in 12 instalments instead.":
(A right apparently brought in by the Tories in 2013.)
So probably some automated system thinks you're on the 10-payment setup and so you're in arrears. Hopefully you can find a human and get your account officially set up as 12 payment.
I'd have HYUFD as clear favourite, as his posts most often ellicit that reaction (from me, at least). But I do think Leon could be in with a chance if he puts his mind to it. Or even Casino on one of his Wokefinder General rants.
Hard to call though if we all use them as surrogate likes.
Cyclefree's comments on the police are usually WTF moments.
And it involves one of my favourite (sarcasm alert) police officers. Why, yes: it's Cressida Dick - a woman so useless she'd miss the floor when falling out of bed.
Perhaps we should have a FFS! button.
Anyway, I'm miffed I won't get any Likes so am going off in a huff. Bloody @Leon ruining everything. I didn't even get the Montenegrin love nest out of him.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
And it came from a bat. And they don’t sell bats at Wuhan market, nor is there a culture of eating them. And the guilty bat species don’t live within 1000km of Wuhan
The nearest likely bat vectors are in Yunnan. How on earth would a bat get from Yunnan to Wuhan?
Well, there’s always the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which regularly went down to Yunnan to collect bats, and bring them back to Wuhan
Jesus felching Christ, do we really have to go through all this AGAIN??
Perhaps you go through your greatest hits.
How Liz Truss would surprise on the upside or how Putin was going to use nukes last autumn.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
Aside from anything else “the nightmare of circumstantial evidence” - as was explicitly stated in the Fauci/Farrar emails at the beginning of the pandemic
Problem is I then have to Google the claim to see if it really is evidence. This is the full quote from Ian Lipkin:
It does not eliminate the possibility of inadvertent release following adaptation through selection in culture at the institute in Wuhan. Given the scale of the bat CoV research pursued there and the site of emergence of the first human cases we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess.
So it seems not. The recent DNI report states
Prior to the pandemic, we assess WIV scientists conducted extensive research on coronaviruses, which included animal sampling and genetic analysis. We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARSCoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic.
So Covid 19 doesn't match a virus the lab was known to be working on. We have to have some other reason to suspect a lab leak.
I’m serious. The benefit of a CHORTLE button is that it can be seen as approval, amusement, derision or scorn. So it’s all-purpose. Read it how you like
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
No, it's not exactly the point. There was good evidence in the Russian case, which simply doesn't exist for the Covid pandemic: ...H1N1 reappeared in 1977 and the strain of the Russian flu was almost identical to one that had been isolated in 1950. This feature of the 1977 strain has been interpreted as pointing towards an anthropogenic origin of the virus, and the pandemic is the only documented human epidemic believed to result from research activity..
You are correct to point to the absence of evidence in China - but interpreting that as evidence for a lab leak is just nonsense.
Covid was a novel virus. The more likely hypothesis is that it's of natural origin. That certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a lab leak, but that unexciting conclusion is all you have.
I am not interpreting it as evidence for or against a lab leak, I am saying that US intelligence is wrong to interpret it as interpreting that as evidence against a lab leak. It tells us nothing either way.
"More likely hypothesis" is simply question-begging, and "unexciting" implies an element of juvenile thrill-seeking which is simply not there. Why is a theory of disastrous incompetence particulary outre where a natural evolution one is not? Lab leaks happen, we have established. Incompetent disasters happen (Bhopal, Chernobyl). What's exciting about them?
They are exciting enough to have provided a very good living for the leading proponents of the thrift from their social media streams.
It's not question begging; the simple fact is that novel human viruses are almost always of zoonotic origin.
Point 1 is pure ad hominem. I don't make a living from social media.
Point 2 JFC. I despair. It is over 250 years sine Thomas Bayes popped his clogs, and he was only ever formulating what was obvious all along.
Me: I walk into an old peoples' home and shoot a 90 year old in the head.
