But the NHS is almost designed to run at near full capacity. It probably hasn't routinely maintained significant spare capacity full its entire 75 year existence. It expands and contracts to levels of demand, and schedules operations around expectations of peaks and troughs. Therefore you've got to take with a pinch of salt claims that even relatively small numbers of Covid patients presenting will tip the service over the edge.
That's not to say that the backlog isn't a big problem. Nor the stress placed on the workforce in some hotspots (but not everywhere). But a bit of an uplift in Covid cases really isn't going to make the difference that some say. In fact trying to come up with innovative ways to combat existing social distancing requirements placed on hospitals etc would probably be far more beneficial.
If we get a wave of hospitalizations anything like what people are predicting, it's going to significantly increase the backlog. Which is already at millions of patients.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
Right. Ok. But the last time we exchanged on this you advanced the following as strong evidence that the natural origin was unlikely - that China had absolutely and genuinely busted a gut trying to find animal zero and had come up empty handed.
So, my question - if they know it leaked from a lab why would they be doing that? They'd know it was futile.
It would have been quite suspicious had they not looked.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
They locked down more than Hubei of course. My ex's family lived on a fairly obscure city on the south coast thousands of miles from Wuhan, locked down (and I mean properly locked down, not of the half arsed UK version) from... late Jan 20 for a few months.
Whether that's evidence of a cover up, or just a competant response based on experience with SARs, I wouldn't like to say.
Yes, it's the old "how did an authoritarian nation willing to weld people into their homes ever manage to control a disease outbreak?"
It is truly a mystery.
Work colleague went home to visit family and then was locked down for 3 months. And as you say, an actual lockdown, not the "you can leave your house whenever you like" UK version.
Minister: "I am very worried the people who want to keep us shut down now want us to keep us shut down permanently and are aiming for 'zero Covid'."
(Telegraph)
Permanently locked down? It's just not credible.
No, but semi permanent restrictions of the 'abundance of caution' kind, is.
Except that isn't what the source is claiming, hence my doubts surrounding the story in general. What better way to make your case that re-opening must be done "on schedule" than to say it will never otherwise happen. People seem to have taken it at face value without giving it a second thought.
We've given it plenty of thought.
The excuses:
1. Not enough adults have been vaccinated 2. Not enough adults have had both vaccinations 3. Children must be vaccinated 4. Children must also have their second doses 5. We must monitor the impact of schools coming back in September 6 - 27. NEW VARIANTS!!!!!! 28. NHS staff are burned out and need leave. A lot of leave. 29. NHS staff need time to catch up with the non-Covid backlog (many years, according to estimates) 30. The cold weather in the Autumn will make the virus more transmissible 31. The NHS can't cope with flu and Covid at the same time and will collapse 32. Immunity will start to wane in those jabbed earlier in the year 33. We need to start giving boosters to the old and vulnerable... 34. ...and then to everybody else 35. And finally... people (especially children) have been in an unnaturally clean environment for so long that their immunity to an entire panoply of other infectious diseases will have waned, so we have to keep the restrictions for all eternity or else half of us will die the moment they are binned. Especially babies. The NHS will sink under a mountain of dead babies. 36. Oh, and the vaccines aren't 100% effective, so if we let the restrictions go at any time in the future ever there will be a tsunami wave of Covid and all the hospitals will burn to the ground 37. If you don't agree with all of this, you're basically a mass murderer, hate our beloved NHS, and therefore deserve to die a slow, painful, horrible death
I can't imagine a world where the UK is the only major economy in a continuous lockdown. It just doesn't make any sense. If it isn't internal pressures that end it, external ones will.
Restrictions last until the money runs out.
Because the restrictions are stopping more people from doing what they don't want to do than stopping people from doing what they want to do.
That's a very good way of putting it.
If been going into work almost everyday in recent weeks. I’ve almost every day been the only person in a seventy person office. Mgt have done surveys and stuff and drawn conclusions that once the guidance to work from home is lifted staff want to come back, but under some 3+2/2+3 arrangement. They are kidding themselves IMO. Virtually nobody wants to come back at all.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
They locked down more than Hubei of course. My ex's family lived on a fairly obscure city on the south coast thousands of miles from Wuhan, locked down (and I mean properly locked down, not of the half arsed UK version) from... late Jan 20 for a few months.
Whether that's evidence of a cover up, or just a competant response based on experience with SARs, I wouldn't like to say.
Yes, it's the old "how did an authoritarian nation willing to weld people into their homes ever manage to control a disease outbreak?"
It is truly a mystery.
Work colleague went home to visit family and then was locked down for 3 months. And as you say, an actual lockdown, not the "you can leave your house whenever you like" UK version.
To be fair, during the first lockdown we did have a lot of people reporting their neighbours for leaving the house more than once.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
Right. Ok. But the last time we exchanged on this you advanced the following as strong evidence that the natural origin was unlikely - that China had absolutely and genuinely busted a gut trying to find animal zero and had come up empty handed.
So, my question - if they know it leaked from a lab why would they be doing that? They'd know it was futile.
Yes, that's a fair and interesting argument
Perhaps this is the answer, to cover all bases: the Chinese strongly suspect it came from the lab - hence all my points - but they do not know for sure. Obviously they REALLY want to prove it came from the market, even if that is pretty unlikely, thus their Stakhanovite but fruitless efforts to locate Pangolin Zero
That makes sense to me
An alternative explanation would be that one part of the Chinese government - the military? - knows it came from the lab but they are keeping it secret from others. So the reaction appears schizophrenic
Third explanation: they know it came from the lab and the entire hunt for animal vectors is a sham and a decoy
The words of people like this are all worthless unless they are willing to act to bring down Johnson. They should be ignored.
That is generally true, but I'll say this - at least he is on the record about his unhappiness.
One thing we had far too much of in the 2017-19 parliament was MPs briefing about how unhappy they were (mostly on the Labour side, May's critics were definitely in the open) but never actually acting (bar the brave Change MPs and a few others)
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
Right. Ok. But the last time we exchanged on this you advanced the following as strong evidence that the natural origin was unlikely - that China had absolutely and genuinely busted a gut trying to find animal zero and had come up empty handed.
So, my question - if they know it leaked from a lab why would they be doing that? They'd know it was futile.
It would have been quite suspicious had they not looked.
But if they were only pretending to look, it can't then be advanced as evidence against the natural origin that they failed to find anything.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
NI (and Scotland for that matter) post Independence vote would be England/the UK’s problem until they actually went. And I think that would take a long time and probably involve a not insignificant transfer of people in the interim.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
If 50.1% of the Scots vote to go then it's bye bye. The difficulties surrounding what they do after that are their problem.
So what are PBers reaction to the sit and wait for your drinks order to be taken rather than go to the bar ?
Having experienced it several times it just feels unnatural to me and stops a pub from feeling like a pub.
But I can see it being preferred by oldies, women and families with young kids.
My dad says that the pub he goes to has pretty much gone back to normal (no masks, people going to the bar).
It does seem to me that many are returning to normality and just ignoring the restrictions, other than face masks, and getting on with their lives
Indeed I was at a family 50th birthday party last week when most everyone shook hands and/ or hugged
Mind you everyone, apart from the children, had had at least one vaccination and many both
Been to a family get together today and hugging and handshakes are back. Almost all have had two jabs, the other three young enough to be virtually safe from serious Covid.
