There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
Ah, I see we are back to trusting journalists on Covid. There may have been a cover-up but that does not mean there was a lab leak.
Read the article. It is incontestable there was a cover up.
As for trusting journalists, Jeez. Everyone with an allergy to the lab leak hypothesis rushed to believe the recent bilge in the NYT pointing back to the market. Co-Author? The same Andersen who is now clearly implicated in the ongoing cover-up, as the article proves
And as for lab leak, this dangerous new bat coronavirus appeared in the only city in the world with an (unsafe) bio-lab investigating new bat coronaviruses so as to make them more dangerous
At some point, denying the obvious becomes embarrassingly futile
I don't know if there was or was not a lob leek, form the what has been presented including by @Leon it does look more likely than not, but as I am not an expert I will refrain form committing further.
What really Really really annoys me, Upsets me, is the way that any talk about the possibility was shut down so actively. I get that china would do that, that's what all authoritarian states do, but in the west, that should not have happened. it was by many people in may organisations, but the stand out one was Facebook, banning all such stories, as well as multiple other publications, even in some cases, putting bogus articles supposedly debunking, including but not limited to the Lancet, publishing and article form a chap who is paid by the Chines state but calming not to have any conflict of interest.
it probably needs phycologists to fully unpack what happened, but I think part of it was an attitudes of Trump is taking about a lab leek, and if people believe that it somehow might take trump of the hook for this, so we must debunk it. combined with a powerful and reinforced effort from Chinas publicity machine.
Whatever the reason its sad.
Indeed. We will probably never know 100% for sure
I’m 95% convinced it came from the lab. Occam’s razor alone is enough to get you that far
I don’t understand why some people are still so determined that lab leak is “impossible”. I mean, I get why some virologists might hate the lab leak theory, it’s a terrible stain on their science, but ordinary non scientific people also act like scalded cats when faced with the accumulating evidence
Is it still some fear of Trump? Peculiar
I definitely agree that we will never know for certain. But your 95% lab leak holds a second question. Which kind of lab leak? Just something that they had found in bats escaping the precautions? Or more sinister, something that had been engineered and then escaped? I would suspect the former, especially with my insight into safety in science facilities (it’s rarely as good as it should be. I know some horror stories out of Porton Down that I can only divulge at a pb meet). But it’s not impossible that someone has done something truly stupid and dangerous and it’s leaked. My instinct is always cock up over conspiracy. The frantic cover up by Fauci et al is the same as any big organisation covering up in the face of scrutiny, such as NHS trusts with excessive deaths in their maternity unit.
I don’t believe it was deliberately released. That’s quite extreme - why would anyone do that without a vaccine ready?
I can easily believe it was engineered to be nastier. And escaped. Because that’s exactly the science they were doing in Wuhan on coronaviruses. Engineering them to make them more virulent and dangerous to humans. Gain of function. It’s all proven and accepted. Tho, again, only proven because people made freedom of info requests and they HAD to release the emails
Ecohealth’s proposals for gain-of-function engineering at Wuhan got so crazily risky even the pretty gung-ho Fauci took fright and said no. At one point.
Ok, read that, thanks vm. Illuminating. It confirms something I've suspected - that in response to these monomaniac "TRAs" you have ended up radicalized and arguing a more hardline (and imo not completely rational) position than you otherwise would have been.
And the opposite happens too, I think. The 2 sides are stoking up each other.
Cheers and beers for now anyway.
No. I have always been against self-ID from the moment Maria Miller first suggested it several years ago. I have always been in favour of men respecting womens' boundaries.This is not either a radical or irrational position.
Pretty much all I have learnt about the trans issue has been from (a) a member of my family and (b) a male to female transgender friend, who takes my view on this rather than yours. She utterly loathes the TRAs and thinks they have done her cause a load of harm. Oh and some lesbian friends.
What has radicalised me is the level of violence and hatred and contempt shown for women: some things have got better during my lifetime but much has not and some has got worse. That plus what has been revealed about the levels of child abuse over decades in so very many institutions. Or look at how maternity services over years have been treated.
And there is a level of complacency and dismissal of it among far too many men, even otherwise very nice men (like you). So I make it my business to argue the female, feminist case after a lifetime's experience of having to endure far too much patronising condescension from inadequate men who - frankly - can kiss my arse.
But I will say that I very much enjoy my debates with you which help me think and refine and test my views, as all good debate does.
So cheers to you too.
And slainte!
For me, it's seeing JK Rowling and others getting threatened online with murder and rape by people who suffer from the delusion that they are "tolerant."
Last week's Newstatesman had Michael Sheen interviewing Blair. One thing that came out was that Labour basically only win when they talk - and I mean seriously bang on about - the future and provide some kind of project for the country.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
I thought it was definitely a lab leak, and probably an engineered virus.
Jokes aside, the latest evidence is almost certainly that it came from the wet market. Western scientists confirmed the swabs from the different stalls in the wet market tell a very cohesive story.
Perhaps, in the aftermath of this crisis, we can learn something from the Ukrainians. For decades now, we’ve been fighting a culture war between liberal values on the one hand and muscular forms of patriotism on the other. The Ukrainians are showing us a way to have both. As soon as the attacks began, they overcame their many political divisions, which are no less bitter than ours, and they picked up weapons to fight for their sovereignty and their democracy. They demonstrated that it is possible to be a patriot and a believer in an open society, that a democracy can be stronger and fiercer than its opponents. Precisely because there is no liberal world order, no norms and no rules, we must fight ferociously for the values and the hopes of liberalism if we want our open societies to continue to exist.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
Ah, I see we are back to trusting journalists on Covid. There may have been a cover-up but that does not mean there was a lab leak.
Read the article. It is incontestable there was a cover up.
As for trusting journalists, Jeez. Everyone with an allergy to the lab leak hypothesis rushed to believe the recent bilge in the NYT pointing back to the market. Co-Author? The same Andersen who is now clearly implicated in the ongoing cover-up, as the article proves
And as for lab leak, this dangerous new bat coronavirus appeared in the only city in the world with an (unsafe) bio-lab investigating new bat coronaviruses so as to make them more dangerous
At some point, denying the obvious becomes embarrassingly futile
I don't know if there was or was not a lob leek, form the what has been presented including by @Leon it does look more likely than not, but as I am not an expert I will refrain form committing further.
What really Really really annoys me, Upsets me, is the way that any talk about the possibility was shut down so actively. I get that china would do that, that's what all authoritarian states do, but in the west, that should not have happened. it was by many people in may organisations, but the stand out one was Facebook, banning all such stories, as well as multiple other publications, even in some cases, putting bogus articles supposedly debunking, including but not limited to the Lancet, publishing and article form a chap who is paid by the Chines state but calming not to have any conflict of interest.
it probably needs phycologists to fully unpack what happened, but I think part of it was an attitudes of Trump is taking about a lab leek, and if people believe that it somehow might take trump of the hook for this, so we must debunk it. combined with a powerful and reinforced effort from Chinas publicity machine.
Whatever the reason its sad.
One other reason for the cover-up (as diligently explained in that excellent article): it’s not just China in the dock here. America funded much of the craziest gain-of-function research (and british science joined in with the attempt to silence the debate)
I mean, at one point they were fucking around with viruses that have a fatality rate of 35%
Imagine if one of those had *escaped* from The Wuhan Centre for Pandemic Spreading
Yes, and I think Dr. Fauci is probably somewhat Culpable.
thought his long career Dr Fauci has been an advocate of 'gain of function' research. there may or may not be a compelling case to take the risk and do this sort of rescuers, but its undeniable which side of the debate Fauci was on. when he became chief medical advices, he a) changed the definition of 'Gain of function' research and b) funded research in china that looks like it could of counted as gain of function under the old definition. Maybe not, its complex, but its helpful to him for nobody to look to closely at the Lab Leek theory in case they stubble on to how close his pet project was to this Lab in question. or worse still if it was from the research he funded that COVID came.
Last week's Newstatesman had Michael Sheen interviewing Blair. One thing that came out was that Labour basically only win when they talk - and I mean seriously bang on about - the future and provide some kind of project for the country.
I just do not see Sir K doing that at moment.
It is all don't scare the horses.
What would a Labour project look like? Tackle inflation? Reduce generational inequality? Reform higher education funding? All require a lot of pain.
It’s completely different to “keep the economy going along nicely but improve public services”.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
And that for a year, discussing the possibility on major social media sites was verboten. The First Rule of Politics is, after all, Never believe anything until it's been officially denied.
Last week's Newstatesman had Michael Sheen interviewing Blair. One thing that came out was that Labour basically only win when they talk - and I mean seriously bang on about - the future and provide some kind of project for the country.
I just do not see Sir K doing that at moment.
It is all don't scare the horses.
My critique of Starmer and Labour is that apart from a windfall tax, which by the way would not go anywhere near replacing the NI increase they want to cancel, they have not said anything about the wage increases they would offer public sector including nurses and care workers nor the latest band waggon on increasing defence spending
Rishi's budget was hard on benefits rises (3.1%) and help on energy for the poorest in society, but I have only ever heard Starmer say on every subject he would spend more, lots more without any idea how to pay for it
To those Labour supporters I would just ask if they could name one action Labour would do that the public would not like but is in the interest of the country at this moment of great crisis
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
And that for a year, discussing the possibility on major social media sites was verboten. The First Rule of Politics is, after all, Never believe anything until it's been officially denied.
Hang on.
The lab leak vs natural theory has been discussed ad nauseum on here, and I have seen no shortage of articles on Facebook and Twitter.
My personal feel is that this is the wrong issue to castigate China over. If Oxford University was studying diseases and one escaped, I would be livid, but shit happens. Especially in Oxford.
The real thing that they are guilty of - to my mind, and which never gets discussed - is that they were aware of the virulence of the disease and were welding people in apartments, even as they were allowing international flights and assuring the world that all was fine.