You: Not to worry, carry on, the simple fact is that deaths in this age group are almost always the result of cancer or CVD.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
Aside from anything else “the nightmare of circumstantial evidence” - as was explicitly stated in the Fauci/Farrar emails at the beginning of the pandemic
Problem is I then have to Google the claim to see if it really is evidence. This is the full quote from Ian Lipkin:
It does not eliminate the possibility of inadvertent release following adaptation through selection in culture at the institute in Wuhan. Given the scale of the bat CoV research pursued there and the site of emergence of the first human cases we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess.
So it seems not. The recent DNI report states
Prior to the pandemic, we assess WIV scientists conducted extensive research on coronaviruses, which included animal sampling and genetic analysis. We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARSCoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic.
So Covid 19 doesn't match a virus the lab was known to be working on. We have to have some other reason to suspect a lab leak.
You don’t think it is ever-so-slightly-possible that the novel bat coronavirus lab in Wuhan destroyed a whole bunch of evidence when a novel bat coronavirus emerged in Wuhan?
On the one side you have China; on the other, “a nightmare of circumstantial evidence”
I'd have HYUFD as clear favourite, as his posts most often ellicit that reaction (from me, at least). But I do think Leon could be in with a chance if he puts his mind to it. Or even Casino on one of his Wokefinder General rants.
Hard to call though if we all use them as surrogate likes.
Cyclefree's comments on the police are usually WTF moments.
And it involves one of my favourite (sarcasm alert) police officers. Why, yes: it's Cressida Dick - a woman so useless she'd miss the floor when falling out of bed.
Perhaps we should have a FFS! button.
Anyway, I'm miffed I won't get any Likes so am going off in a huff. Bloody @Leon ruining everything. I didn't even get the Montenegrin love nest out of him.
😡
On the upside, such stories about the Met no longer feature Commander Ali DisasterArea.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
Most English high streets do not sell live, wild animals for human consumption. You are taking one common definition of "wet market" and misapplying it to Wuhan. These particular wet markets should have been shut down years ago by China.
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
Er, yes they have dismissed it. @kinabalu did yesterday
It's like haggling at a bazaar see. If the opener from the dodgy vendor is a completely risible '98%' you counter (if you're a skilled operative) with something hard like a total 'debunk'. Object being to strike the deal at something like the fair value 20%. Everybody happy.
Lol, no. They’ve gone from “definitely wet market” to “we can’t decide, no definitive proof either way, let’s move on quickly”. As I predicted
That is all in your head. Nobody has dismissed the lab leak (here at least). I hope to god you are never on a jury. The first bit of evidence in any direction and you are full 100% decided on everything.
Er, yes they have dismissed it. @kinabalu did yesterday
It's like haggling at a bazaar see. If the opener from the dodgy vendor is a completely risible '98%' you counter (if you're a skilled operative) with something hard like a total 'debunk'. Object being to strike the deal at something like the fair value 20%. Everybody happy.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
Most English high streets do not sell live, wild animals for human consumption. You are taking one common definition of "wet market" and misapplying it to Wuhan. These particular wet markets should have been shut down years ago by China.
Please can I impose on the good nature of everyone here and ask if anyone has an answer to a technical Local Government Finance question?
Does anyone know why local authorities want their Council Tax paid in 10 equal payments, rather than once a month for a year? I have been paying for my Council Tax by standing order (for 12 months) for the last 20 years or so, but my Council is now threatening me with a Magistrates Court summons if I don't pay up the full amount by tomorrow or set up a direct debit. What is their authority for doing this? Is it legislation, or their own local by-law?
I have a perfectly good payments record (I have lived in the same house for over 30 years) and I cannot work out why they are having a hissy fit now.
Citizens Advice says "You’re usually asked to pay in 10 instalments. You have the right to ask to pay in 12 instalments instead.":
(A right apparently brought in by the Tories in 2013.)
So probably some automated system thinks you're on the 10-payment setup and so you're in arrears. Hopefully you can find a human and get your account officially set up as 12 payment.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
A large proportion of the known first cases were actually in the wet market. The WIV isn't near the market. Wuhan is a tri-city metropolis. The lab and the market are in different historical cities.