The suggestion early on in the pandemic that Covid represented the end for handshakes for ever, was one of the bizarrest claims ever i thought. Allegedly serious people, "behavioural scientists" no less, saying things like that, was evidence enough for me that whilst we should take notice of experts, not everybody who puts themselves forward as an "expert", is one.
I mean after all, what did handshakes originally derive from/what was their purpose? To demonstrate that you weren't a threat, didn't see the other person as a threat, and were a sign of trust.
Of course they were going to come back in the aftermath/latter stages of a pandemic!
Well I hope that we can soon get rid of this ridiculous elbow bumping. A dignified Namaste style greeting is so much better.
Yes, I never got why the awkward ungainlyness of the former caught on rather than the latter.
Why invent a stupid new greeting when other ones already exist? It's like coming up with neologisms for things that already have cool words for them.
Blame America. Or rather, Black America and hip-hop culture which made the fist bump into a thing in the US in years preceding the pandemic. True art form at higher level, which yours truly never came close to attaining.
With the coming of COVID it morphed into the fist bump. Itself something of a tribute to the Funky Chicken?
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
If 50.1% of the Scots vote to go then it's bye bye. The difficulties surrounding what they do after that are their problem.
You've missed the point completely. You talk of 'letting them go' as if they don't even have to get to that 50.1%, seemingly presuming that support is already and permanently there.
My point was that it is a choice they need to make, not something England and Wales can decide to 'let' them do. And no, letting them go does not mean people who want to retain the union should just stop trying to persuade them.
Huge queues at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre pop-up vaccine site
A pop-up Covid vaccine clinic in Sheffield reached capacity shortly after opening - prompting officials to ask people not to attend. The clinic initially had 500 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine available, and managed to secure a further 200.
FFS....we have over 6 million sodding doses blocking up a warehouse. Sid has now having to ask the neighbours if he can store some in their fridges....Rather than 700, they could have been doing 7000.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
Right. Ok. But the last time we exchanged on this you advanced the following as strong evidence that the natural origin was unlikely - that China had absolutely and genuinely busted a gut trying to find animal zero and had come up empty handed.
So, my question - if they know it leaked from a lab why would they be doing that? They'd know it was futile.
It would have been quite suspicious had they not looked.
But if they were only pretending to look, it can't then be advanced as evidence against the natural origin that they failed to find anything.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
If 50.1% of the Scots vote to go then it's bye bye. The difficulties surrounding what they do after that are their problem.
I'm not sure such a narrow vote would have enough legitimacy to end a 300-year union. We've all seen how bitterly contested the 2016 vote was, despite a margin 20 times that size. I can imagine No campaigners looking for any dishonest pledge (and the SNP will doubtless make lots of them) or disputed ballots in a bid to get the result overturned in court.
While all that was going on, the Scottish economy would collapse as businesses flee to England and enough Yes voters would change their mind to overturn the result if another vote would be held. It would make the years 2016-9 look like a picnic.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
The big exciting difference is, no more conspiracy theory. That would be freedom day for this blog 😊
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
If 50.1% of the Scots vote to go then it's bye bye. The difficulties surrounding what they do after that are their problem.
I'm not sure such a narrow vote would have enough legitimacy to end a 300-year union. We've all seen how bitterly contested the 2016 vote was, despite a margin 20 times that size. I can imagine No campaigners looking for any dishonest pledge (and the SNP will doubtless make lots of them) or disputed ballots in a bid to get the result overturned in court.
While all that was going on, the Scottish economy would collapse as businesses flee to England and enough Yes voters would change their mind to overturn the result if another vote would be held. It would make the years 2016-9 look like a picnic.
Unfortunately yes. The huge risk in all of this is explicitly not that Scotland votes for independence, it's that it fails to do so and we are therefore stuck with their Nationalists for even longer than we're stuck with social distancing. It's all very depressing, really.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
Right. Ok. But the last time we exchanged on this you advanced the following as strong evidence that the natural origin was unlikely - that China had absolutely and genuinely busted a gut trying to find animal zero and had come up empty handed.
So, my question - if they know it leaked from a lab why would they be doing that? They'd know it was futile.
Yes, that's a fair and interesting argument
Perhaps this is the answer, to cover all bases: the Chinese strongly suspect it came from the lab - hence all my points - but they do not know for sure. Obviously they REALLY want to prove it came from the market, even if that is pretty unlikely, thus their Stakhanovite but fruitless efforts to locate Pangolin Zero
That makes sense to me
An alternative explanation would be that one part of the Chinese government - the military? - knows it came from the lab but they are keeping it secret from others. So the reaction appears schizophrenic
Third explanation: they know it came from the lab and the entire hunt for animal vectors is a sham and a decoy
I think that middle one can go. But I'll sleep on the other two. The 1st one has more of a real life feel to it to me than the 3rd.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
If 50.1% of the Scots vote to go then it's bye bye. The difficulties surrounding what they do after that are their problem.
I'm not sure such a narrow vote would have enough legitimacy to end a 300-year union. We've all seen how bitterly contested the 2016 vote was, despite a margin 20 times that size. I can imagine No campaigners looking for any dishonest pledge (and the SNP will doubtless make lots of them) or disputed ballots in a bid to get the result overturned in court.
While all that was going on, the Scottish economy would collapse as businesses flee to England and enough Yes voters would change their mind to overturn the result if another vote would be held. It would make the years 2016-9 look like a picnic.
Thresholds on turnout or a greater than 50% winning margin are pretty reasonable in themselves and used in other places.
Sadly, with the first ref not having either, I think it would be very hard to include them with a second (whenever that might be) without it looking like a fix.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
If 50.1% of the Scots vote to go then it's bye bye. The difficulties surrounding what they do after that are their problem.
I'm not sure such a narrow vote would have enough legitimacy to end a 300-year union. We've all seen how bitterly contested the 2016 vote was, despite a margin 20 times that size. I can imagine No campaigners looking for any dishonest pledge (and the SNP will doubtless make lots of them) or disputed ballots in a bid to get the result overturned in court.
While all that was going on, the Scottish economy would collapse as businesses flee to England and enough Yes voters would change their mind to overturn the result if another vote would be held. It would make the years 2016-9 look like a picnic.
Unfortunately yes. The huge risk in all of this is explicitly not that Scotland votes for independence, it's that it fails to do so and we are therefore stuck with their Nationalists for even longer than we're stuck with social distancing. It's all very depressing, really.
I don't think either way is a bed of roses. Still at least they're not blowing each other or us up unlike our real curse for so many years.
Cases (daily average) - week to 13/9/20 - 2838 Hospitalizations (daily average) 10 days later (week to 23/9) - 243
Fast forward
cases week to 28/5/21 - 2744 Hospitalizations (daily average) week to 7/6 - 108
Far fewer hospitalisations and, I would strongly imagine, involving patients that are (on average) less ill, in need of less care, and are leaving again after shorter stays.
Not that this makes the blindest bit of difference insofar as any of the individuals involved in making decisions about our ongoing privations are concerned.
This was talked about on the radio the other day.
Essentially we have half the hospitalisations per infection compared to Sept 2020.