The lab leak is a complete side show, to my mind, compared to the appalling culpability of their government in not coming clean early on.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
I thought it was definitely a lab leak, and probably an engineered virus.
Jokes aside, the latest evidence is almost certainly that it came from the wet market. Western scientists confirmed the swabs from the different stalls in the wet market tell a very cohesive story.
It’s nothing of the sort. That evidence is a non peer reviewed pre print which has been fiercely criticised and is directly contradicted by the Chinese themselves. Sorry
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
Last week's Newstatesman had Michael Sheen interviewing Blair. One thing that came out was that Labour basically only win when they talk - and I mean seriously bang on about - the future and provide some kind of project for the country.
I just do not see Sir K doing that at moment.
It is all don't scare the horses.
What would a Labour project look like? Tackle inflation? Reduce generational inequality? Reform higher education funding? All require a lot of pain.
It’s completely different to “keep the economy going along nicely but improve public services”.
There is a possibility that we are back to the post war consensus of labour and Tory not that different. Certainly in terms of tax the current government is right up there. Circs of course, but what would labour do? There is more that can be done on ‘unearned’ income for sure, but only so much, and we know that soaking the rich only goes so far, before they go too. And as we all know the rich are just people that earn more than you, even when you are on 80k or more. Personally I think funding the nhs and social care properly is needed and I think we need to look at private insurance models to top up basic care. There’s no doubt that many could afford this and should do it.
This feels like the rate of tanks destroyed per day is increasing. but I havet been keeping track so don't know for sure. there may be innocent reasons e.g. he has so many he is now prioritising Tanks. But, its still good to see.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
I thought it was definitely a lab leak, and probably an engineered virus.
Jokes aside, the latest evidence is almost certainly that it came from the wet market. Western scientists confirmed the swabs from the different stalls in the wet market tell a very cohesive story.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
I thought it was definitely a lab leak, and probably an engineered virus.
Jokes aside, the latest evidence is almost certainly that it came from the wet market. Western scientists confirmed the swabs from the different stalls in the wet market tell a very cohesive story.
It is perfectly possible, though, that a lab employee was bitten by a bat and then went shopping at the wet market.
Given how transmissible the disease is between mammals and humans, it's far from impossible that it got incubated and spread at the wet market.
Surely the likeliest scenario however is that the specimens at the lab were actually being sold in the wet market to make somebody at the said lab more money?
That would explain almost all the information we have.
Let's be fair - IF Labour won 312 seats at the next election that would be an incredible achievement and enough for them to govern even as a minority.
The problem is it becomes easy to view the future through the prism of the past - I'd argue this has been a Parliament unlike any other with extraordinary external events and challenges and applying normal rules of "swingback" and "mid term" may not be enough in a period of such unprecedented changes.
This is a neat way of saying I've no clue as to the outcome of the next GE - if you want to bet on it, feel free but I'll be keeping my cash to flush down the toilet, sorry, bet on three horses, on Saturday.
As an aside and maybe it's because I'm a Londoner but I think the significant local election could be Birmingham where all the city council seats are up for re-election. We are told the Midlands is the new Conservative heartland so it seems reasonable to suppose the Conservatives could cut back the 29 seat Labour majority.
It would be interesting if anyone in or around Birmingham could offer any thoughts as to whether Labour could lose 12 seats and therefore control of the council? I notice Smarkets haven't yet put up a market - is there an opportunity or is it too solid Labour for change?
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
I thought it was definitely a lab leak, and probably an engineered virus.
Jokes aside, the latest evidence is almost certainly that it came from the wet market. Western scientists confirmed the swabs from the different stalls in the wet market tell a very cohesive story.
It is perfectly possible, though, that a lab employee was bitten by a bat and then went shopping at the wet market.
Given how transmissible the disease is between mammals and humans, it's far from impossible that it got incubated and spread at the wet market.
The nearest site of the Wuhan bat labs (and one of the most insecure - BSL2) is 300 metres from the market
A highly plausible scenario is that it got out of that particular lab and quite quickly spread to the market - which then acted as a superspreader: a humid food market is a perfect place for infecting lots of people. Hence the early cluster
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
It was the obsessive denial by some that a lab leak was even a possibility which should have set the alarm bells going of anyone capable of independent thought.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
And that for a year, discussing the possibility on major social media sites was verboten. The First Rule of Politics is, after all, Never believe anything until it's been officially denied.
Hang on.
The lab leak vs natural theory has been discussed ad nauseum on here, and I have seen no shortage of articles on Facebook and Twitter.
My personal feel is that this is the wrong issue to castigate China over. If Oxford University was studying diseases and one escaped, I would be livid, but shit happens. Especially in Oxford.
The real thing that they are guilty of - to my mind, and which never gets discussed - is that they were aware of the virulence of the disease and were welding people in apartments, even as they were allowing international flights and assuring the world that all was fine.
The lab leak is a complete side show, to my mind, compared to the appalling culpability of their government in not coming clean early on.
But your last two paragraphs are certainly true - except that at the same time, they were distributing photos of people apparently dropping dead in the street, and Covid was never that scary.
Looking at the header, if there is one thing the polls agree on, it is that the Conservatives are on 35 per cent. There has been no dip after Rishi Sunak's allegedly disastrous not-budget, which is said to have dished his leadership chances. It might be that Rishi has been written off prematurely.
Last week's Newstatesman had Michael Sheen interviewing Blair. One thing that came out was that Labour basically only win when they talk - and I mean seriously bang on about - the future and provide some kind of project for the country.
I just do not see Sir K doing that at moment.
It is all don't scare the horses.
What would a Labour project look like? Tackle inflation? Reduce generational inequality? Reform higher education funding? All require a lot of pain.
It’s completely different to “keep the economy going along nicely but improve public services”.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
It was the obsessive denial by some that a lab leak was even a possibility which should have set the alarm bells going of anyone capable of independent thought.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
I thought it was definitely a lab leak, and probably an engineered virus.
Jokes aside, the latest evidence is almost certainly that it came from the wet market. Western scientists confirmed the swabs from the different stalls in the wet market tell a very cohesive story.
It is perfectly possible, though, that a lab employee was bitten by a bat and then went shopping at the wet market.
Given how transmissible the disease is between mammals and humans, it's far from impossible that it got incubated and spread at the wet market.
The nearest site of the Wuhan bat labs (and one of the most insecure - BSL2) is 300 metres from the market
A highly plausible scenario is that it got out of that particular lab and quite quickly spread to the market - which then acted as a superspreader: a humid food market is a perfect place for infecting lots of people. Hence the early cluster
I quite like @ydoethur's theory. You could well see a low level employee taking animals that were meant to be destroyed and selling them at the wet market for cash.
It might then have spent weeks at the market, mutating and going from animal to animal, before breaking out to humans.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
And that for a year, discussing the possibility on major social media sites was verboten. The First Rule of Politics is, after all, Never believe anything until it's been officially denied.
Hang on.
The lab leak vs natural theory has been discussed ad nauseum on here, and I have seen no shortage of articles on Facebook and Twitter.
My personal feel is that this is the wrong issue to castigate China over. If Oxford University was studying diseases and one escaped, I would be livid, but shit happens. Especially in Oxford.
The real thing that they are guilty of - to my mind, and which never gets discussed - is that they were aware of the virulence of the disease and were welding people in apartments, even as they were allowing international flights and assuring the world that all was fine.
The lab leak is a complete side show, to my mind, compared to the appalling culpability of their government in not coming clean early on.
But one reason they didn’t come clean is because the Chinese themselves strongly suspected it came from their own lab. Hence the silencing of their own scientists, deletion of crucial data, and more
I agree the apparently deliberate seeding of the bug around the world is an outrage. But a separate issue
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
BREAKING: my @VanityFair investigation into @EcoHealthNYC, @NIAIDNews transparency and debate over #COVID19 origins is live. Vanity Fair obtained over 100,000 internal EcoHealth Alliance documents including meeting minutes, internal emails, reports. vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/t… /1
Ah, I see we are back to trusting journalists on Covid. There may have been a cover-up but that does not mean there was a lab leak.
Read the article. It is incontestable there was a cover up.
As for trusting journalists, Jeez. Everyone with an allergy to the lab leak hypothesis rushed to believe the recent bilge in the NYT pointing back to the market. Co-Author? The same Andersen who is now clearly implicated in the ongoing cover-up, as the article proves
And as for lab leak, this dangerous new bat coronavirus appeared in the only city in the world with an (unsafe) bio-lab investigating new bat coronaviruses so as to make them more dangerous
At some point, denying the obvious becomes embarrassingly futile
I don't know if there was or was not a lob leek, form the what has been presented including by @Leon it does look more likely than not, but as I am not an expert I will refrain form committing further.
What really Really really annoys me, Upsets me, is the way that any talk about the possibility was shut down so actively. I get that china would do that, that's what all authoritarian states do, but in the west, that should not have happened. it was by many people in may organisations, but the stand out one was Facebook, banning all such stories, as well as multiple other publications, even in some cases, putting bogus articles supposedly debunking, including but not limited to the Lancet, publishing and article form a chap who is paid by the Chines state but calming not to have any conflict of interest.
it probably needs phycologists to fully unpack what happened, but I think part of it was an attitudes of Trump is taking about a lab leek, and if people believe that it somehow might take trump of the hook for this, so we must debunk it. combined with a powerful and reinforced effort from Chinas publicity machine.
Whatever the reason its sad.
Indeed. We will probably never know 100% for sure
I’m 95% convinced it came from the lab. Occam’s razor alone is enough to get you that far
I don’t understand why some people are still so determined that lab leak is “impossible”. I mean, I get why some virologists might hate the lab leak theory, it’s a terrible stain on their science, but ordinary non scientific people also act like scalded cats when faced with the accumulating evidence
Is it still some fear of Trump? Peculiar
I think part of the problem is that an accidental lab leak - kinda seems obviously possible given what we know the lab in Wuhan was working on - has become confused with the idea of a deliberate leak, or a leak of an engineered virus - where there's an implication of malice and intent being involved, rather than mere incompetence.