Please can I impose on the good nature of everyone here and ask if anyone has an answer to a technical Local Government Finance question?
Does anyone know why local authorities want their Council Tax paid in 10 equal payments, rather than once a month for a year? I have been paying for my Council Tax by standing order (for 12 months) for the last 20 years or so, but my Council is now threatening me with a Magistrates Court summons if I don't pay up the full amount by tomorrow or set up a direct debit. What is their authority for doing this? Is it legislation, or their own local by-law?
I have a perfectly good payments record (I have lived in the same house for over 30 years) and I cannot work out why they are having a hissy fit now.
I know that back in the 1970s, in the days of local Rates, the authorities needed two months to prepare their annual accounts, but that was in an age before computers, on-line banking and Excel spreadsheets. Surely their systems can cope with me paying in 12 equal instalments rather than 10? FWIW, I want to pay in monthly instalments because that's how I get paid, and it makes my budgeting easier.
Any help gratefully received.
A few years ago, I didn't receive the council tax bill and made no payment at all for four months. When we worked out what had happened, they just told me they needed payment in full by the end of the year. So unless there has been a change in the law, which is of course possible, they are talking bollocks.
I would demand they show their reasoning.
Magistrates court is a pretty empty threat at the moment I would have thought. It would take months to get anywhere and by then you'll have paid most of it anyway.
Pay in 10 instalments because fighting them to pay in 12 lots is not worth the candle (unless OP is skint). That 10 is standard across the country suggests there might be a reason for it, but that's not important.
IIRC years back, it was changed so that you can pay 12 monthly instalments, rather than 10. Seem to recall it was 2014?
Sounds like @AugustusCarp2 is having an encounter with a clipboardista. Who is making up rules - probably got a target they've invented to get everyone on a direct debit.
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
Most English high streets do not sell live, wild animals for human consumption. You are taking one common definition of "wet market" and misapplying it to Wuhan. These particular wet markets should have been shut down years ago by China.
Live animals are, these days, quite rare in Chinese markets. Fish and eels maybe. Crustacea. Birds, reptiles and mammals much less so - they still exist but are frowned upon - after the scandals over that horrible market in Guangdong which sold owls and cats and monkeys alive. I went there. Ugh
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
A large proportion of the known first cases were actually in the wet market. The WIV isn't near the market. Wuhan is a tri-city metropolis. The lab and the market are in different historical cities.
Completely wrong. The Wuhan CDC - which stored bats and did coronavirus bat research - was 300m from the market. Next
It says no clear evidence. AOEINEOA. What clear evidence could there be anyway? CCTV of avirus sneaking out of the back door?
In my lifetime there have been two lab leaks in the UK that I am aware of, Smallpox and Foot and Mouth. Both were provable lab leaks. So to say there can't be any clear evidence of a lab leak is obviously not correct.
It may well be a lab leak and there may not be any evidence that can be found, but that doesn't mean it is a lab leak. It may be, it may not be.
However unlike @leon I don't jump to conclusions. If leon didn't come out with so much tosh all the time (Do we all remember the mass alien ships over Ukraine?) we might take him more seriously. I can think of two pieces of evidence he provided for absolute proof it came from a lab that were completely dismantled here (one was from Fox news ffs).
Which is exactly the point: Likely but not proven is probably as good as we are going to get with an outbreak in China. They don't do openness there. So the claim of "no clear evidence" is still susceptible to the response: What clear evidence would you expect, given 1. China and 2. the catastrophic consequences of this leak?
I would want to know why a lab leak is likely, beyond that someone had a notion. There is epidemiological evidence for the epidemic starting in a market, which is also how the previous SARS is known to have started.
That evidence is basically "the first cases were near the wet market." Given the geography, that also implies "the first cases were near the lab."
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
Most English high streets do not sell live, wild animals for human consumption. You are taking one common definition of "wet market" and misapplying it to Wuhan. These particular wet markets should have been shut down years ago by China.