Given we are doubling every 10 days then if we let things rip, even if we let things rip much faster as total relaxation would lead to, then we are very very rapidly going to get back to the NHS collapsing.
Assuming it followed the same trajectory. Given the number of double vaccinated people in vulnerable groups, that seems a very bold assumption.
We are following that trajectory, so far.
More of Less podcast from memory, worth a listen.
Those are the key words.
Of course
So do you want to risk another 4months of lock down by relaxing too early, causing utter collapse in public confidence, or take another few weeks to take time to have confidence that you are not going to utterly destroy the economy by opening too soon?
It is almost inconceivable on the figures presented that there could be another lockdown. This isn’t a variant that leads to significant vaccine escape. So although it is running riot among those in vulnerable groups who have for whatever reason have declined the vaccine, and in younger groups who are yet to be jabbed, it’s going to run out of potential hosts quite quickly.
My concern is that I am seeing people arguing for further arbitrary extensions based on dubious models that have so far been consistently wrong, when all the actual data we have points to a much lower peak.
And finally, if it really is that virulent among children there is very little point keeping everything else shuttered and schools open, as it will spread there anyway. And I don’t think one school in Bedford apart anyone is proposing that.
So a postponement would seem pretty pointless from an epidemiological point of view.
Anyway, I am off to bed. Have a good evening.
Except the trajectory is exactly the same as last Sept.
Except those people who get paid to worry about my wife getting the operation she desperately needs are worried.
If you are wrong, the economy is tanked, hundreds of thousands suffer pain through there being no NHS and many will die.
If the experts are wrong we have another 4 weeks of minor lockdown that the vast majority of the population will happily accept.
You sort of forget to mention the number of businesses and jobs that the extra four weeks will make goto the wall. Its not just lockdown with no side effects
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
If 50.1% of the Scots vote to go then it's bye bye. The difficulties surrounding what they do after that are their problem.
I'm not sure such a narrow vote would have enough legitimacy to end a 300-year union. We've all seen how bitterly contested the 2016 vote was, despite a margin 20 times that size. I can imagine No campaigners looking for any dishonest pledge (and the SNP will doubtless make lots of them) or disputed ballots in a bid to get the result overturned in court.
While all that was going on, the Scottish economy would collapse as businesses flee to England and enough Yes voters would change their mind to overturn the result if another vote would be held. It would make the years 2016-9 look like a picnic.
Thresholds on turnout or a greater than 50% winning margin are pretty reasonable in themselves and used in other places.
Sadly, with the first ref not having either, I think it would be very hard to include them with a second (whenever that might be) without it looking like a fix.
Or could do what we did in the '79 referendum on devolution and insist on 40% of the electorate supporting it, which if there is a turnover of <80% might frustrate a narrow Yes vote.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
It seems like their main priority was to prove Trump wrong. That seems like a petty way to do things. You should always go where the facts lead, even if they prove your biggest opponents right.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
We can hardly 'let them go' if it is around 50/50 give or take, and thus opinion is very much divided and any outcome massively unpopular with large numbers. I expect both to leave, in time, but it's not a casual or easy prospect.
If 50.1% of the Scots vote to go then it's bye bye. The difficulties surrounding what they do after that are their problem.
Absolutely agree. They got locked into this Imperial Britain thing without anything as democratic as a vote like that 50.1% saying out is more than enough for Scoxit to mean Scoxit.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
I’m mad? 😶 Because the crazy conspiracy theory is fracking obvious, and I’m crazy not to believe it is?
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
Right. Ok. But the last time we exchanged on this you advanced the following as strong evidence that the natural origin was unlikely - that China had absolutely and genuinely busted a gut trying to find animal zero and had come up empty handed.
So, my question - if they know it leaked from a lab why would they be doing that? They'd know it was futile.
It would have been quite suspicious had they not looked.
But if they were only pretending to look, it can't then be advanced as evidence against the natural origin that they failed to find anything.
See the problem?
Why not?
Because not finding something you are not looking for is hardly evidence it's not there.
A search has to be real for its failure to be meaningful.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
The length of restrictions appears to be expanding exponentially...late last week it was 2 weeks, yesterday 4 weeks, now a year....
The length of restrictions is inversely proportional to the seriousness of the situation.
The Government might see it in their interests to "overbrief" the length of restrictions to allow them to sweeten the pill when they come in shorter. But with the advantage that they've laid the groundwork should they implement further extensions.
Boris has not said much, having spent the last couple of days at the seaside. That might, as you suggest, be significant.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
I’m mad? 😶
Yes you are
Thanks for that. Resident Pagan.
Shrugs just an assessment based on your how dare we vaccinate people under x age when sub saharan africa etc....the major cause of death if sub saharan africa isnt covid its sub saharan africans gleefully chopping up each other
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: Government advisers have told ministers they will face a ticking clock before it becomes too late to lift the remaining restrictions in September
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
Right. Ok. But the last time we exchanged on this you advanced the following as strong evidence that the natural origin was unlikely - that China had absolutely and genuinely busted a gut trying to find animal zero and had come up empty handed.
So, my question - if they know it leaked from a lab why would they be doing that? They'd know it was futile.
It would have been quite suspicious had they not looked.
But if they were only pretending to look, it can't then be advanced as evidence against the natural origin that they failed to find anything.
See the problem?
Why not?
Because not finding something you are not looking for is hardly evidence it's not there.
A search has to be real for its failure to be meaningful.
Unless the search wasn't real because they know that it came from a lab in the first place
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
The answer is 3, and join the dots on the cover up.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: Government advisers have told ministers they will face a ticking clock before it becomes too late to lift the remaining restrictions in September
"The majority of the public back delaying the end of legal restrictions on social contact in the wake of rising cases of a more transmissible Covid variant, according to a new poll.
With Boris Johnson poised to announce a delay to his plan to remove the remaining restrictions on 21 June, an Opinium poll for the Observer found that 54% think the move should be postponed, up from 43% from a fortnight ago.
It suggests that the public is taking a cautious view following the emergence of the Delta variant, first detected in India and thought to be 60% more transmissible than the variant previously dominant in the UK. The proportion of people who thought Johnson should push ahead with the unlocking has fallen from 44% a fortnight ago to 37% this week."
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
It seems like their main priority was to prove Trump wrong. That seems like a petty way to do things. You should always go where the facts lead, even if they prove your biggest opponents right.
Yep. It seems many politicians, pundits, persuaders, etc, were absolutely desperate to prevent Trump winning (and after the storming of the Capitol, you can see their point). Along comes this lab leak theory, which Trump avows, and they use it to discredit him - just more of his madness. They don't know any better, but it fits with his usual lunacy, so it must be more bollocks.
Meanwhile, a bunch of scientists and science journalists are quietly thinking Shit, this really could have come from the lab, AND it's a lab where we funded gain-of-function research, fffffuck, this could be on us
Fauci summons a secretive meeting (this happened on Jan 31, 2020, we know the details) and a plan is hatched: squash any mention of the lab leak hypothesis, and use its association with Trump to do it. Some are sent out to write dubious papers for Nature (eg K G Anderson, the guy who recently deleted half his tweets then disappeared entirely) others are told to steer opinion by a letter to the Lancet - eg Peter Wuhan Daszak, who then lied about having !no conflict of interest" and hid his relationship with Wuhan
The plan is super successful. The hypothesis is dismissed - even by clever analytical people - as a piece of racist Trumpite nonsense. And for a year the world suffers in ignorance, until the wall of silence breaks
I'm 98% certain that's what happened, in terms of the conspiracy. This does not prove it came from the lab, however
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
I’m mad? 😶
Yes you are
Thanks for that. Resident Pagan.