Looking at the header, if there is one thing the polls agree on, it is that the Conservatives are on 35 per cent. There has been no dip after Rishi Sunak's allegedly disastrous not-budget, which is said to have dished his leadership chances. It might be that Rishi has been written off prematurely.
The one thing that has been overlooked is the rise in the minimum wage to £9.50 from Monday which will see increases wages in April and while not enough in this crisis income will rise, as will pensions though by 3.1%
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Possibly not, but it could quite easily happen. Remember Mr Garak:
'I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen all the time. But I don't *trust* coincidences.'
In this case, the more information we get the more plausible some kind of link to the work of the lab is. However, our information is and unfortunately almost certainly always will be incomplete, so we're still guessing. I've put forward one suggestion that fits the facts as we currently have them and would be logical, but it's entirely possible new evidence will emerge that would rule it out.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
AND that same lab was proposing to do certain particular engineering on the virus - on the furin cleavage site - and the “wild virus”, weirdly enough, has unusual adaptations at the furin cleavage site
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
A widely-accepted view (which I share) is that people should work out their sexual preferences themselves without pressure or courses to persuade them otherwise. Conversion therapy generally starts from the assumption that being gay is unfortunate and it's important to help people get out of it (that's why you don't have courses for changing things considered morally neutral, such as liking sardines).
You seem to envisage something neutral that people couild sign up to if they felt like a change. Logically, then, there should also be courses for people who are currently straight and want to become gay. Don't you feel that it's better to let people simply do whatever comes naturally?
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
A widely-accepted view (which I share) is that people should work out their sexual preferences themselves without pressure or courses to persuade them otherwise. Conversion therapy generally starts from the assumption that being gay is unfortunate and it's important to help people get out of it (that's why you don't have courses for changing things considered morally neutral, such as liking sardines).
People consider eating sardines to be morally neutral?
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
We will never know for sure but likewise it was impossible to know for sure that it wasn't connected to the lab.
Yet lots of official people and organisations seemed desperate to claim that it had nothing to do with the lab.
How many scandals and cover-ups include such behaviour.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
It is of course in the interests of the Chinese authorities - and some others - that we never find out.
If it was (however unlikely this seems now) proved it came from the market, that’s bad in its own way. Horrible Chinese eating habits!
If it came from the lab - well that’s much much worse. And also bad for American science
The ideal scenario for the CCP is that they obscure the whole subject and we all eventually get bored of it and give up asking. Unfortunately there are people in the west more than happy to assist in this. And that’s a shame, because it really does matter where it came from because it could/will happen again
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
This is all bad law with all sorts of perverse consequences, some of which you describe here. Previous generations would have acknowledged the good intentions but seen the folly and not pursued them.
Unfortunately these things now have an unstoppable momentum. People have apparently lost the ability to think things through. You can't even debate things. The thinking goes something like: "Conversion therapy? Must be banned otherwise you are a bigot and even questioning it is hate speech"
Unfortunately this is the reality of democracy in a social media age. On the bright side - at least we aren't going around invading other countries in imperial wars of expansion.
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
A widely-accepted view (which I share) is that people should work out their sexual preferences themselves without pressure or courses to persuade them otherwise. Conversion therapy generally starts from the assumption that being gay is unfortunate and it's important to help people get out of it (that's why you don't have courses for changing things considered morally neutral, such as liking sardines).
You seem to envisage something neutral that people couild sign up to if they felt like a change. Logically, then, there should also be courses for people who are currently straight and want to become gay. Don't you feel that it's better to let people simply do whatever comes naturally?
How about gender dysphoria? If an 18-year-old girl wants to have a mastectomy because of gender identity issues, might therapy as an alternative to surgery be a good thing even though it could be considered 'conversion therapy'?
This feels like the rate of tanks destroyed per day is increasing. but I havet been keeping track so don't know for sure. there may be innocent reasons e.g. he has so many he is now prioritising Tanks. But, its still good to see.
I think there's an element that the Ukrainian army is now advancing and retaking territory previously occupied by the Russians, and so you have tanks that may have been destroyed a while ago, but are only now being photographed so that they will be counted.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
An interesting point. There seems to be a group of people who want transitioning of gender to be made as easy as possible with associated radical medical intervention even for for children but who want to ban sexuality transitioning even if requested by an adult. "Gay cure" therapies have got a bad reputation because of the element of social coercion that has been involved and I doubt whether they "work" in most circumstances but here is a another gaping philosophical contradiction in the viewpoint of militant Trans supporters.
Two days out and about for work this week. Anecdotal evidence - the "return to desks" is still happening but it's incredibly patchy. I've travelled on tubes which were almost as busy as pre-Covid and incredibly quiet ones which should be busy.
At 5pm this afternoon, Bank station was quiet and King William Street almost deserted yet this morning the Jubilee was busy - interestingly, more people getting on at Canary Wharf than getting off (easy to forget it's not just offices there now).
The passenger transport numbers confirm tube usage settling at about two thirds of pre-Covid during the week but that's varied and nuanced. The early tubes remain busy but by 8am, certainly at East Ham, the platform is much quieter confirming the view the administrative workers and professionals are still ensconced at home. Another indicator (of sorts) is what people are wearing - the collar and tie remains in a minority, it's other workers (construction and retail) are out and about.
Train use picked up to 75-80% a couple of weeks ago but has settled back nearer 70-75% - the trains coming in to Waterloo are busy but not packed as they once were. For all the propaganda and platitudes from politicians, business leaders and property developers, the truth remains the hybrid world of part-office, part-home working is here to stay.
Leisure traffic is a very different story - those with time and money are out using both. It will be interesting to see if the hot to living standards has an impact on leisure traffic - I suspect not, at least in the short term.
One side effect of the Ukraine war has been the cutting of the traditional summer cruises to the Baltic and St Petersburg. Some companies have curtailed the voyages back to just Scandinavia while others have moves ships to other routes in the Med which has in turn produced some really competitive deals.
Vocab question: is there such a verb as "to attrit"? Lots of Ukraine conflict tweets talking about troops being "attrited", which sort of makes sense given attrition, but it's the first time I've come across attrit. It's an ugly word, particularly in its attrited incarnation.
The spelling and grammar checker on Vanilla clearly thinks it's a made up word.
I think it is fairly widely used in military and military analyst circles. A neologism, perhaps, but a useful one, so I am ok with it and, in fact, have used it myself.
Vanilla? I'd rather use Chambers or OED; and much as I sympathise with TimS, we're a century too late for 'attrit' and about four centuries too late for 'attrite'
1663 G. Harvey Archelogia Philosophica Nova II. i. xxiv. 193 No great bodies have any tast, unless they be first attrited and diminisht by the teeth.
1915 Daily Mail 27 Oct. 4/3 Our Ministers talk of ending this war by ‘attrition’. Who is being ‘attrited’ by these slovenly methods?
The verb would surely be to attrite rather than to attrit (since attrit would give a pp of attritted).
Edit: perhaps attrite has, er, suffered attrition and become attrit?
Many years ago, my stepson and I used to play a board game called "Rise and Decline of the Third Reich". We would often say "I am just going to attrit on the Eastern/Front this turn" or such.
This feels like the rate of tanks destroyed per day is increasing. but I havet been keeping track so don't know for sure. there may be innocent reasons e.g. he has so many he is now prioritising Tanks. But, its still good to see.
I think there's an element that the Ukrainian army is now advancing and retaking territory previously occupied by the Russians, and so you have tanks that may have been destroyed a while ago, but are only now being photographed so that they will be counted.
Possibly though there's also the likelihood of Russian material which cannot be withdrawn being abandoned and/or destroyed.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
But "know for sure" is a ridiculous test, in this and almost every other context. I don't know for sure and I never will, what happened to Nicole Simpson. No sirree. Except I do.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
The first diagnosis took place in a field of Normandy, Surrey
That’s about five miles from me and it was immediately obvious to all of us round here what had happened.
FMD is hardly a 'new' virus!
Sorry, to be clear, it was obvious that it had escaped from one of the laboratories nearby.
As a student I worked as a cleaner during the summer in the lab. I cleaned both the secure and non secure side. The precautions were quite impressive. Nothing that went into the secure area came out other than a naked me and I had to be decontaminated.
Another leak of course from a lab was smallpox in Birmingham. The last ever incident in the world.
Two days out and about for work this week. Anecdotal evidence - the "return to desks" is still happening but it's incredibly patchy. I've travelled on tubes which were almost as busy as pre-Covid and incredibly quiet ones which should be busy.
At 5pm this afternoon, Bank station was quiet and King William Street almost deserted yet this morning the Jubilee was busy - interestingly, more people getting on at Canary Wharf than getting off (easy to forget it's not just offices there now).
The passenger transport numbers confirm tube usage settling at about two thirds of pre-Covid during the week but that's varied and nuanced. The early tubes remain busy but by 8am, certainly at East Ham, the platform is much quieter confirming the view the administrative workers and professionals are still ensconced at home. Another indicator (of sorts) is what people are wearing - the collar and tie remains in a minority, it's other workers (construction and retail) are out and about.
Train use picked up to 75-80% a couple of weeks ago but has settled back nearer 70-75% - the trains coming in to Waterloo are busy but not packed as they once were. For all the propaganda and platitudes from politicians, business leaders and property developers, the truth remains the hybrid world of part-office, part-home working is here to stay.
Leisure traffic is a very different story - those with time and money are out using both. It will be interesting to see if the hot to living standards has an impact on leisure traffic - I suspect not, at least in the short term.
