This is a new low for you, imbecile. They all said you couldn’t possibly sink any lower, but I knew you’d only scratched the surface.
It’s amazing that ever since Trump rode down that escalator, the formerly military loving Right takes every chance to denigrate, demean and disrespect the military.
Bzzz!
You were the one bragging about their ability to multi task.
Ooh, you mean the way Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords or threatening to cut NATO protection or shitting on trade deals did?
I remember when the Republicans constantly talked about how much they unconditionally supported the police, the military, and America. This year alone multiple high-level Republicans and their various pet media have openly and repeatedly insulted the police, the military and various elements of the US Olympic team, and have actively been working to undermine American democracy and excuse a violent insurrection intended to overturn a legitimate election, aided by a hostile foreign power.
And some people are fine with that.
You don’t think the oil may have had a little something to do with the decision? (And you apparently don’t think the supposed WMD had anything to do with it…)
It was your position that because we couldn’t defeat the two major powers where the 9/11 hijackers originated and were trained (Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, respectively), that the US should attack some third country that wasn’t responsible for the attack? And this would calm down the “Middle East?”
I can see why you wouldn’t want to relitigate that.
Now you just have to actually connect the “lowering standards and fussing over pronouns” dot to the “if the Pentagon was more concerned with winning wars” dot and the “we might be able to defeat an adversary” dot!
But we all already know you won’t entirely because you can’t.
He would, were it not for the recurring buzzing in his brain. It’s a kind of Tourette’s that prevents him from forming cogent, cited arguments.
There, see? It just happened again.
What does this mean?
Buzz, to me, means predictable, worthless nonsense. Especially the predictable thing.
Hive mind, bees buzzing, it’s the same tired gag by our board’s resident low-rent Henny Youngman.
I can see that. I wasn’t sure if it meant “nailed it” instead.
It was Donald Trump who pledged to get out of Afghanistan and gave a set date for complete American withdrawal. He sent Pompeo to negotiate with the Taliban. Biden did a terrible job dealing with the shit sandwich that was handed to him, but it was Trump that made the sandwich.
Also, while we’ll probably never know the true origin of Covid-19, animal to human jumps happen all the time, while a lab leak never has, so that weights the probabilities to a natural origin.
To be strictly fair, we should note that while animal-to-human virus jumps have happened as long as there have been animals and humans, lab leaks can only have happened in the comparatively short period of time when there have been labs studying viruses for the latter to leak from.
After all, someone’s gotta be first.
Most relevantly:
SARS has not re-emerged naturally, but there have been six escapes from virology labs: one each in Singapore and Taiwan, and four separate escapes at the same laboratory in Beijing.
The first was in Singapore in August 2003, in a virology graduate student at the National University of Singapore. He had not worked directly with SARS, but it was present in the laboratory where he worked. He recovered and produced no secondary cases. The World Health Organization formed an expert committee to revise SARS biosafety guidelines.
The second escape was in Taiwan in December 2003, when a SARS research scientist fell ill on a return flight after attending a medical meeting in Singapore. His 74 contacts in Singapore were quarantined, but again, fortunately, none developed SARS. Investigation revealed the scientist had handled leaking biohazard waste without gloves, a mask, or a gown. Ironically, the WHO expert committee called for augmented biosafety in SARS laboratories the day after this case was reported.
In April 2004, China reported a case of SARS in a nurse who had cared for a researcher at the Chinese National Institute of Virology. While ill, the researcher had traveled twice by train from Beijing to Anhui province, where she was nursed by her mother, a physician, who fell ill and died. The nurse in turn infected five third-generation cases, causing no deaths.
Subsequent investigation uncovered three unrelated laboratory infections in different researchers at the NIV. At least of two primary patients had never worked with live SARS virus. Many shortcomings in biosecurity were found at the NIV, and the specific cause of the outbreak was traced to an inadequately inactivated preparation of SARS virus that was used in general (that is, not biosecure) laboratory areas, including one where the primary cases worked. It had not been tested to confirm its safety after inactivation, as it should have been.
SARS, of course, is caused by a coronavirus - but a less infectious one that thankfully didn’t cause a worldwide pandemic.
Still think a natural origin is more likely?
Yes.
Note again that “lab leak” does not mean “lab originated”.
What do you mean?
I mean that a virus being studied in a lab may not have been created there.
I didn’t say it was. I think it’s much more likely to be a virus being studied in the lab that escaped, rather than the infection starting in the wet market, as was originally claimed.
Note that @Larry_Borgia was comparing lab leak to animal-to-human jumps, not ‘escaped from lab’ vs ‘created in lab then escaped’.