Shrugs just an assessment based on your how dare we vaccinate people under x age when sub saharan africa etc....the major cause of death if sub saharan africa isnt covid its sub saharan africans gleefully chopping up each other
I don’t think I put it as emotionally as “how dare we” only asked an ethical question of “ Where would you draw the line where you would then share stock pile? Are the 12yr olds in this country facing death like the adults in Africa? Are the 12yr olds without vaccine preventing opening up? Can we not now attempt both at same time?
And despite this blog being a hotbed of forthright opinion no one gave a clear answer to that, would you like to give one now?
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
I’m mad? 😶
Yes you are
Thanks for that. Resident Pagan.
Shrugs just an assessment based on your how dare we vaccinate people under x age when sub saharan africa etc....the major cause of death if sub saharan africa isnt covid its sub saharan africans gleefully chopping up each other
I don’t think I put it as emotionally as “how dare we” only asked a ethical question of “ Where would you draw the line where you would then share stock pile? Are the 12yr olds in this country facing death like the adults in Africa? Are the 12yr olds without vaccine preventing opening up? Can we not now attempt both at same time?
And despite this blog being a hotbed of forthright opinion no one gave a clear answer to that, would you like to give one now?
Forthright answer not a single vaccination is given away till everyone that needs a vaccination here has one
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: Government advisers have told ministers they will face a ticking clock before it becomes too late to lift the remaining restrictions in September
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
Very few of us are tories, people voting tory as you are at frequent pains to point out doesn't make them a tory most people I think really dont care about losing NI certainly and to a lesser extent scotland. You few true tories are in a minority
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
It seems like their main priority was to prove Trump wrong. That seems like a petty way to do things. You should always go where the facts lead, even if they prove your biggest opponents right.
Yep. It seems many politicians, pundits, persuaders, etc, were absolutely desperate to prevent Trump winning (and after the storming of the Capitol, you can see their point). Along comes this lab leak theory, which Trump avows, and they use it to discredit him - just more of his madness. They don't know any better, but it fits with his usual lunacy, so it must be more bollocks.
Meanwhile, a bunch of scientists and science journalists are quietly thinking Shit, this really could have come from the lab, AND it's a lab where we funded gain-of-function research, fffffuck, this could be on us
Fauci summons a secretive meeting (this happened on Jan 31, 2020, we know the details) and a plan is hatched: squash any mention of the lab leak hypothesis, and use its association with Trump to do it. Some are sent out to write dubious papers for Nature (eg K G Anderson, the guy who recently deleted half his tweets then disappeared entirely) others are told to steer opinion by a letter to the Lancet - eg Peter Wuhan Daszak, who then lied about having !no conflict of interest" and hid his relationship with Wuhan
The plan is super successful. The hypothesis is dismissed - even by clever analytical people - as a piece of racist Trumpite nonsense. And for a year the world suffers in ignorance, until the wall of silence breaks
I'm 98% certain that's what happened, in terms of the conspiracy. This does not prove it came from the lab, however
The conflict of interest stuff is the pointer. If they're mutually funded, no way they don't know what's happening. None.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Give in to Sinn Fein and the SNP, never!!
Those "proud patriots" were willing to risk Corbyn as PM if we didn't pay them £1 billion.
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: Government advisers have told ministers they will face a ticking clock before it becomes too late to lift the remaining restrictions in September
Another winter of some restrictions is so nailed on, we should call it Easter
I really dont get it the position is
Vaccines work so we can unlock
or
Vaccines dont work so if we unlock people will die but we cant afford to stay locked down so we unlock
Why do you think this is binary?
Well because it is....vaccines work or they dont. If they dont work to suppress covid the choice is continuous lock downs or saying live with it and we cant do continuous lockdowns.
What is your third option.....vaccines dont suppress covid but .... fill in the blank
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
Very few of us are tories, people voting tory as you are at frequent pains to point out doesn't make them a tory most people I think really dont care about losing NI certainly and to a lesser extent scotland. You few true tories are in a minority
We Tories govern the country with a majority and we will decide until 2024, hence Boris has correctly said he will not allow a legal indyref2 for the rest of this parliament as Scots voted to stay in the UK in the once in a generation 2014 referendum and he is now also making efforts to remove the Irish Sea border.
"The majority of the public back delaying the end of legal restrictions on social contact in the wake of rising cases of a more transmissible Covid variant, according to a new poll.
With Boris Johnson poised to announce a delay to his plan to remove the remaining restrictions on 21 June, an Opinium poll for the Observer found that 54% think the move should be postponed, up from 43% from a fortnight ago.
It suggests that the public is taking a cautious view following the emergence of the Delta variant, first detected in India and thought to be 60% more transmissible than the variant previously dominant in the UK. The proportion of people who thought Johnson should push ahead with the unlocking has fallen from 44% a fortnight ago to 37% this week."
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Give in to Sinn Fein and the SNP, never!!
Those "proud patriots" were willing to risk Corbyn as PM if we didn't pay them £1 billion.
No they weren't, the DUP made clear they would not support Corbyn due to his SF links.
The fact they tried to maximise the best deal from the Tories in 2017 when they needed the DUP to stay in power does not change that
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: Government advisers have told ministers they will face a ticking clock before it becomes too late to lift the remaining restrictions in September
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
Very few of us are tories, people voting tory as you are at frequent pains to point out doesn't make them a tory most people I think really dont care about losing NI certainly and to a lesser extent scotland. You few true tories are in a minority
We Tories govern the country with a majority and we will decide until 2024, hence Boris has correctly said he will not allow a legal indyref2 for the rest of this parliament as Scots voted to stay in the UK in the once in a generation 2014 referendum and he is now also making efforts to remove the Irish Sea border.
Nope actually you probably dont because a lot of us are going to say fuck off and refuse consent to lock downs so you lost the country when enough of us do just like when people rioted over poll tax. Your mistake is you forget you only govern when you have consent to be governed and more and more people refuse to listen to your bullshit
Grateful to.know that the Tories are fighting all this woke shittery.
How the Tories weaponised woke Ministers are wading into debates over trans rights, taking the knee and cricketers’ tweets. It’s all part of a vote-winning plot masterminded by Dougie Smith, the most powerful man in politics you’ve never heard of
I think we sort of knew the Tories had weaponised woke (or anti-woke) even if we'd not heard of Dougie Smith.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
I'm sure @HYUFD has some preliminary thoughts on the matter.
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: Government advisers have told ministers they will face a ticking clock before it becomes too late to lift the remaining restrictions in September
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
It seems like their main priority was to prove Trump wrong. That seems like a petty way to do things. You should always go where the facts lead, even if they prove your biggest opponents right.
Yep. It seems many politicians, pundits, persuaders, etc, were absolutely desperate to prevent Trump winning (and after the storming of the Capitol, you can see their point). Along comes this lab leak theory, which Trump avows, and they use it to discredit him - just more of his madness. They don't know any better, but it fits with his usual lunacy, so it must be more bollocks.