One side effect of the Ukraine war has been the cutting of the traditional summer cruises to the Baltic and St Petersburg. Some companies have curtailed the voyages back to just Scandinavia while others have moves ships to other routes in the Med which has in turn produced some really competitive deals.
The other thing to watch on the tube, and to a lesser extent buses, is the return of advertising. It's a couple of weeks since I was at Liverpool Street but the advertising screens on the escalators showed only in-house stuff. That must be a fair chunk of revenue to be recovered.
Let's be fair - IF Labour won 312 seats at the next election that would be an incredible achievement and enough for them to govern even as a minority.
The problem is it becomes easy to view the future through the prism of the past - I'd argue this has been a Parliament unlike any other with extraordinary external events and challenges and applying normal rules of "swingback" and "mid term" may not be enough in a period of such unprecedented changes.
This is a neat way of saying I've no clue as to the outcome of the next GE - if you want to bet on it, feel free but I'll be keeping my cash to flush down the toilet, sorry, bet on three horses, on Saturday.
As an aside and maybe it's because I'm a Londoner but I think the significant local election could be Birmingham where all the city council seats are up for re-election. We are told the Midlands is the new Conservative heartland so it seems reasonable to suppose the Conservatives could cut back the 29 seat Labour majority.
It would be interesting if anyone in or around Birmingham could offer any thoughts as to whether Labour could lose 12 seats and therefore control of the council? I notice Smarkets haven't yet put up a market - is there an opportunity or is it too solid Labour for change?
Odds on the outcome of the next GE are impossible to evaluate intelligently except from then most general principles of probabilities. As between a Tory and Labour led government I don't think there is any data that seriously separates them; essentially they are even money.
A Labour majority is different. That is less likely than the current 4/1.
Let's be fair - IF Labour won 312 seats at the next election that would be an incredible achievement and enough for them to govern even as a minority.
The problem is it becomes easy to view the future through the prism of the past - I'd argue this has been a Parliament unlike any other with extraordinary external events and challenges and applying normal rules of "swingback" and "mid term" may not be enough in a period of such unprecedented changes.
This is a neat way of saying I've no clue as to the outcome of the next GE - if you want to bet on it, feel free but I'll be keeping my cash to flush down the toilet, sorry, bet on three horses, on Saturday.
As an aside and maybe it's because I'm a Londoner but I think the significant local election could be Birmingham where all the city council seats are up for re-election. We are told the Midlands is the new Conservative heartland so it seems reasonable to suppose the Conservatives could cut back the 29 seat Labour majority.
It would be interesting if anyone in or around Birmingham could offer any thoughts as to whether Labour could lose 12 seats and therefore control of the council? I notice Smarkets haven't yet put up a market - is there an opportunity or is it too solid Labour for change?
Labour should really make a small gain in Birmingham even if it's just gaining 3/4 seats from the Tories in Erdington and Northfield constituencies. Coventry is similar although there is of course the bin strike there.
I feel like the real bellwether for Starmer should be somewhere like Plymouth or Swindon. The problem though is that Labour did reasonably well in those councils in 2018 (even though they didn't quite get Swindon then) and then lost a bunch of seats in 2021 so the scope for enough Labour gains this year is more limited in those places.
This feels like the rate of tanks destroyed per day is increasing. but I havet been keeping track so don't know for sure. there may be innocent reasons e.g. he has so many he is now prioritising Tanks. But, its still good to see.
I think there's an element that the Ukrainian army is now advancing and retaking territory previously occupied by the Russians, and so you have tanks that may have been destroyed a while ago, but are only now being photographed so that they will be counted.
This seems to be significant, the first time I have seen reference anywhere to a decision to send longer range heavy weapons to Ukraine. It should let them fight the long range stuff on more equal terms.
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
A widely-accepted view (which I share) is that people should work out their sexual preferences themselves without pressure or courses to persuade them otherwise. Conversion therapy generally starts from the assumption that being gay is unfortunate and it's important to help people get out of it (that's why you don't have courses for changing things considered morally neutral, such as liking sardines).
You seem to envisage something neutral that people couild sign up to if they felt like a change. Logically, then, there should also be courses for people who are currently straight and want to become gay. Don't you feel that it's better to let people simply do whatever comes naturally?
How about gender dysphoria? If an 18-year-old girl wants to have a mastectomy because of gender identity issues, might therapy as an alternative to surgery be a good thing even though it could be considered 'conversion therapy'?
I suspect that not enough is known about the condition(s), there may well be a number of different causes and types. If society is going to provide medical interventions then there should be ideology free research and standard medical criteria applied to judging therapies and treatments. I suspect that a set of different approaches for different situations would be the outcome. The push to provide irreversible and profound medical interventions including puberty blockers and reassignment surgery to youngsters without a stringent set of safeguards needs to be resisted.
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
A widely-accepted view (which I share) is that people should work out their sexual preferences themselves without pressure or courses to persuade them otherwise. Conversion therapy generally starts from the assumption that being gay is unfortunate and it's important to help people get out of it (that's why you don't have courses for changing things considered morally neutral, such as liking sardines).
You seem to envisage something neutral that people couild sign up to if they felt like a change. Logically, then, there should also be courses for people who are currently straight and want to become gay. Don't you feel that it's better to let people simply do whatever comes naturally?
How about gender dysphoria? If an 18-year-old girl wants to have a mastectomy because of gender identity issues, might therapy as an alternative to surgery be a good thing even though it could be considered 'conversion therapy'?
You have put your finger on why conversion therapy won't be banned. Sounds sensible. Sounds easy. But first. Define conversion. Then define therapy.
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
An interesting point. There seems to be a group of people who want transitioning of gender to be made as easy as possible with associated radical medical intervention even for for children but who want to ban sexuality transitioning even if requested by an adult. "Gay cure" therapies have got a bad reputation because of the element of social coercion that has been involved and I doubt whether they "work" in most circumstances but here is a another gaping philosophical contradiction in the viewpoint of militant Trans supporters.
The sharp test of the wisdom of banning (ie criminalising) something like 'conversion therapy' is to see if you can draft a statute which:
Clearly makes criminal something which is not already a crime Is clear what the crime is Does not restrict the freedom of adults to do ridiculous things Does not cross the boundaries of religious or philosophical freedom of belief, including daft beliefs Does not make criminals of people who have silly but benign intentions Only criminalises things which almost everyone would say obviously ought to be a crime.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
Coincidence of location is not particularly compelling in this instance. Bear in mind Wuhan is a city of 10 million people and the first cases started some distance away from the lab where the supposed leak occurred. The equivalent in London would be an outbreak in Borough Market must be due to a leak from a lab in Uxbridge.
The coincidence of location of Huanan Market is however quite compelling because (a) that's where the first documented cases were; (b) markets such as these are typical breeding grounds for epidemics - SARS started exactly this way; (c) Chinese authorities clearly thought this was the source as evidenced by the panicky closure of such markets.
Also small scale lab leaks are not uncommon, including in China and there are always consequences: they get isolated, shut down; personnel get replaced etc No-one of this happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Most important the lab leak theory ignores the fact that effectively 100% of epidemics start with species jumps and this virus fits that pattern. Lab Leak theory disregards by far the most likely explanation.
Lab Leak is in the category of possible and an interesting idea. But not particularly probable, I think.
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
A widely-accepted view (which I share) is that people should work out their sexual preferences themselves without pressure or courses to persuade them otherwise. Conversion therapy generally starts from the assumption that being gay is unfortunate and it's important to help people get out of it (that's why you don't have courses for changing things considered morally neutral, such as liking sardines).
You seem to envisage something neutral that people couild sign up to if they felt like a change. Logically, then, there should also be courses for people who are currently straight and want to become gay. Don't you feel that it's better to let people simply do whatever comes naturally?
How about gender dysphoria? If an 18-year-old girl wants to have a mastectomy because of gender identity issues, might therapy as an alternative to surgery be a good thing even though it could be considered 'conversion therapy'?
I suspect that not enough is known about the condition(s), there may well be a number of different causes and types. If society is going to provide medical interventions then there should be ideology free research and standard medical criteria applied to judging therapies and treatments. I suspect that a set of different approaches for different situations would be the outcome. The push to provide irreversible and profound medical interventions including puberty blockers and reassignment surgery to youngsters without a stringent set of safeguards needs to be resisted.
Hence why it would be sensible to wait for the outcome of the Cass Independent Review which is going to look at all these matters. The Interim Report was scathing about the very poor medical practice in relation to trans issues in children.
This feels like the rate of tanks destroyed per day is increasing. but I havet been keeping track so don't know for sure. there may be innocent reasons e.g. he has so many he is now prioritising Tanks. But, its still good to see.
I think there's an element that the Ukrainian army is now advancing and retaking territory previously occupied by the Russians, and so you have tanks that may have been destroyed a while ago, but are only now being photographed so that they will be counted.
Possibly though there's also the likelihood of Russian material which cannot be withdrawn being abandoned and/or destroyed.
And the Ukrainians' abilities and available targets are both improving. They are improving: - the numbers of personnel trained - the training itself - the materiel: increased numbers of drones, bombs and anti-tank weapons at their disposal - the tactics to get more vehicles per ambush, - their reach (with more and better small drones to ID targets from greater distances and over greater areas)
In addition, with the Russians either digging in or retreating, the number of vulnerable targets available to them is increasing.
So I'd expect the tempo to increase - at least until supplies become an issue or the Russians adapt.
Japan is the major purchaser of LNG from Sakhalin-2, and had (previously at least) declined to halt imports. I would hope that they will put pressure on the Russian government by indicating that this will stop...
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
An interesting point. There seems to be a group of people who want transitioning of gender to be made as easy as possible with associated radical medical intervention even for for children but who want to ban sexuality transitioning even if requested by an adult. "Gay cure" therapies have got a bad reputation because of the element of social coercion that has been involved and I doubt whether they "work" in most circumstances but here is a another gaping philosophical contradiction in the viewpoint of militant Trans supporters.