Live animals are, these days, quite rare in Chinese markets. Fish and eels maybe. Crustacea. Birds, reptiles and mammals much less so - they still exist but are frowned upon - after the scandals over that horrible market in Guangdong which sold owls and cats and monkeys alive. I went there. Ugh
I distinctly remember seeing one shop with what seemed like hundreds of either terrapins or turtles when I was backpacking through Guangzhou about twenty years ago.
Can we have the old buttons back please? We have grown up with them and I am missing them.
The like button was an easy way to show you agreed with something - like your post, for example - without either spending time on composing a reply or cluttering up the thread with quotes and repeats - like this post, for example. What it didn't do was cause any actual issues toi anyone who wasn't interested in getting, or noticing likes. So, +1 to your post.
@kjh Yes and thank you for twisting my arm. It was an enjoyable experience. To jog your memory it was a header on fairly radical political reform
My pleasure. To this day I consider it the most (probably only) positive thing I have done on PB. It was good to see you got such a good response as well. It was one of the few headers where we all kept on topic and that all those who disagreed with you were so positively influenced by your ideas (including me).
Comments
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu
Apparently bears are also currently shitting in the woods.
I expect at least one WTF for this post, and will be offended if not received.
Can I join the people who don’t like the WTF button, please!
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/live-ftse-stock-markets-wall-street-inflation-recession-pound-080221339.html
What you need to do is outreach to pull in state schools. This requires actual work and money.
This is being done in rowing - a couple of clubs have been setup specifically as charities to offer rowing to state schools. In addition they’re the talent scouting programs for British Rowing.
The other thing that can make a serious difference is encouraging adult late entry. That is, teaching people the sport later in life. Again, something that rowing is getting into.
No, you’re not going to find the next champion, but If you want to improve community connection and the atmosphere in clubs, this makes a massive difference. Also if you are worried about seeming stale, pale and make, this makes a big difference, rapidly.
It also provides a good income stream to the club - if you provide good coaching, interested adults will pay serious money for it.
There was good evidence in the Russian case, which simply doesn't exist for the Covid pandemic:
...H1N1 reappeared in 1977 and the strain of the Russian flu was almost identical to one that had been isolated in 1950. This feature of the 1977 strain has been interpreted as pointing towards an anthropogenic origin of the virus, and the pandemic is the only documented human epidemic believed to result from research activity..
You are correct to point to the absence of evidence in China - but interpreting that as evidence for a lab leak is just nonsense.
Covid was a novel virus. The more likely hypothesis is that it's of natural origin. That certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a lab leak, but that unexciting conclusion is all you have.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/25/mag-tsai-ziegler-movementjudges-00102758
Of course the 'movement' judges on the court are also pretty partisan, too.
As in the 80s wishing on the collapse of the Soviet Union would have been the responsible thing to do.
Who would have pegged 'sleepy Joe Biden' as the modern answer to 'Ronald tear down that wall Reagan'?
Ensuring better quality governance in both the UK and Russia.
What could possibly go wrong?
OK..
LOL ! I feel about fifteen again.
Although I expect Morris Dancer would refuse to use any response buttons and still start new posts
ETA: Probably all we really need is a 'like' button and a 'send to Con Home' button?
Does anyone know why local authorities want their Council Tax paid in 10 equal payments, rather than once a month for a year? I have been paying for my Council Tax by standing order (for 12 months) for the last 20 years or so, but my Council is now threatening me with a Magistrates Court summons if I don't pay up the full amount by tomorrow or set up a direct debit. What is their authority for doing this? Is it legislation, or their own local by-law?
I have a perfectly good payments record (I have lived in the same house for over 30 years) and I cannot work out why they are having a hissy fit now.
I know that back in the 1970s, in the days of local Rates, the authorities needed two months to prepare their annual accounts, but that was in an age before computers, on-line banking and Excel spreadsheets. Surely their systems can cope with me paying in 12 equal instalments rather than 10? FWIW, I want to pay in monthly instalments because that's how I get paid, and it makes my budgeting easier.
Any help gratefully received.