Meanwhile, a bunch of scientists and science journalists are quietly thinking Shit, this really could have come from the lab, AND it's a lab where we funded gain-of-function research, fffffuck, this could be on us
Fauci summons a secretive meeting (this happened on Jan 31, 2020, we know the details) and a plan is hatched: squash any mention of the lab leak hypothesis, and use its association with Trump to do it. Some are sent out to write dubious papers for Nature (eg K G Anderson, the guy who recently deleted half his tweets then disappeared entirely) others are told to steer opinion by a letter to the Lancet - eg Peter Wuhan Daszak, who then lied about having !no conflict of interest" and hid his relationship with Wuhan
The plan is super successful. The hypothesis is dismissed - even by clever analytical people - as a piece of racist Trumpite nonsense. And for a year the world suffers in ignorance, until the wall of silence breaks
I'm 98% certain that's what happened, in terms of the conspiracy. This does not prove it came from the lab, however
The conflict of interest stuff is the pointer. If they're mutually funded, no way they don't know what's happening. None.
On January 31st 2020, virologist K G Andersen did his first examination of the virus for Fauci, and reported that it "could potentially be engineered", The email to Fauci was obtained by FOIA
“…Eddie, Bob, Mike and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
I'm sure @HYUFD has some preliminary thoughts on the matter.
Hyufd wont be marching on france he will expect the proles to do that while he sits at home safe in his leafy borough and he will surprised when we stick two fingers up to him and go you want to invade well go ahead we will watch
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
Very few of us are tories, people voting tory as you are at frequent pains to point out doesn't make them a tory most people I think really dont care about losing NI certainly and to a lesser extent scotland. You few true tories are in a minority
We Tories govern the country with a majority and we will decide until 2024, hence Boris has correctly said he will not allow a legal indyref2 for the rest of this parliament as Scots voted to stay in the UK in the once in a generation 2014 referendum and he is now also making efforts to remove the Irish Sea border.
Nope actually you probably dont because a lot of us are going to say fuck off and refuse consent to lock downs so you lost the country when enough of us do just like when people rioted over poll tax. Your mistake is you forget you only govern when you have consent to be governed and more and more people refuse to listen to your bullshit
You can do what you want, the Tories are still in power and they will decide. If restrictions are extended for a bit longer it will be with the support of most of the public anyway as tonight's polling shows. The poll tax may have been dumped when Major replaced Thatcher in 1990 but the Tories stayed in power another 7 years.
Once you have won a majority in a general election you have a mandate to govern until the next election given by the governed and it does not matter how unpopular you are you remain in power, as the Major government did from 1992 to 1997 no matter how unpopular it became.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
It seems like their main priority was to prove Trump wrong. That seems like a petty way to do things. You should always go where the facts lead, even if they prove your biggest opponents right.
Yep. It seems many politicians, pundits, persuaders, etc, were absolutely desperate to prevent Trump winning (and after the storming of the Capitol, you can see their point). Along comes this lab leak theory, which Trump avows, and they use it to discredit him - just more of his madness. They don't know any better, but it fits with his usual lunacy, so it must be more bollocks.
Meanwhile, a bunch of scientists and science journalists are quietly thinking Shit, this really could have come from the lab, AND it's a lab where we funded gain-of-function research, fffffuck, this could be on us
Fauci summons a secretive meeting (this happened on Jan 31, 2020, we know the details) and a plan is hatched: squash any mention of the lab leak hypothesis, and use its association with Trump to do it. Some are sent out to write dubious papers for Nature (eg K G Anderson, the guy who recently deleted half his tweets then disappeared entirely) others are told to steer opinion by a letter to the Lancet - eg Peter Wuhan Daszak, who then lied about having !no conflict of interest" and hid his relationship with Wuhan
The plan is super successful. The hypothesis is dismissed - even by clever analytical people - as a piece of racist Trumpite nonsense. And for a year the world suffers in ignorance, until the wall of silence breaks
I'm 98% certain that's what happened, in terms of the conspiracy. This does not prove it came from the lab, however
The conflict of interest stuff is the pointer. If they're mutually funded, no way they don't know what's happening. None.
On January 31st 2020, virologist K G Andersen did his first examination of the virus for Fauci, and reported that it "could potentially be engineered", The email to Fauci was obtained by FOIA
“…Eddie, Bob, Mike and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
Very few of us are tories, people voting tory as you are at frequent pains to point out doesn't make them a tory most people I think really dont care about losing NI certainly and to a lesser extent scotland. You few true tories are in a minority
We Tories govern the country with a majority and we will decide until 2024, hence Boris has correctly said he will not allow a legal indyref2 for the rest of this parliament as Scots voted to stay in the UK in the once in a generation 2014 referendum and he is now also making efforts to remove the Irish Sea border.
Nope actually you probably dont because a lot of us are going to say fuck off and refuse consent to lock downs so you lost the country when enough of us do just like when people rioted over poll tax. Your mistake is you forget you only govern when you have consent to be governed and more and more people refuse to listen to your bullshit
You can do what you want, the Tories are still in power and they will decide. If restrictions are extended for a bit longer it will be with the support of most of the public anyway as tonight's polling shows. The poll tax may have been dumped when Major replaced Thatcher in 1990 but the Tories stayed in power another 7 years.
Once you have won a majority in a general election you have a mandate to govern until the next election given by the governed and it does not matter how unpopular you are you remain in power, as the Major government did from 1992 to 1997 no matter how unpopular it became.
See your mistake is thinking polling support is real support. The poll tax had polling support but when people took to the streets those people didnt come out to support the police or governement and poll tax went away because you lost enough consent. Doesnt take a majority just takes enough to refuse consent to your decrees
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Give in to Sinn Fein and the SNP, never!!
Those "proud patriots" were willing to risk Corbyn as PM if we didn't pay them £1 billion.
No they weren't, the DUP made clear they would not support Corbyn due to his SF links.
The fact they tried to maximise the best deal from the Tories in 2017 when they needed the DUP to stay in power does not change that
They wouldn't support him, but still demanded extra cash for their support, without which he might well have become PM.
In addition to the £12 billion they get each year from the UK Treasury - that's £5,000 each.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
It seems like their main priority was to prove Trump wrong. That seems like a petty way to do things. You should always go where the facts lead, even if they prove your biggest opponents right.
Yep. It seems many politicians, pundits, persuaders, etc, were absolutely desperate to prevent Trump winning (and after the storming of the Capitol, you can see their point). Along comes this lab leak theory, which Trump avows, and they use it to discredit him - just more of his madness. They don't know any better, but it fits with his usual lunacy, so it must be more bollocks.