The sharp test of the wisdom of banning (ie criminalising) something like 'conversion therapy' is to see if you can draft a statute which:
Clearly makes criminal something which is not already a crime Is clear what the crime is Does not restrict the freedom of adults to do ridiculous things Does not cross the boundaries of religious or philosophical freedom of belief, including daft beliefs Does not make criminals of people who have silly but benign intentions Only criminalises things which almost everyone would say obviously ought to be a crime.
It's harder than people think.
It runs into two major issues too. 1 "Therapist" is not a term defined in law. It easy to legislate a profession. But right now, you or I or any other bugger can call themselves a therapist and offer therapy. Any attempt.to change this is being thwarted by the under and unqualified. See Kid's Company. A lot of these are very influential and middle class "helpers". 2 A properly trained therapist has a duty of unconditional positive regard to the presenting issue. That may be "I think I am gay, but don't want to be.' Their duty is to work with that.
Whatever. The issues are being clouded by religious groups.
Vocab question: is there such a verb as "to attrit"? Lots of Ukraine conflict tweets talking about troops being "attrited", which sort of makes sense given attrition, but it's the first time I've come across attrit. It's an ugly word, particularly in its attrited incarnation.
The spelling and grammar checker on Vanilla clearly thinks it's a made up word.
I think it is fairly widely used in military and military analyst circles. A neologism, perhaps, but a useful one, so I am ok with it and, in fact, have used it myself.
Vanilla? I'd rather use Chambers or OED; and much as I sympathise with TimS, we're a century too late for 'attrit' and about four centuries too late for 'attrite'
1663 G. Harvey Archelogia Philosophica Nova II. i. xxiv. 193 No great bodies have any tast, unless they be first attrited and diminisht by the teeth.
1915 Daily Mail 27 Oct. 4/3 Our Ministers talk of ending this war by ‘attrition’. Who is being ‘attrited’ by these slovenly methods?
The verb would surely be to attrite rather than to attrit (since attrit would give a pp of attritted).
Edit: perhaps attrite has, er, suffered attrition and become attrit?
Many years ago, my stepson and I used to play a board game called "Rise and Decline of the Third Reich". We would often say "I am just going to attrit on the Eastern/Front this turn" or such.
My friends and I played that. We used to attrit as well.
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
An interesting point. There seems to be a group of people who want transitioning of gender to be made as easy as possible with associated radical medical intervention even for for children but who want to ban sexuality transitioning even if requested by an adult. "Gay cure" therapies have got a bad reputation because of the element of social coercion that has been involved and I doubt whether they "work" in most circumstances but here is a another gaping philosophical contradiction in the viewpoint of militant Trans supporters.
The sharp test of the wisdom of banning (ie criminalising) something like 'conversion therapy' is to see if you can draft a statute which:
Clearly makes criminal something which is not already a crime Is clear what the crime is Does not restrict the freedom of adults to do ridiculous things Does not cross the boundaries of religious or philosophical freedom of belief, including daft beliefs Does not make criminals of people who have silly but benign intentions Only criminalises things which almost everyone would say obviously ought to be a crime.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
Coincidence of location is not particularly compelling in this instance. Bear in mind Wuhan is a city of 10 million people and the first cases started some distance away from the lab where the supposed leak occurred. The equivalent in London would be an outbreak in Borough Market must be due to a leak from a lab in Uxbridge.
The coincidence of location of Huanan Market is however quite compelling because (a) that's where the first documented cases were; (b) markets such as these are typical breeding grounds for epidemics - SARS started exactly this way; (c) Chinese authorities clearly thought this was the source as evidenced by the panicky closure of such markets.
Also small scale lab leaks are not uncommon, including in China and there are always consequences: they get isolated, shut down; personnel get replaced etc No-one of this happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Most important the lab leak theory ignores the fact that effectively 100% of epidemics start with species jumps and this virus fits that pattern. Lab Leak theory disregards by far the most likely explanation.
Lab Leak is in the category of possible and an interesting idea. But not particularly probable, I think.
Yeah and that's all bollocks. Read this thread by a scientist at the heart of it, actually at the discussions where the cover-up (now undeniable) began, and not you
Why ARE you so attached to the market theory? Is it Trump? I genuinely find this mystifying: people like you. As I understand it, you are not an American virologist funded by NIH, so you have no skin in the game
Japan is the major purchaser of LNG from Sakhalin-2, and had (previously at least) declined to halt imports. I would hope that they will put pressure on the Russian government by indicating that this will stop...
...but I don't think it's happened yet.
It's interesting that they are getting tough on the islands. Sensing weakness I presume.
Labour should really make a small gain in Birmingham even if it's just gaining 3/4 seats from the Tories in Erdington and Northfield constituencies. Coventry is similar although there is of course the bin strike there.
I feel like the real bellwether for Starmer should be somewhere like Plymouth or Swindon. The problem though is that Labour did reasonably well in those councils in 2018 (even though they didn't quite get Swindon then) and then lost a bunch of seats in 2021 so the scope for enough Labour gains this year is more limited in those places.
I've put Birmingham up as a bellweather for whether the Midlands is staying loyal to the Conservatives. The party won Northfield in 2019 - that constituency includes the marginal wards of Northfield, Kings Norton North, Kings Norton South and Weoley & Selly Oak. If the Conservatives make some inroads in these wards, you'd think Northfield would be a hold.
As for Plymouth, there's been a lot of in-fighting within the Conservative group - Swindon is more interesting, The Conservatives did very well last year - looking at the seats being fought this time, I can really only see four possible gains for Labour.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
But "know for sure" is a ridiculous test, in this and almost every other context. I don't know for sure and I never will, what happened to Nicole Simpson. No sirree. Except I do.
Sure: my point is that right now the lab leak is in the 85-95% probability range.
If I were sitting on a jury, and it was a death penalty case, I'd be saying "I think he's guilty... but I'm not sure I'd be willing to hang him for it"
Return to desk Manchester anecdata: roads busy, trains busy - I have stood a couple of times - but still running half the number of services and with all the aggressive planned and unplanned cancellations of the dark days of Dec 19. 10-20% masking at most. Office still a bit quiet, again even having reduced floorspace.
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
Coincidence of location is not particularly compelling in this instance. Bear in mind Wuhan is a city of 10 million people and the first cases started some distance away from the lab where the supposed leak occurred. The equivalent in London would be an outbreak in Borough Market must be due to a leak from a lab in Uxbridge.
The coincidence of location of Huanan Market is however quite compelling because (a) that's where the first documented cases were; (b) markets such as these are typical breeding grounds for epidemics - SARS started exactly this way; (c) Chinese authorities clearly thought this was the source as evidenced by the panicky closure of such markets.
Also small scale lab leaks are not uncommon, including in China and there are always consequences: they get isolated, shut down; personnel get replaced etc No-one of this happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Most important the lab leak theory ignores the fact that effectively 100% of epidemics start with species jumps and this virus fits that pattern. Lab Leak theory disregards by far the most likely explanation.
Lab Leak is in the category of possible and an interesting idea. But not particularly probable, I think.
There are more than a billion people in China. Were all else equal (and they're not, which I appreciate), then 10 million out of one billion means it would be a 99% chance that it would appear somewhere else.
It is only really the fact that the wet market has so much genetic material related to CV19 in it and that it would be such an ideal incubating location for a virus, that stops us moving it to a 99% chance of being a lab leak.
Meanwhile, whatever the rights or wrongs of this decision, this justification is balls, isn't it?
Jaw-dropping government u-turn on banning conversion therapy, revealed by @PaulBrandITV. Here is odd justification: “Given unprecedented circumstances of major pressures on cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine, there is an urgent need to rationalise our legislative programme”
Who was it who said “I think [conversion therapy is] absolutely abhorrent…and we will bring forward plans to ban it” ?
There are 2 types: (1) the let's cure gays which is harmful and ought to be banned and (2) the let's affirm trans children without exploring whether they really are trans and can end up harming kids with other issues and/or seeking to convert to trans kids who really are gay. This needs to wait the final report of the Cass Review. The Interim Report already shows why automatic affirmation is not a good idea.
Why should (1) be banned? It seems to be an article of faith that someone's sexuality is a sort of immutable characteristic, which cannot, and must not be changed. But why? If say a gay man wants to become straight for whatever reason (maybe they like the idea of having natural children with a long-term partner), or come to that a straight man wants to be gay (maybe they can't get anywhere in the dating scene, and think they might have more luck seeking same sex action) why shouldn't they have a therapy to help them achieve this? Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
A widely-accepted view (which I share) is that people should work out their sexual preferences themselves without pressure or courses to persuade them otherwise. Conversion therapy generally starts from the assumption that being gay is unfortunate and it's important to help people get out of it (that's why you don't have courses for changing things considered morally neutral, such as liking sardines).
You seem to envisage something neutral that people couild sign up to if they felt like a change. Logically, then, there should also be courses for people who are currently straight and want to become gay. Don't you feel that it's better to let people simply do whatever comes naturally?
How about gender dysphoria? If an 18-year-old girl wants to have a mastectomy because of gender identity issues, might therapy as an alternative to surgery be a good thing even though it could be considered 'conversion therapy'?
If she were properly a bloke, she wouldn't want a mastectomy because she's be playing with her own boobs all day.
Two days out and about for work this week. Anecdotal evidence - the "return to desks" is still happening but it's incredibly patchy. I've travelled on tubes which were almost as busy as pre-Covid and incredibly quiet ones which should be busy.
At 5pm this afternoon, Bank station was quiet and King William Street almost deserted yet this morning the Jubilee was busy - interestingly, more people getting on at Canary Wharf than getting off (easy to forget it's not just offices there now).
