uglysound wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 3:49 pm It's probably because the Republican response during the entire pandemic has been pants-on-retarded at best, and flat-out evil at worst.

if the democrats wanted to investigate the origins of the virus, they could have. if other media outlets cared, maybe it would be ok to ask questions. only now is biden interested in seeking answers, using diplomatic language such as "low confidence" and "unintentional."

The right is trying to criminalize the use of mRNA vaccines in multiple states.

lol

hbiden@onlyfans.com wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 8:55 pm Department of Energy runs all the national labs.

In China?

I notice you've immediately taken one dissenting low-confidence opinion from one US department based on no actual apparent evidence and jumped straight to "yesterday's "misinformation" and "conspiracy theories" and "witch hunts" eventually come true."

Absolutely nothing the CCP does or says is trustworthy but this eagerness to jump to conclusions suggests to me that your own assessment may have more than a touch of bias. I can see that you really want the lab story to be true, you are eager for it to be true and are hoping Trump gets to be right about something even though he couldn't care less about the facts himself and will just say anything.

Anthony Flack wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:19 pm

hbiden@onlyfans.com wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 8:55 pm Department of Energy runs all the national labs.

In China?

I notice you've immediately taken one dissenting low-confidence opinion from one US department based on no actual apparent evidence and jumped straight to "yesterday's "misinformation" and "conspiracy theories" and "witch hunts" eventually come true."

Absolutely nothing the CCP does or says is trustworthy but this eagerness to jump to conclusions suggests to me that your own assessment may have more than a touch of bias. I can see that you really want the lab story to be true, you are eager for it to be true and are hoping Trump gets to be right about something even though he couldn't care less about the facts himself and will just say anything.

oh. i honestly don't know what trump has said on this. why does it matter?

you can keep asking for physical evidence. see how far that gets you. the smoking gun was buried long ago. all we can hope for is a brave chinese scientist or maybe the janitor to come forward and that ain't happening without international asylum.

Again you're working from the assumption that it definitely was a lab leak. If it wasn't - if it started the way pandemics usually start - then there's no smoking gun to find.

Certainly if it was a lab leak you can guarantee the Chinese government would have lied and covered it up. And if it came from the wet market, well, they would have lied and covered that up, too.

But that doesn't tell us anything about whether the next pandemic is going to emerge from a research lab, a wet market, or a mink farm. And the amount of crowing going on due to one of the right wing's bullshit stories being accidentally, unverifiably, possibly, low-probability true for once is sickening.

ONE OF THE THINGS WE CLAIMED MIGHT BY SHEER FLUKE HAVE NOT BEEN DEMONSTRABLY FALSE! HA! IN YOUR FACE! We said a possibly true thing, we said a possibly true thing, la-la-la

Anyone would think, given the outsized reaction and the fact that no actual evidence has come to light, that they aren't used to the things they say being backed up by anyone with credibility.

Every moderately reasonable person entertained that there were multiple possible origins - the majority of the time when lab leak source stories were discussed, the discussion was "there isn't enough evidence to support this claim."

I did see a lot of "we should be putting energy elsewhere" takes at that time, which were twisted into a dismissal of all origin stories discussed at that time, but that doesn't imply specifically that no one believed the origin sources could have included a leak.

If new evidence supports a lab leak theory, then so be it, but the whole thing a year or two ago where internet people offered only a binary choice of supporting the lab leak theory OR you must be a red commie antifa that supports all things China was mostly the conversation of twitter party cheerleaders.

I'm still unclear how anyone expects to hold China accountable, so while others might learn from the mistake, I'm also unconvinced there's a lesson here. If it was an unintentional lab leak, then protocols were probably broken. If that's the case, what's the lesson? Follow the rules harder?

I honestly do not know why it is happening now either. That’s why I brought it up. (Not to crow, as if anyone was following me here.)

I expect there are some lessons to be learned either way and encouraging transparency from china is always nice.

But I don’t expect resolution.

Also, let's be clear about who was screaming about the lab leak loudest and why there was a reflexive response to that screaming. Right or wrong, it was a nice way to box in an "opponent" and create a straw man of Chinese / CCP support that didn't really exist.

Most leftists I know have been screaming about China's Human Right record for a very long time.

Requiring evidence to support a claim is normal, even when the claim is against someone you distrust.

My son hates hearing the pandemic referenced, in any context, any more. “That was before the pandemic,” “XYZ happened because of the pandemic”—all of it.

I think this is getting common. We’ve moved from pandemic fatigue to talking-about-the-pandemic fatigue.

Wood Goblin wrote: Wed Mar 01, 2023 2:53 pm My son hates hearing the pandemic referenced, in any context, any more. “That was before the pandemic,” “XYZ happened because of the pandemic”—all of it.

I think this is getting common. We’ve moved from pandemic fatigue to talking-about-the-pandemic fatigue.

i feel that so much.
yesterday at lunch, "oh we went cashless since the pandemic."
no problem, but i'd rather you just not try to explain it.

I was watching a show on amazon prime that had commercials and they kept playing a commercial for Paxlovid over and over.

The slogan is something like "if it's covid... paxlovid". Something about this ad creeps me out. Not totally sure what it is either...

Seems like Pfizer might be walking a thin line regarding rules for naming/advertising/marketing drugs?

From the pfizer site: https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/ev ... ed_read_on

It can’t be considered marketing. Using the company’s name within the drug’s name must be avoided. Also, it’s important to stay away from superlatives or laudatory terms (best, new, fastest, strongest) that could be considered promotional.

I kinda hate the fact that questioning things RE: the pandemic/vaccines, etc. automatically puts one into some right-wing loony jar. Can 100% of every doctor/scientist/professional-of-some-type be 100% wrong about this whole thing? All day long, forever and ever? I just don't see how that could be possible.

FWIW, I was vaxxed/boosted, and have no problem wearing masks when needed, etc. Had a weird reaction to my last booster though. Armpit got all swollen up and itched like a motherfucker for a good 4 months or so. It was kinda gross. I don't like being aware of my armpit on a haptic level. Chlorine made it sting. Al in all very unpleasant to say the least. In all honesty, I'm feeling pretty reluctant to do that again.