Meanwhile, a bunch of scientists and science journalists are quietly thinking Shit, this really could have come from the lab, AND it's a lab where we funded gain-of-function research, fffffuck, this could be on us
Fauci summons a secretive meeting (this happened on Jan 31, 2020, we know the details) and a plan is hatched: squash any mention of the lab leak hypothesis, and use its association with Trump to do it. Some are sent out to write dubious papers for Nature (eg K G Anderson, the guy who recently deleted half his tweets then disappeared entirely) others are told to steer opinion by a letter to the Lancet - eg Peter Wuhan Daszak, who then lied about having !no conflict of interest" and hid his relationship with Wuhan
The plan is super successful. The hypothesis is dismissed - even by clever analytical people - as a piece of racist Trumpite nonsense. And for a year the world suffers in ignorance, until the wall of silence breaks
I'm 98% certain that's what happened, in terms of the conspiracy. This does not prove it came from the lab, however
The conflict of interest stuff is the pointer. If they're mutually funded, no way they don't know what's happening. None.
On January 31st 2020, virologist K G Andersen did his first examination of the virus for Fauci, and reported that it "could potentially be engineered", The email to Fauci was obtained by FOIA
“…Eddie, Bob, Mike and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”
it will be the cover up, and failure thereof, that gets the truth out
Yes, we will possibly - probably - never know if it came from the lab, not for sure. China will never allow a definitive inquiry
However, we already know there was a cover-up in America (and Britain, to a lesser extent). The evidence is inarguable. So it is certain that well-informed people in the west were extremely concerned it might have come from the lab, otherwise they would not have reacted in this bizarre, secretive, conspiratorial way
Grateful to.know that the Tories are fighting all this woke shittery.
How the Tories weaponised woke Ministers are wading into debates over trans rights, taking the knee and cricketers’ tweets. It’s all part of a vote-winning plot masterminded by Dougie Smith, the most powerful man in politics you’ve never heard of
I think we sort of knew the Tories had weaponised woke (or anti-woke) even if we'd not heard of Dougie Smith.
I'm old enough to remember the Tories weaponising divorce, racial equality, single mothers, equal pay, abortion, dance music and homosexuality. It's great up until the point when it looks utterly ridiculous. Also. It isn't a "plot". It's a successful way of vote harvesting for now. My children's generation find much of it incomprehensible.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
I’m mad? 😶
Yes you are
Thanks for that. Resident Pagan.
Shrugs just an assessment based on your how dare we vaccinate people under x age when sub saharan africa etc....the major cause of death if sub saharan africa isnt covid its sub saharan africans gleefully chopping up each other
I don’t think I put it as emotionally as “how dare we” only asked a ethical question of “ Where would you draw the line where you would then share stock pile? Are the 12yr olds in this country facing death like the adults in Africa? Are the 12yr olds without vaccine preventing opening up? Can we not now attempt both at same time?
And despite this blog being a hotbed of forthright opinion no one gave a clear answer to that, would you like to give one now?
Forthright answer not a single vaccination is given away till everyone that needs a vaccination here has one
That is a complete non answer! Where do you draw the line “till everyone that needs a vaccination has one”. Before or after 12 year olds?
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
Very few of us are tories, people voting tory as you are at frequent pains to point out doesn't make them a tory most people I think really dont care about losing NI certainly and to a lesser extent scotland. You few true tories are in a minority
We Tories govern the country with a majority and we will decide until 2024, hence Boris has correctly said he will not allow a legal indyref2 for the rest of this parliament as Scots voted to stay in the UK in the once in a generation 2014 referendum and he is now also making efforts to remove the Irish Sea border.
Nope actually you probably dont because a lot of us are going to say fuck off and refuse consent to lock downs so you lost the country when enough of us do just like when people rioted over poll tax. Your mistake is you forget you only govern when you have consent to be governed and more and more people refuse to listen to your bullshit
You can do what you want, the Tories are still in power and they will decide. If restrictions are extended for a bit longer it will be with the support of most of the public anyway as tonight's polling shows. The poll tax may have been dumped when Major replaced Thatcher in 1990 but the Tories stayed in power another 7 years.
Once you have won a majority in a general election you have a mandate to govern until the next election given by the governed and it does not matter how unpopular you are you remain in power, as the Major government did from 1992 to 1997 no matter how unpopular it became.
I'm not sure the run up to 1997 is a model you really want to emulate. But, if you must please do.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
In a strange way I feel like we are making progress on this, separating a possible “meh, so what” outcome to finding the source, from the “cover up of something dark and dangerous that will have massive repercussions” outcome.
No one can attempt to reason without objectivity - we now have the objectivity. Do we really have to believe every insane internet driven conspiracy theory, people shout we are mad not to believe? They actually believe their media literacy skills being able to identify information and misinformation better than us?
Rather sinister how this influences and recruits, is it not? To the line governments hiding evidence, undermining trust in authority, undermining trust in politicians, or at least you CAN trust the politicians and others who support the conspiracy theory. I suppose?
I would say there is “dystopian future” airport novel this leads to, except for the nagging thought these techniques probably been going on for a long time...
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
I’m mad? 😶
Yes you are
Thanks for that. Resident Pagan.
Shrugs just an assessment based on your how dare we vaccinate people under x age when sub saharan africa etc....the major cause of death if sub saharan africa isnt covid its sub saharan africans gleefully chopping up each other
I don’t think I put it as emotionally as “how dare we” only asked a ethical question of “ Where would you draw the line where you would then share stock pile? Are the 12yr olds in this country facing death like the adults in Africa? Are the 12yr olds without vaccine preventing opening up? Can we not now attempt both at same time?
And despite this blog being a hotbed of forthright opinion no one gave a clear answer to that, would you like to give one now?
Forthright answer not a single vaccination is given away till everyone that needs a vaccination here has one
That is a complete non answer! Where do you draw the line “till everyone that needs a vaccination has one”. Before or after 12 year olds?
Well not being a scientist I am not drawing an age limit if they say all then the answer is all if the answer they give is everyone over 12 then the answer is 12. While we are locked down the economy is not working. Getting ours unlocked is primary that means we have money to spend on getting vaccines we can send elsewhere. In the meantime our governements job is to get a jab to all that scientifically need one and will accept one first. It is not in the least ambiguous
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
I’m mad? 😶
Yes you are
Thanks for that. Resident Pagan.
Shrugs just an assessment based on your how dare we vaccinate people under x age when sub saharan africa etc....the major cause of death if sub saharan africa isnt covid its sub saharan africans gleefully chopping up each other
I don’t think I put it as emotionally as “how dare we” only asked a ethical question of “ Where would you draw the line where you would then share stock pile? Are the 12yr olds in this country facing death like the adults in Africa? Are the 12yr olds without vaccine preventing opening up? Can we not now attempt both at same time?
And despite this blog being a hotbed of forthright opinion no one gave a clear answer to that, would you like to give one now?
Forthright answer not a single vaccination is given away till everyone that needs a vaccination here has one
That is a complete non answer! Where do you draw the line “till everyone that needs a vaccination has one”. Before or after 12 year olds?
Well not being a scientist I am not drawing an age limit if they say all then the answer is all if the answer they give is everyone over 12 then the answer is 12. While we are locked down the economy is not working. Getting ours unlocked is primary that means we have money to spend on getting vaccines we can send elsewhere. In the meantime our governements job is to get a jab to all that scientifically need one and will accept one first. It is not in the least ambiguous
So if scientists say minuscule risk not vaccinating under eighteens, to both their health and the ability to open up, you are quite happy to load what is left onto the plane to Africa.