The passenger transport numbers confirm tube usage settling at about two thirds of pre-Covid during the week but that's varied and nuanced. The early tubes remain busy but by 8am, certainly at East Ham, the platform is much quieter confirming the view the administrative workers and professionals are still ensconced at home. Another indicator (of sorts) is what people are wearing - the collar and tie remains in a minority, it's other workers (construction and retail) are out and about.
Train use picked up to 75-80% a couple of weeks ago but has settled back nearer 70-75% - the trains coming in to Waterloo are busy but not packed as they once were. For all the propaganda and platitudes from politicians, business leaders and property developers, the truth remains the hybrid world of part-office, part-home working is here to stay.
Leisure traffic is a very different story - those with time and money are out using both. It will be interesting to see if the hot to living standards has an impact on leisure traffic - I suspect not, at least in the short term.
One side effect of the Ukraine war has been the cutting of the traditional summer cruises to the Baltic and St Petersburg. Some companies have curtailed the voyages back to just Scandinavia while others have moves ships to other routes in the Med which has in turn produced some really competitive deals.
Some of these effects are going to be permanent. I can't see long distance commuting returning to where it was for office based work, let alone long distance travel for business meetings. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology that allows of working from home and business meetings from multiple remote locations, has demonstrated its viability for businesses, and may have persuaded employees that it's preferable for the daily slog, for at least part of the week.
It's ironic and unfortunate that the final go ahead was given to the London-Manchester HS2 route just two months before the first lockdown.
Return to desk Manchester anecdata: roads busy, trains busy - I have stood a couple of times - but still running half the number of services and with all the aggressive planned and unplanned cancellations of the dark days of Dec 19. 10-20% masking at most. Office still a bit quiet, again even having reduced floorspace.
Metrolink is back to full services though. And at about 80%-90% of 2019 patronage.
@MKarnitschnig Senior EU official in Brussels tells me they think the war will end soon and Russia will “win,” which can only mean that Ukraine is on the cusp of a victory. #UkraineRussianWar
There was definitely a cover-up. It was probably a lab leak.
Bayes' theorem would suggest you are right, considering all the possible places the first outbreak could have occurred.
The strongest evidence for a lab leak is exactly that: the fact that the outbreak happened in exactly the same city where those kind of viruses were being studied.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
Consider if it happened in a British, American or other western country.
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
Sure; but it is perfectly possible under than scenario. SARS and MERS were both very similar diseases to Covid, and which both had entirely zoonotic origins, that were only discovered later.
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
Coincidence of location is not particularly compelling in this instance. Bear in mind Wuhan is a city of 10 million people and the first cases started some distance away from the lab where the supposed leak occurred. The equivalent in London would be an outbreak in Borough Market must be due to a leak from a lab in Uxbridge.
The coincidence of location of Huanan Market is however quite compelling because (a) that's where the first documented cases were; (b) markets such as these are typical breeding grounds for epidemics - SARS started exactly this way; (c) Chinese authorities clearly thought this was the source as evidenced by the panicky closure of such markets.
Also small scale lab leaks are not uncommon, including in China and there are always consequences: they get isolated, shut down; personnel get replaced etc No-one of this happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Most important the lab leak theory ignores the fact that effectively 100% of epidemics start with species jumps and this virus fits that pattern. Lab Leak theory disregards by far the most likely explanation.
Lab Leak is in the category of possible and an interesting idea. But not particularly probable, I think.
Yeah and that's all bollocks. Read this thread by a scientist at the heart of it, actually at the discussions where the cover-up (now undeniable) began, and not you
Why ARE you so attached to the market theory? Is it Trump? I genuinely find this mystifying: people like you. As I understand it, you are not an American virologist funded by NIH, so you have no skin in the game
You haven't said what is wrong with what @FF43 has said. Saying bollocks isn't an argument. I am happy to accept it could have been a leak (as I and @tlg86 have pointed out we have had at least 2 in the UK namely foot and mouth and smallpox), but it also may not be.
@MKarnitschnig Senior EU official in Brussels tells me they think the war will end soon and Russia will “win,” which can only mean that Ukraine is on the cusp of a victory. #UkraineRussianWar
Two days out and about for work this week. Anecdotal evidence - the "return to desks" is still happening but it's incredibly patchy. I've travelled on tubes which were almost as busy as pre-Covid and incredibly quiet ones which should be busy.
At 5pm this afternoon, Bank station was quiet and King William Street almost deserted yet this morning the Jubilee was busy - interestingly, more people getting on at Canary Wharf than getting off (easy to forget it's not just offices there now).
The passenger transport numbers confirm tube usage settling at about two thirds of pre-Covid during the week but that's varied and nuanced. The early tubes remain busy but by 8am, certainly at East Ham, the platform is much quieter confirming the view the administrative workers and professionals are still ensconced at home. Another indicator (of sorts) is what people are wearing - the collar and tie remains in a minority, it's other workers (construction and retail) are out and about.
Train use picked up to 75-80% a couple of weeks ago but has settled back nearer 70-75% - the trains coming in to Waterloo are busy but not packed as they once were. For all the propaganda and platitudes from politicians, business leaders and property developers, the truth remains the hybrid world of part-office, part-home working is here to stay.
Leisure traffic is a very different story - those with time and money are out using both. It will be interesting to see if the hot to living standards has an impact on leisure traffic - I suspect not, at least in the short term.
One side effect of the Ukraine war has been the cutting of the traditional summer cruises to the Baltic and St Petersburg. Some companies have curtailed the voyages back to just Scandinavia while others have moves ships to other routes in the Med which has in turn produced some really competitive deals.
Some of these effects are going to be permanent. I can't see long distance commuting returning to where it was for office based work, let alone long distance travel for business meetings. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology that allows of working from home and business meetings from multiple remote locations, has demonstrated its viability for businesses, and may have persuaded employees that it's preferable for the daily slog, for at least part of the week.
It's ironic and unfortunate that the final go ahead was given to the London-Manchester HS2 route just two months before the first lockdown.
No it wasn't.
We need all of HS2 to provide the capacity we need to shift freight onto the rail network. And that's before the completely uncalculated improvements occur as commuter services start to run on the old main line routes which were binned 50+ years ago.
Return to desk Manchester anecdata: roads busy, trains busy - I have stood a couple of times - but still running half the number of services and with all the aggressive planned and unplanned cancellations of the dark days of Dec 19. 10-20% masking at most. Office still a bit quiet, again even having reduced floorspace.
Metrolink is back to full services though. And at about 80%-90% of 2019 patronage.
One driver of the return to public transport is multi-story parking prices edging back up towards pre-COVID levels.
This feels like the rate of tanks destroyed per day is increasing. but I havet been keeping track so don't know for sure. there may be innocent reasons e.g. he has so many he is now prioritising Tanks. But, its still good to see.
I think there's an element that the Ukrainian army is now advancing and retaking territory previously occupied by the Russians, and so you have tanks that may have been destroyed a while ago, but are only now being photographed so that they will be counted.
This seems to be significant, the first time I have seen reference anywhere to a decision to send longer range heavy weapons to Ukraine. It should let them fight the long range stuff on more equal terms.
There was at least one destroyed Russian column in Kyiv Oblast on twitter today.
Ukrainians expecting a big push aiming towards encirclement of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. If they can hold that back in the next couple of weeks or so then Russia look like they will be running out of options.
Simultaneously getting self righteous about people questioning his family connections, which are legitimate to raise - pecuniary interests of one's spouse/partner are relevant to the office holder after all - and does not amount to random attack, and trying to pretend he is reasonable about it just because he didn't respond with violence.
Yes, he's joking, but the thrust of the joke is 'It was an outrage the thing I didn't want raised was raised'. Losing his slick touch when pushed I think. Reminds me of how Corbyn's general soothing, peaceable manners could fray when he got annoyed.
Two days out and about for work this week. Anecdotal evidence - the "return to desks" is still happening but it's incredibly patchy. I've travelled on tubes which were almost as busy as pre-Covid and incredibly quiet ones which should be busy.
At 5pm this afternoon, Bank station was quiet and King William Street almost deserted yet this morning the Jubilee was busy - interestingly, more people getting on at Canary Wharf than getting off (easy to forget it's not just offices there now).
The passenger transport numbers confirm tube usage settling at about two thirds of pre-Covid during the week but that's varied and nuanced. The early tubes remain busy but by 8am, certainly at East Ham, the platform is much quieter confirming the view the administrative workers and professionals are still ensconced at home. Another indicator (of sorts) is what people are wearing - the collar and tie remains in a minority, it's other workers (construction and retail) are out and about.
Train use picked up to 75-80% a couple of weeks ago but has settled back nearer 70-75% - the trains coming in to Waterloo are busy but not packed as they once were. For all the propaganda and platitudes from politicians, business leaders and property developers, the truth remains the hybrid world of part-office, part-home working is here to stay.
Leisure traffic is a very different story - those with time and money are out using both. It will be interesting to see if the hot to living standards has an impact on leisure traffic - I suspect not, at least in the short term.
One side effect of the Ukraine war has been the cutting of the traditional summer cruises to the Baltic and St Petersburg. Some companies have curtailed the voyages back to just Scandinavia while others have moves ships to other routes in the Med which has in turn produced some really competitive deals.
Some of these effects are going to be permanent. I can't see long distance commuting returning to where it was for office based work, let alone long distance travel for business meetings. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology that allows of working from home and business meetings from multiple remote locations, has demonstrated its viability for businesses, and may have persuaded employees that it's preferable for the daily slog, for at least part of the week.
It's ironic and unfortunate that the final go ahead was given to the London-Manchester HS2 route just two months before the first lockdown.
No it wasn't.
We need all of HS2 to provide the capacity we need to shift freight onto the rail network. And that's before the completely uncalculated improvements occur as commuter services start to run on the old main line routes which were binned 50+ years ago.
