O/T:- ⚠️Impressed with the leadership [The UK Party Politics Thread]

[drillerpie]

I see NCM's own Brendan Clarke-Smith has been cited amongst a group of MP's (the usual suspects, Dorries, Rees-Mogg, Fabricant, Goldsmith etc.) accused of intimidation and interference into an official Commons investigation (Johnson's lying to Parliament).

Why do these people hate our country so much?

Because they are childish people playing silly games for short term personal gain, and they either can't see or don't care about the long term damage to the country.

[Jampie]

IIRC the US intelligence community is still split on whether it came out of a lab or evolved naturally, and so am I based on available evidence (not conclusive either way).

Mind you I understand the instinct to disagree with everything Trump says, he's got a spectacular track record of being dead wrong about nearly everything, but particularly about covid-19...

[Elite_Pie]

I see NCM's own Brendan Clarke-Smith has been cited amongst a group of MP's (the usual suspects, Dorries, Rees-Mogg, Fabricant, Goldsmith etc.) accused of intimidation and interference into an official Commons investigation (Johnson's lying to Parliament).

Why do these people hate our country so much?

I don’t think they particularly hate the country. They just want to keep it a country where those with wealth and privilege tell the rest what to do, and do the opposite themselves.

[Magpies1959]

Of course the virus spread from a pangolin to a human in a Chinese wet market in Wuhan. How grateful should we be that those caring thoughtful Chinese, should happen to have all the PPE the rest of the world needed, on tap, ready and waiting.

[Newish Pie]

I think anyone who doesn't consider it a serious possibility is burying their heads in the sand.

Even the Guardian has backpedalled from calling it 'Donald Trump's racist conspiracy theory' to talking about it as a very realistic hypothesis.

I don't have time to look for it now but if anyone can post a link to Sam Harris's podcast from a few months ago on the topic, it makes a very compelling case.

In case anyone wants to head that off by saying the sources are not credible, Sam Harris is a pro-vaccine ultra rationalist and one of his guests is an acclaimed science writer and ex member of the House of Lords who sat on scientific select committees.

Don't disagree with that. It's a possibility that shouldn't be completely discounted, though there's no direct evidence for it at the moment and nothing in the virus that points to genetic engineering.

My point was just that the theory that it might be a lab leak is not widely accepted by scientists, or even anywhere close.

But I definitely agree that the mood music around it has changed over the years in exactly the way that drillerpie describes, and it's now taken more seriously.

[upthemaggies]

This is from 2014, can't read the whole article but from "The Scientist"....

Moratorium on Gain-of-Function Research
In the wake of a handful of biosafety lapses at federal research facilities, the US government is temporarily halting funding for new studies aiming to give novel functions to influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses.

https://www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/moratorium-on-gain-of-function-research-36564

Off the top of my head, so I stand to be corrected, Obama was against Gain of function research and considered it too dangerous, that's why they ended up funding the research being carried out in China rather than doing it on US soil and that's why it was problematic for the US to straight up admit it came out of the lab, because the blame isn't squarely with China if we accept that trying to keep a lid on something designed to spread incredibly easily between humans was always likely to end badly.

For about a year after the outbreak, anybody claiming it came out of a lab was likely to have their post/video taken down, channel demonetised, smeared, censored etc. but you can speak freely about this now

Very surprised to be honest that there are still people willing to believe this was natural and are stuck in 2020 modes of thinking with this.

[Jampie]

Of course the virus spread from a pangolin to a human in a Chinese wet market in Wuhan. How grateful should we be that those caring thoughtful Chinese, should happen to have all the PPE the rest of the world needed, on tap, ready and waiting.

Given that the virus wiped out China's economy I think we can safely rule out a money making exercise from the possible motivations for a deliberate release.

In fact, given the sheer damage it's done to China in general, we can pretty safely rule out a deliberate release ordered by authorities there.

[drillerpie]

Don't disagree with that. It's a possibility that shouldn't be completely discounted, though there's no direct evidence for it at the moment and nothing in the virus that points to genetic engineering.

My point was just that the theory that it might be a lab leak is not widely accepted by scientists, or even anywhere close.

But I definitely agree that the mood music around it has changed over the years in exactly the way that drillerpie describes, and it's now taken more seriously.

It shouldn't be discounted at all, given that the report by the US intellligence community states that all its agencies find it to be a plausible hypothesis.

I think 5 agencies found the Pangolin explanation to be the most plausible, 2 found the lab leak the most plausible (including the FBI) and the rest (including the CIA) couldn't decide.

Some of the agencies found that there was evidence of laboratory adaptation (taking a virus found in nature and playing with it to provoke the desired mutations) of the virus, which is distinct from genetically engineering a virus (creating it from scratch in a lab) which all agencies agreed did not happen.

The US intelligence community concluded there were concerns about adherence to the correct safety practices at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the lead up to the pandemic.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology took down the database of viruses it had been working with in, ahem, autumn 2019.

It is probably more accurate to say that the lab leak is not publicly accepted by a majority of scientists.

[drillerpie]

Given that the virus wiped out China's economy I think we can safely rule out a money making exercise from the possible motivations for a deliberate release.

In fact, given the sheer damage it's done to China in general, we can pretty safely rule out a deliberate release ordered by authorities there.

Yes I agree with that. It'll be the classic 'Chernobyl' scenario, whereby low ranking bureaucrats working in autocratic regimes are very reluctant to give bad new to their bosses, so lie and end up making things much worse than they could've ever imagined.

[Magpies1959]

I must have missed all those headlines saying that China's economy was wiped out by the virus lol. I would love to know what damage it has done to China, seeing as the whole world seems to rely on their cheap produce at the expense of their population.

If as so many still seem to think the possibility is it spread from the wet market. Why has there been a deafening silence about sorting out their wet markets so that this sort of thing cannot happen again.

[Elite_Pie]

As I have said on here before, I have no political allegiance.

Really? If that’s the case you are doing brilliant impersonation of a typical gammon!

If you honestly think you inhabit the centre ground, I can see why you think GB News is unbiased.

[SwalePie]

I must have missed all those headlines saying that China's economy was wiped out by the virus lol. I would love to know what damage it has done to China, seeing as the whole world seems to rely on their cheap produce at the expense of their population.

If as so many still seem to think the possibility is it spread from the wet market. Why has there been a deafening silence about sorting out their wet markets so that this sort of thing cannot happen again.

The Chinese economy has been hit very hard. I speak with Chinese colleagues daily. There is huge youth unemployment due to factory slowdowns and closures.

[Elite_Pie]

The Chinese economy has been hit very hard. I speak with Chinese colleagues daily. There is huge youth unemployment due to factory slowdowns and closures.

I wonder if that was reported on the totally unbiased GB News?

[Magpies1959]

Just give it a rest EP. I didn't say I inhabited the centre ground, some of my views are to the left and some are to the right. I suppose you would just prefer no balance in news reporting.

Fair dos Swale I bow to your inside knowledge .

[Mud Pie]

Any crisis presents an opportunity to make money and leverage power, all of the big players would have foreseen this and were ready to jump on an opportunity that presented itself. It [c]ould have reached the point where they 'sort of' wanted it, and once you're there, decisions could start being made that compromise security.

so I've bolded for veracity and emphasis, but it's unfortunately a matter of criminal record that well known Tory politicians illegally and totally immorally sought to profit and profited from their govts covid response.

As far as conspiracies go though, there's a big difference between planning responses to something that was/is likely to happen (whether as a govt or as an international agency, or as a business) and actively making it happen or prolonging it/making it worse for everyone, isn't there?