Credit to you Pagan for actually answering, and answering well. We are learning who are the mature posters and who are not, this weekend.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
In a strange way I feel like we are making progress on this, separating a possible “meh, so what” outcome to finding the source, from the “cover up of something dark and dangerous that will have massive repercussions” outcome.
No one can attempt to reason without objectivity - we now have the objectivity. Do we really have to believe every insane internet driven conspiracy theory, people shout we are mad not to believe? They actually believe their media literacy skills being able to identify information and misinformation better than us?
Rather sinister how this influences and recruits, is it not? To the line governments hiding evidence, undermining trust in authority, undermining trust in politicians, or at least you CAN trust the politicians and others who support the conspiracy theory. I suppose?
I would say there is “dystopian future” airport novel this leads to, except for the nagging thought these techniques probably been going on for a long time...
How exactly did Fascist Germany come about?
The trouble with conspiracy theories is 1 in a 100 turn out to be correct. I remember rumours about Jimmy Saville when TOTP was in Manchester. It was treated the same as you can't get pregnant standing up. Most gave more credence to the latter than the former. We want to believe.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
If it’s proven. And the Chinese say yes, we agree with you, it leaked from a lab where research was supposed to be keeping everyone safe. Then what actually happens? Will they owe the world money? Does it actually matter at all really? We’ve all got labs like that, and accidents will happen.
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
That thought has struck me too. If it was an accidental leak from a benign project it changes little of importance.
If it is proved that this came from a lab, and the Chinese and the Anglophone elite tried to cover this up (the cover-up is already falling apart, see Amy Maxmen), then the ramifications are enormous in multiple ways. Especially when the Americans were quasi-covertly funding the Chinese: explicitly to do deeply controversial gain-of-function research to make "killer coronaviruses" - as Daszak himself admits here, in 2016
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
That’s not fair. You are moving the goalposts!
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
I’m mad? 😶
Yes you are
Thanks for that. Resident Pagan.
Shrugs just an assessment based on your how dare we vaccinate people under x age when sub saharan africa etc....the major cause of death if sub saharan africa isnt covid its sub saharan africans gleefully chopping up each other
I don’t think I put it as emotionally as “how dare we” only asked a ethical question of “ Where would you draw the line where you would then share stock pile? Are the 12yr olds in this country facing death like the adults in Africa? Are the 12yr olds without vaccine preventing opening up? Can we not now attempt both at same time?
And despite this blog being a hotbed of forthright opinion no one gave a clear answer to that, would you like to give one now?
Forthright answer not a single vaccination is given away till everyone that needs a vaccination here has one
That is a complete non answer! Where do you draw the line “till everyone that needs a vaccination has one”. Before or after 12 year olds?
Well not being a scientist I am not drawing an age limit if they say all then the answer is all if the answer they give is everyone over 12 then the answer is 12. While we are locked down the economy is not working. Getting ours unlocked is primary that means we have money to spend on getting vaccines we can send elsewhere. In the meantime our governements job is to get a jab to all that scientifically need one and will accept one first. It is not in the least ambiguous
So if scientists say minuscule risk not vaccinating under eighteens, to both their health and the ability to open up, you are quite happy to load what is left onto the plane to Africa.
Credit to you Pagan for actually answering, and answering well. We are learning who are the mature posters and who are not, this weekend.
Yes more or less what I am saying, vaccinate till we have limited risk to our citizens as much as possible and can unlock then we start sending vaccines abroad to poor countries first of all. I would say we do those that cant afford it in preference to those that can afford it but chose not to. So africa, some of asia first
That 55% of adults are double vaxxed and 55% polled say "don't loosen restrictions", tells me that a lot of people are very comfortable with life at the moment, and really don't appreciate or understand extent of the headwinds downstream...
This interview is a must-watch. Former MP Dr Richard Taylor is the perfect example of a supporter of Zero Covid and indefinite lockdowns. Starts at 18 mins 58 secs.
The evidence has to be both compatible with leak and incompatible with wild. Just the 1st isn't enough. And unfortunately you can't divorce messenger from message. Not so much you - although there is that - but with all the Trumpian loonies. I'm afraid their support does taint the object of it. There's no easy way around that. It saves so much time to assume everything they say is true is false. It's efficient to do that because it will be the case 99% of the time. But there will be that 1% and maybe this is it. I doubt it but that's all I'm doing. Doubting. Which is a big move. I'm no longer rejecting it out of hand - my efficient default for Trump tat - and I'm not mocking it. Looking forward to being able to mock it again one day but I realize that day might never arrive. Could be permanent limbo on this one - which would not be great for anyone.
Actually it doesn't. It's possible for a virus of natural origin to be leaked from the lab. In fact by trying to prove that the virus has artificial origin in order to support a lab leak theory, people actually undermine the possibility of a lab leak. It is highly unlikely that the virus has an artificial origin, while the leak of a naturally occurring virus from a lab in Wuhan is plausible. The evidence for the latter is circumstantial however.
Yes, quite
But to make it clear, there are now four hypotheses, and here's the probability I give to them:
1. Natural Zoonosis - the trad "wet market" theory - 20%
2. Accidental but natural "lab leak" - a worker gets bitten in Yunnan, bat blood is spilled in a Wuhan lab - 60%
3. Accidental lab leak of an altered virus - a spillage means a gain-of-function bug escapes into the world - 19.9%
4. Deliberate leak of a bioweapon - 0.1%
And for 2 and 3 - if true - what is the chance the Chinese government know as opposed to don't know?
For 4 it's obviously 100% vs 0%.
Tricky, but in both cases I'd say it's highly likely the Chinese government knows, and also that they knew quite early on
The evidence that they know now is the enormous cover-up, the policing of the mine, the destruction of the Wuhan database, the lies about the viruses they studied, the lies about early infections, the obsession with crushing the lab leak hypothesis, the death or disappearance of so many crucial witnesses, the refusal to allow any external inquiry, the use of manipulative figures like Daszak, and so and so on
The evidence they knew early on is less overwhelming, but still fairly impressive: the extremely early vaccine proposals, the suppression of dissenting voices from the start, and - most of all - the amazingly successful Chinese reaction to the virus, once they locked down Hubei
This is a nation of 1.4bn people, the cradle of a terrible pathogen, and only 4000 died, unlike 4 million around the world? Really?
Maybe it's true, and their stats don't lie, and they just did a brilliant job. Why and how? - because they knew early on what they were dealing with: because their scientists studied it or even created it in the lab
They would have done a good job anyway. Remember this virus is SARS - a mutant thereof (whatever may have caused the mutation) but still SARS. If someone here knows Mandarin they can confirm whether or not this is obvious from the words used by officials and "influencers". (Note to pedants: yes, SARS denotes a syndrome as does Covid-19 but it also denotes the virus in both its CoV1 and CoV2 forms.) "SARS is back - stay indoors". Or a message to local officials: "SARS is back - get your welding equipment out." Bang. Near-total lockdown. Death rates with Covid-19 per 1 million population: China ~3; USA ~1800.
Comments
You seem to be getting excited. But even if you are right, the conspiracy fun will be cold stone dead, with a big - so what?
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
And hiding in my house. But only until the football is over at 4pm
Then I'm going to a pub. With a mask
It is truly a mystery.