Not just freight. Greater Manchester and its hinterland could have a local rail network with 15 minute frequencies the norm for suburban stations. But the network also has to accommodate fast trains. And fast trains eat paths. You need to leave much longer gaps between the slow trains to fit a fast train in. If you could take out the London, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Scotland* trains, the local setvice you could have could be transformed. And high frequencies drive up patronage more than any other single intervention. And importantly drive up non-commute patronage at non-peak times - when traditionally trains carry around a lot of empty air. *via the Northern Chord - which also relieves the Castlefield Corridor, the most congested stretch of rail in the North. Quite easy to put freight and local services on the same network as they go at similar average speeds.
Two days out and about for work this week. Anecdotal evidence - the "return to desks" is still happening but it's incredibly patchy. I've travelled on tubes which were almost as busy as pre-Covid and incredibly quiet ones which should be busy.
At 5pm this afternoon, Bank station was quiet and King William Street almost deserted yet this morning the Jubilee was busy - interestingly, more people getting on at Canary Wharf than getting off (easy to forget it's not just offices there now).
The passenger transport numbers confirm tube usage settling at about two thirds of pre-Covid during the week but that's varied and nuanced. The early tubes remain busy but by 8am, certainly at East Ham, the platform is much quieter confirming the view the administrative workers and professionals are still ensconced at home. Another indicator (of sorts) is what people are wearing - the collar and tie remains in a minority, it's other workers (construction and retail) are out and about.
Train use picked up to 75-80% a couple of weeks ago but has settled back nearer 70-75% - the trains coming in to Waterloo are busy but not packed as they once were. For all the propaganda and platitudes from politicians, business leaders and property developers, the truth remains the hybrid world of part-office, part-home working is here to stay.
Leisure traffic is a very different story - those with time and money are out using both. It will be interesting to see if the hot to living standards has an impact on leisure traffic - I suspect not, at least in the short term.
One side effect of the Ukraine war has been the cutting of the traditional summer cruises to the Baltic and St Petersburg. Some companies have curtailed the voyages back to just Scandinavia while others have moves ships to other routes in the Med which has in turn produced some really competitive deals.
Some of these effects are going to be permanent. I can't see long distance commuting returning to where it was for office based work, let alone long distance travel for business meetings. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology that allows of working from home and business meetings from multiple remote locations, has demonstrated its viability for businesses, and may have persuaded employees that it's preferable for the daily slog, for at least part of the week.
It's ironic and unfortunate that the final go ahead was given to the London-Manchester HS2 route just two months before the first lockdown.
I was in the City earlier. The pubs and bars were packed at 2019 levels
Actually, let's deconstruct your absurd twaddle, @FF43
"The equivalent in London would be an outbreak in Borough Market must be due to a leak from a lab in Uxbridge."
1. The closest ancillary outpost of the Wuhan Institute of Virology was their BSL2 (low safety standard) laboratory at the Wuhan CDC, about 280 metres from the market
"WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, MSc, responded: “As far as WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table. We have not yet found the source of the virus and must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as we do.”
Notably, the report includes a hitherto unpublished piece of relevant information: “The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved on 2nd December 2019 to a new location NEAR THE HUANAN MARKET. Such moves can be disruptive for the operations of any laboratory.”"
So in fact the equivalent in London would be a viral outbreak occurring at Borough Market and the virus lab being slightly to the left of, um, Borough Station
2. This (insecure) lab near Borough Station is the only lab in the world working on making novel bat coronaviruses even more dangerous to mankind (killer coronaviruses!), and then we get an outbreak of a weirdly dangerous novel bat coronavirus 280 metres away at... Borough Market
"Unearthed video of Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses"
So the lab by Borough Station was deliberately trying to make these novel bat coronaviruses into "killers", and then a killer new bat coronavirus appears at Borough Market...
Comments
I can easily believe it was engineered to be nastier. And escaped. Because that’s exactly the science they were doing in Wuhan on coronaviruses. Engineering them to make them more virulent and dangerous to humans. Gain of function. It’s all proven and accepted. Tho, again, only proven because people made freedom of info requests and they HAD to release the emails
Ecohealth’s proposals for gain-of-function engineering at Wuhan got so crazily risky even the pretty gung-ho Fauci took fright and said no. At one point.
I just do not see Sir K doing that at moment.
It is all don't scare the horses.
I thought it was definitely a lab leak, and probably an engineered virus.
Of course it does bear repeating that 'lab leak' covers a very wide range of scenarios.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/03/03/1083751272/striking-new-evidence-points-to-seafood-market-in-wuhan-as-pandemic-origin-point
thought his long career Dr Fauci has been an advocate of 'gain of function' research. there may or may not be a compelling case to take the risk and do this sort of rescuers, but its undeniable which side of the debate Fauci was on. when he became chief medical advices, he a) changed the definition of 'Gain of function' research and b) funded research in china that looks like it could of counted as gain of function under the old definition. Maybe not, its complex, but its helpful to him for nobody to look to closely at the Lab Leek theory in case they stubble on to how close his pet project was to this Lab in question. or worse still if it was from the research he funded that COVID came.
It’s completely different to “keep the economy going along nicely but improve public services”.
Rishi's budget was hard on benefits rises (3.1%) and help on energy for the poorest in society, but I have only ever heard Starmer say on every subject he would spend more, lots more without any idea how to pay for it
To those Labour supporters I would just ask if they could name one action Labour would do that the public would not like but is in the interest of the country at this moment of great crisis
The lab leak vs natural theory has been discussed ad nauseum on here, and I have seen no shortage of articles on Facebook and Twitter.
My personal feel is that this is the wrong issue to castigate China over. If Oxford University was studying diseases and one escaped, I would be livid, but shit happens. Especially in Oxford.
The real thing that they are guilty of - to my mind, and which never gets discussed - is that they were aware of the virulence of the disease and were welding people in apartments, even as they were allowing international flights and assuring the world that all was fine.
The lab leak is a complete side show, to my mind, compared to the appalling culpability of their government in not coming clean early on.
Assuming they are informed and consenting adults what exactly is the problem? Either conversion therapy doesn't work, in which case, why care (after all, homepathy and acapuncture are entrely legal), or it does, in which case the person treated presumably gets what they want.
I suspect that a lot of people are actually on something of a sliding scale regarding sexuality, and it may well be possible to nudge them somewhat in one direction or another - why I don't get is why this is a problem, provided it is done in a honest and upfront manner.
(and yes, letting people try and untangle trans vs gay issues is also another good reason not to ban the practice)
Personally I think funding the nhs and social care properly is needed and I think we need to look at private insurance models to top up basic care. There’s no doubt that many could afford this and should do it.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
This feels like the rate of tanks destroyed per day is increasing. but I havet been keeping track so don't know for sure. there may be innocent reasons e.g. he has so many he is now prioritising Tanks. But, its still good to see.
Given how transmissible the disease is between mammals and humans, it's far from impossible that it got incubated and spread at the wet market.
That would explain almost all the information we have.
Let's be fair - IF Labour won 312 seats at the next election that would be an incredible achievement and enough for them to govern even as a minority.
The problem is it becomes easy to view the future through the prism of the past - I'd argue this has been a Parliament unlike any other with extraordinary external events and challenges and applying normal rules of "swingback" and "mid term" may not be enough in a period of such unprecedented changes.
This is a neat way of saying I've no clue as to the outcome of the next GE - if you want to bet on it, feel free but I'll be keeping my cash to flush down the toilet, sorry, bet on three horses, on Saturday.
As an aside and maybe it's because I'm a Londoner but I think the significant local election could be Birmingham where all the city council seats are up for re-election. We are told the Midlands is the new Conservative heartland so it seems reasonable to suppose the Conservatives could cut back the 29 seat Labour majority.
It would be interesting if anyone in or around Birmingham could offer any thoughts as to whether Labour could lose 12 seats and therefore control of the council? I notice Smarkets haven't yet put up a market - is there an opportunity or is it too solid Labour for change?
A highly plausible scenario is that it got out of that particular lab and quite quickly spread to the market - which then acted as a superspreader: a humid food market is a perfect place for infecting lots of people. Hence the early cluster
But your last two paragraphs are certainly true - except that at the same time, they were distributing photos of people apparently dropping dead in the street, and Covid was never that scary.
Bathrooms
And don't mention Israel
Replace the Chinese locations and animals with the equivalents of another country.
Would for example anyone believe that a new virus arose in a Cambridge farmers market if a short distance away a laboratory was doing research work on exactly that sort of virus ?
It might then have spent weeks at the market, mutating and going from animal to animal, before breaking out to humans.
I agree the apparently deliberate seeding of the bug around the world is an outrage. But a separate issue
And then in July the changes to NI will kick in
If SARS had first appeared in Wuhan, it might just have been bad luck. Sometimes you roll a double six, it happens.
As I've said, the physical location evidence is compelling. It's highly likely that the disease (or possibly a pre-variant of it) came from the lab either directly, or from someone responsible for transporting animals or viruses to the lab.
But unless we get someone at the lab actually confessing (which is far from impossible), then we will never know for sure.
'I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen all the time. But I don't *trust* coincidences.'
In this case, the more information we get the more plausible some kind of link to the work of the lab is. However, our information is and unfortunately almost certainly always will be incomplete, so we're still guessing. I've put forward one suggestion that fits the facts as we currently have them and would be logical, but it's entirely possible new evidence will emerge that would rule it out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_Kingdom_foot-and-mouth_outbreak
The first diagnosis took place in a field of Normandy, Surrey
That’s about five miles from me and it was immediately obvious to all of us round here what had happened.
You seem to envisage something neutral that people couild sign up to if they felt like a change. Logically, then, there should also be courses for people who are currently straight and want to become gay. Don't you feel that it's better to let people simply do whatever comes naturally?
Yet lots of official people and organisations seemed desperate to claim that it had nothing to do with the lab.