"More likely hypothesis" is simply question-begging, and "unexciting" implies an element of juvenile thrill-seeking which is simply not there. Why is a theory of disastrous incompetence particulary outre where a natural evolution one is not? Lab leaks happen, we have established. Incompetent disasters happen (Bhopal, Chernobyl). What's exciting about them?
I would demand they show their reasoning.
Magistrates court is a pretty empty threat at the moment I would have thought. It would take months to get anywhere and by then you'll have paid most of it anyway.
So why is the lab leak more likely in your opinion as opposed to a possibility, just as the wet market is a possibility.
I'm just not getting the 'more likely' element here.
So all the schools send over a group of students x times a week.
We've got several junior crews hammering the opposition at various regattas, as a result.
So far, there hasn't been any verification of the Senior Russians leaving for the US air tracking story, to be fair, but there's always Rubio.
It's not question begging; the simple fact is that novel human viruses are almost always of zoonotic origin.
Let's also look at the terminology here. "Wet market" means no more than, a collection of butchers and fishmongers and whatever selling freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meet. Most English high streets would qualify. And anyway you can hardly base an argument on "wet markets are notorious breeding grounds for novel viruses" when the alternative is a lab expressly designed at enormous expense to be a breeding ground for novel viruses.
Lukashenka: I said: in no case do not make a hero out of me, not out of me, not out of Putin, not out of Prigozhin, because we missed the situation, and then we thought that it would resolve, but it did not resolve. And two people who fought at the front collided. There are no heroes in this case.
Is RCS ok?
The nearest likely bat vectors are in Yunnan. How on earth would a bat get from Yunnan to Wuhan?
Well, there’s always the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which regularly went down to Yunnan to collect bats, and bring them back to Wuhan
Jesus felching Christ, do we really have to go through all this AGAIN??
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/housing/council-tax/paying-council-tax/
(A right apparently brought in by the Tories in 2013.)
So probably some automated system thinks you're on the 10-payment setup and so you're in arrears. Hopefully you can find a human and get your account officially set up as 12 payment.
And it involves one of my favourite (sarcasm alert) police officers. Why, yes: it's Cressida Dick - a woman so useless she'd miss the floor when falling out of bed.
Perhaps we should have a FFS! button.
Anyway, I'm miffed I won't get any Likes so am going off in a huff. Bloody @Leon ruining everything. I didn't even get the Montenegrin love nest out of him.
😡
Was looking on eBay, and this chap who was using Grant Mitchell's photo as a logo offered me a low low price...
How Liz Truss would surprise on the upside or how Putin was going to use nukes last autumn.
As a reward you can watch Threads again.
Problem is I then have to Google the claim to see if it really is evidence. This is the full quote from Ian Lipkin:
It does not eliminate the possibility of inadvertent release following adaptation through selection in culture at the institute in Wuhan. Given the scale of the bat CoV research pursued there and the site of emergence of the first human cases we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess.
So it seems not. The recent DNI report states
Prior to the pandemic, we assess WIV scientists conducted extensive research on coronaviruses, which included animal sampling and genetic analysis. We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARSCoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic.
So Covid 19 doesn't match a virus the lab was known to be working on. We have to have some other reason to suspect a lab leak.
I’m serious. The benefit of a CHORTLE button is that it can be seen as approval, amusement, derision or scorn. So it’s all-purpose. Read it how you like
Also it’s a time honoured PB response
Point 2 JFC. I despair. It is over 250 years sine Thomas Bayes popped his clogs, and he was only ever formulating what was obvious all along.
Me: I walk into an old peoples' home and shoot a 90 year old in the head.
You: Not to worry, carry on, the simple fact is that deaths in this age group are almost always the result of cancer or CVD.
Maybe we only value some things when we have lost them !!!!
On the one side you have China; on the other, “a nightmare of circumstantial evidence”
You choose
Yes and thank you for twisting my arm. It was an enjoyable experience. To jog your memory it was a header on fairly radical political reform
Sounds like @AugustusCarp2 is having an encounter with a clipboardista. Who is making up rules - probably got a target they've invented to get everyone on a direct debit.
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They took all our likes
And put up a 'what the fuck'