Work colleague went home to visit family and then was locked down for 3 months. And as you say, an actual lockdown, not the "you can leave your house whenever you like" UK version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Craze
Perhaps this is the answer, to cover all bases: the Chinese strongly suspect it came from the lab - hence all my points - but they do not know for sure. Obviously they REALLY want to prove it came from the market, even if that is pretty unlikely, thus their Stakhanovite but fruitless efforts to locate Pangolin Zero
That makes sense to me
An alternative explanation would be that one part of the Chinese government - the military? - knows it came from the lab but they are keeping it secret from others. So the reaction appears schizophrenic
Third explanation: they know it came from the lab and the entire hunt for animal vectors is a sham and a decoy
One thing we had far too much of in the 2017-19 parliament was MPs briefing about how unhappy they were (mostly on the Labour side, May's critics were definitely in the open) but never actually acting (bar the brave Change MPs and a few others)
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
See the problem?
With the coming of COVID it morphed into the fist bump. Itself something of a tribute to the Funky Chicken?
My point was that it is a choice they need to make, not something England and Wales can decide to 'let' them do. And no, letting them go does not mean people who want to retain the union should just stop trying to persuade them.
A pop-up Covid vaccine clinic in Sheffield reached capacity shortly after opening - prompting officials to ask people not to attend. The clinic initially had 500 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine available, and managed to secure a further 200.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-57452871
FFS....we have over 6 million sodding doses blocking up a warehouse. Sid has now having to ask the neighbours if he can store some in their fridges....Rather than 700, they could have been doing 7000.
While all that was going on, the Scottish economy would collapse as businesses flee to England and enough Yes voters would change their mind to overturn the result if another vote would be held. It would make the years 2016-9 look like a picnic.
https://twitter.com/Joes_Gaffes/status/1403825543213109253?s=20
You think the world will shrug and say "Meh, shit happens"? Probably ten million have died already
It will impact science, medicine, global politics, for a generation. eg do you think India, which has lost so much, will blithely accept all this without a demand for revenge or reparations from China, and perhaps the USA?
Insane
Sadly, with the first ref not having either, I think it would be very hard to include them with a second (whenever that might be) without it looking like a fix.
Is this simply about finding the source of Covid outbreak? To which the answer is Meh, shit happens. Without any insanity.
Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?
The two things are completely different. You understand? One is real. The other just an insane internet conspiracy theory.
Yes, this:
"Or is this actually about a conspiracy to cover up a dark and dangerous truth about what was really going on, with all sorts of strange bedfellows, up to some no good that they must now hide?"
This is actually what happened. It is fricking obvious. I don't expect to persuade you because you are mad, but if you want to educate yerself, read my many many links on this, passim. I can't be arsed to post them all again
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/12/theresa-may-would-excellent-candidate-lead-nato-defence-secretary/
A search has to be real for its failure to be meaningful.
Vaccines work so we can unlock
or
Vaccines dont work so if we unlock people will die but we cant afford to stay locked down so we unlock
Grateful to.know that the Tories are fighting all this woke shittery.
With Boris Johnson poised to announce a delay to his plan to remove the remaining restrictions on 21 June, an Opinium poll for the Observer found that 54% think the move should be postponed, up from 43% from a fortnight ago.
It suggests that the public is taking a cautious view following the emergence of the Delta variant, first detected in India and thought to be 60% more transmissible than the variant previously dominant in the UK. The proportion of people who thought Johnson should push ahead with the unlocking has fallen from 44% a fortnight ago to 37% this week."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/12/delay-ending-lockdown-majority-of-public-back-boris-johnson
Meanwhile, a bunch of scientists and science journalists are quietly thinking Shit, this really could have come from the lab, AND it's a lab where we funded gain-of-function research, fffffuck, this could be on us
Fauci summons a secretive meeting (this happened on Jan 31, 2020, we know the details) and a plan is hatched: squash any mention of the lab leak hypothesis, and use its association with Trump to do it. Some are sent out to write dubious papers for Nature (eg K G Anderson, the guy who recently deleted half his tweets then disappeared entirely) others are told to steer opinion by a letter to the Lancet - eg Peter Wuhan Daszak, who then lied about having !no conflict of interest" and hid his relationship with Wuhan
The plan is super successful. The hypothesis is dismissed - even by clever analytical people - as a piece of racist Trumpite nonsense. And for a year the world suffers in ignorance, until the wall of silence breaks
I'm 98% certain that's what happened, in terms of the conspiracy. This does not prove it came from the lab, however
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Give in to Sinn Fein and the SNP, never!!
And despite this blog being a hotbed of forthright opinion no one gave a clear answer to that, would you like to give one now?
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
What is your third option.....vaccines dont suppress covid but .... fill in the blank
The fact they tried to maximise the best deal from the Tories in 2017 when they needed the DUP to stay in power does not change that
Ministers are wading into debates over trans rights, taking the knee and cricketers’ tweets. It’s all part of a vote-winning plot masterminded by Dougie Smith, the most powerful man in politics you’ve never heard of
I think we sort of knew the Tories had weaponised woke (or anti-woke) even if we'd not heard of Dougie Smith.
“…Eddie, Bob, Mike and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”
https://twitter.com/JamesCTobias/status/1399811395043004418?s=20
Yes, they knew
Once you have won a majority in a general election you have a mandate to govern until the next election given by the governed and it does not matter how unpopular you are you remain in power, as the Major government did from 1992 to 1997 no matter how unpopular it became.
it will be the cover up, and failure thereof, that gets the truth out
In addition to the £12 billion they get each year from the UK Treasury - that's £5,000 each.
However, we already know there was a cover-up in America (and Britain, to a lesser extent). The evidence is inarguable. So it is certain that well-informed people in the west were extremely concerned it might have come from the lab, otherwise they would not have reacted in this bizarre, secretive, conspiratorial way
It's great up until the point when it looks utterly ridiculous.
Also. It isn't a "plot". It's a successful way of vote harvesting for now.
My children's generation find much of it incomprehensible.
But, if you must please do.
No one can attempt to reason without objectivity - we now have the objectivity. Do we really have to believe every insane internet driven conspiracy theory, people shout we are mad not to believe? They actually believe their media literacy skills being able to identify information and misinformation better than us?
Rather sinister how this influences and recruits, is it not? To the line governments hiding evidence, undermining trust in authority, undermining trust in politicians, or at least you CAN trust the politicians and others who support the conspiracy theory. I suppose?
I would say there is “dystopian future” airport novel this leads to, except for the nagging thought these techniques probably been going on for a long time...
How exactly did Fascist Germany come about?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pm-urged-delay-freedom-day-24306928
Credit to you Pagan for actually answering, and answering well. We are learning who are the mature posters and who are not, this weekend.
It was treated the same as you can't get pregnant standing up.
Most gave more credence to the latter than the former. We want to believe.
How long did it take for the world to get to Zero Smallpox? Centuries.
Lockdown forever means the destruction of our economy and society.
We have to open up, learn to live with this disease and keep on vaccinating.
Or 100K half of which are in intensive care (because the vaccines have failed) ?
In Britain as late as early March you had idiots like Prince William mocking the whole idea of the spread of a killer virus. As late as mid-March, one guy who wore an N95 mask on a train in Britain and tried to stay distanced from fellow passengers got hassled by the Transport Police as if his actions marked him out as a possible dangerous loony.