How many scandals and cover-ups include such behaviour.
If it was (however unlikely this seems now) proved it came from the market, that’s bad in its own way. Horrible Chinese eating habits!
If it came from the lab - well that’s much much worse. And also bad for American science
The ideal scenario for the CCP is that they obscure the whole subject and we all eventually get bored of it and give up asking. Unfortunately there are people in the west more than happy to assist in this. And that’s a shame, because it really does matter where it came from because it could/will happen again
Unfortunately these things now have an unstoppable momentum. People have apparently lost the ability to think things through. You can't even debate things. The thinking goes something like: "Conversion therapy? Must be banned otherwise you are a bigot and even questioning it is hate speech"
Unfortunately this is the reality of democracy in a social media age. On the bright side - at least we aren't going around invading other countries in imperial wars of expansion.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPL_1LjXIAcRKPg?format=jpg&name=900x900
At 5pm this afternoon, Bank station was quiet and King William Street almost deserted yet this morning the Jubilee was busy - interestingly, more people getting on at Canary Wharf than getting off (easy to forget it's not just offices there now).
The passenger transport numbers confirm tube usage settling at about two thirds of pre-Covid during the week but that's varied and nuanced. The early tubes remain busy but by 8am, certainly at East Ham, the platform is much quieter confirming the view the administrative workers and professionals are still ensconced at home. Another indicator (of sorts) is what people are wearing - the collar and tie remains in a minority, it's other workers (construction and retail) are out and about.
Train use picked up to 75-80% a couple of weeks ago but has settled back nearer 70-75% - the trains coming in to Waterloo are busy but not packed as they once were. For all the propaganda and platitudes from politicians, business leaders and property developers, the truth remains the hybrid world of part-office, part-home working is here to stay.
Leisure traffic is a very different story - those with time and money are out using both. It will be interesting to see if the hot to living standards has an impact on leisure traffic - I suspect not, at least in the short term.
One side effect of the Ukraine war has been the cutting of the traditional summer cruises to the Baltic and St Petersburg. Some companies have curtailed the voyages back to just Scandinavia while others have moves ships to other routes in the Med which has in turn produced some really competitive deals.
⏩ Japan to again designate Russian-held Kuril islands as illegally occupied
⏩ Japan lists 7 items for supply action over current Russia dependence
https://twitter.com/kyodo_english/status/1509411694711566343
Another leak of course from a lab was smallpox in Birmingham. The last ever incident in the world.
A Labour majority is different. That is less likely than the current 4/1.
I feel like the real bellwether for Starmer should be somewhere like Plymouth or Swindon. The problem though is that Labour did reasonably well in those councils in 2018 (even though they didn't quite get Swindon then) and then lost a bunch of seats in 2021 so the scope for enough Labour gains this year is more limited in those places.
"Just want to congratulate Leonardo DiCaprio for not getting up and hitting Ricky Gervais because apparently that was an option."
https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryTMR/status/1508515766219517954?s=20&t=F8uxtRwDV_k1EVsp2mNtcA
From the Telegraph (paywall): "Britain will send longer-range artillery and weapons to help Ukraine launch counter-attacks against retreating Russians. Ben Wallace said Britain would also send air and coastal defence systems and armoured vehicles, as well as training and logistical support." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/31/uk-will-send-long-range-weapons-keep-russian-troops-run-ukraine/
The Prime Minister has changed his mind off the back of the reaction to our report and he WILL now ban conversion therapy after all.
Senior Govt source absolutely assures me it’ll be in Queen’s Speech.
But only gay conversion therapy, not trans.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1509632191067828229
But first. Define conversion. Then define therapy.
Clearly makes criminal something which is not already a crime
Is clear what the crime is
Does not restrict the freedom of adults to do ridiculous things
Does not cross the boundaries of religious or philosophical freedom of belief, including daft beliefs
Does not make criminals of people who have silly but benign intentions
Only criminalises things which almost everyone would say obviously ought to be a crime.
It's harder than people think.
The coincidence of location of Huanan Market is however quite compelling because (a) that's where the first documented cases were; (b) markets such as these are typical breeding grounds for epidemics - SARS started exactly this way; (c) Chinese authorities clearly thought this was the source as evidenced by the panicky closure of such markets.
Also small scale lab leaks are not uncommon, including in China and there are always consequences: they get isolated, shut down; personnel get replaced etc No-one of this happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Most important the lab leak theory ignores the fact that effectively 100% of epidemics start with species jumps and this virus fits that pattern. Lab Leak theory disregards by far the most likely explanation.
Lab Leak is in the category of possible and an interesting idea. But not particularly probable, I think.
Duke of York took £1 million from Turkish ‘fraudster’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/03/31/duke-york-took-1m-turkish-fraudster/
https://nypost.com/2022/03/30/clinton-campaign-dnc-fined-by-fec-for-lying-about-steele-dossier-payments/
- the numbers of personnel trained
- the training itself
- the materiel: increased numbers of drones, bombs and anti-tank weapons at their disposal
- the tactics to get more vehicles per ambush,
- their reach (with more and better small drones to ID targets from greater distances and over greater areas)
In addition, with the Russians either digging in or retreating, the number of vulnerable targets available to them is increasing.
So I'd expect the tempo to increase - at least until supplies become an issue or the Russians adapt.
...but I don't think it's happened yet.
1 "Therapist" is not a term defined in law. It easy to legislate a profession. But right now, you or I or any other bugger can call themselves a therapist and offer therapy.
Any attempt.to change this is being thwarted by the under and unqualified. See Kid's Company. A lot of these are very influential and middle class "helpers".
2 A properly trained therapist has a duty of unconditional positive regard to the presenting issue. That may be "I think I am gay, but don't want to be.' Their duty is to work with that.
Whatever. The issues are being clouded by religious groups.
https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1509598886934958080?s=20&t=HNWcnqG88coS11GYFQbyhg
Why ARE you so attached to the market theory? Is it Trump? I genuinely find this mystifying: people like you. As I understand it, you are not an American virologist funded by NIH, so you have no skin in the game
As for Plymouth, there's been a lot of in-fighting within the Conservative group - Swindon is more interesting, The Conservatives did very well last year - looking at the seats being fought this time, I can really only see four possible gains for Labour.
If I were sitting on a jury, and it was a death penalty case, I'd be saying "I think he's guilty... but I'm not sure I'd be willing to hang him for it"
Nor do I wish to again.
It is only really the fact that the wet market has so much genetic material related to CV19 in it and that it would be such an ideal incubating location for a virus, that stops us moving it to a 99% chance of being a lab leak.
It's ironic and unfortunate that the final go ahead was given to the London-Manchester HS2 route just two months before the first lockdown.
@MKarnitschnig
Senior EU official in Brussels tells me they think the war will end soon and Russia will “win,” which can only mean that Ukraine is on the cusp of a victory. #UkraineRussianWar
https://twitter.com/MKarnitschnig/status/1509510279192883210
David Clark 🇺🇦
@David_K_Clark
·
5h
Replying to
@MKarnitschnig
Was this official drunk?
We need all of HS2 to provide the capacity we need to shift freight onto the rail network. And that's before the completely uncalculated improvements occur as commuter services start to run on the old main line routes which were binned 50+ years ago.
Really? The man is a bit silly.
"Who?"
BBC News out and about in the north.
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1509628971213893637
There was at least one destroyed Russian column in Kyiv Oblast on twitter today.
Ukrainians expecting a big push aiming towards encirclement of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. If they can hold that back in the next couple of weeks or so then Russia look like they will be running out of options.
Yes, he's joking, but the thrust of the joke is 'It was an outrage the thing I didn't want raised was raised'. Losing his slick touch when pushed I think. Reminds me of how Corbyn's general soothing, peaceable manners could fray when he got annoyed.
Greater Manchester and its hinterland could have a local rail network with 15 minute frequencies the norm for suburban stations. But the network also has to accommodate fast trains. And fast trains eat paths. You need to leave much longer gaps between the slow trains to fit a fast train in.
If you could take out the London, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Scotland* trains, the local setvice you could have could be transformed. And high frequencies drive up patronage more than any other single intervention. And importantly drive up non-commute patronage at non-peak times - when traditionally trains carry around a lot of empty air.
*via the Northern Chord - which also relieves the Castlefield Corridor, the most congested stretch of rail in the North.
Quite easy to put freight and local services on the same network as they go at similar average speeds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2cMFfCjsO4
Actually, let's deconstruct your absurd twaddle, @FF43
"The equivalent in London would be an outbreak in Borough Market must be due to a leak from a lab in Uxbridge."
1. The closest ancillary outpost of the Wuhan Institute of Virology was their BSL2 (low safety standard) laboratory at the Wuhan CDC, about 280 metres from the market
"WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, MSc, responded: “As far as WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table. We have not yet found the source of the virus and must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as we do.”
Notably, the report includes a hitherto unpublished piece of relevant information: “The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved on 2nd December 2019 to a new location NEAR THE HUANAN MARKET. Such moves can be disruptive for the operations of any laboratory.”"
So in fact the equivalent in London would be a viral outbreak occurring at Borough Market and the virus lab being slightly to the left of, um, Borough Station
https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20210514/questions-remain-after-who-team-visits-wuhan-looking-for-answers-to-sarscov2
2. This (insecure) lab near Borough Station is the only lab in the world working on making novel bat coronaviruses even more dangerous to mankind (killer coronaviruses!), and then we get an outbreak of a weirdly dangerous novel bat coronavirus 280 metres away at... Borough Market
"Unearthed video of Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses"
https://twitter.com/chuckghunter/status/1407467151544496131?s=20&t=HNWcnqG88coS11GYFQbyhg
So the lab by Borough Station was deliberately trying to make these novel bat coronaviruses into "killers", and then a killer new bat coronavirus appears at Borough Market...