American Politics

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2781813]Elvis, Please note there's a distinction between a naturally occurring virus that leaks from a lab and a virus modified through gain of function research that leaks from a lab.

A leaked State Department fact sheet based on US intelligence said several researchers at the Wuhan Lab got sick and were hospitalized with symptoms consistent "with COVID 19 and common season illness." That could be evidence for a possible lab leak.

My wild guess is that the virus came from a lab leak at Wuhan of a naturally occurring bat virus, but that and $2.00 will buy you cup of coffee.

I haven't followed this debate and new evidence over the last year or so, but this paper is part of the reason I'm an agnostic. It's a really interesting read if you can get through the first part of it, and may identify the individuals who were first infected by a virus that mutated into COVID 19.

The authors came across an old Chinese masters thesis, written in 2013, that described six workers who came down with a deadly disease in a mine inhabited by bats. Three of the six died after illnesses. Bat coronaviruses were isolated from the mine. One included a genome sequence, BtCoV /4991, 98.7% identical to SARS-CoV-2, and the other, RaTG13 was 96.2% identical.[/QUOTE]Yes, those are the viruses identified, and China claims to have no more of those samples and will not let anyone else in to go to the caves to get them.

From your paper, "This furin site is novel to SARS-CoV-2 compared to its near relatives. The theory also explains the exceptional affinity of the virus spike protein for human receptors, which has also surprised virologists".

The question is where did the perfect furin site come from. There is no evidence of this virus occurring in nature.

And you do not isolate for histoplasmosis. If these workers had the Covid we think of, they would have spread it to health care workers. They had this deadly virus but it stayed with them because the spike proteins on that virus were lousy with regards to transmission.

And it is nothing to modify. Omicron has an even better spike protein than earlier versions of the virus. If you put that spike protein on the older and more deadly versions of Covid, you get a scary as hell mortality rate.

[URL]https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.13.512134v1.full.pdf[/URL]

And if you use the no-see-um technique you can modify a virus in such a way that you do not leave a fingerprint of what you have done.

So did China have Covid like viruses in its possession? Yes although they initially tried to hide that they did. Were they doing gain of function research in China? Yes. Were they bragging about this research? Yes. Were the first people sick with Covid in Wuhan? Yes. And Wuhan was the site of a gathering of athletes right before the pandemic started. Did you know they did a coronavirus safety drill before the athletes got there? Gee, I wonder why.

If the virus was naturally occurring, the outbreak would have started with those lab tech workers or near the bat cave in which the virus was found.

Then you add in this scumbag Peter Dazsak who spearheaded the initiative to say the virus was naturally occurring, and he declared that anyone who said otherwise was spouting conspiracy theory. The author of that paper wrote Dazsak and he said everyone in his lab believed Covid was man made. Two months later, he writes the article that says Covid is naturally occurring, and Fauci rewards him with a $2 million grant for bullshiting when it comes to his beliefs. And by the way, Dazsak thanks Fauci for pushing the naturally occurring theory. Why? Because that asshole was overseeing and funding the project.

And the one thing that galvanized all the scientists? It was a hatred of Trump. The scientists put all their energy on sticking the virus on Trump and ignoring China's horrific role with creation of the virus.

And to this day, you see douches like PVM and Tooms swearing that all these deaths are on Trump, and China is blameless. It is disgusting, and it makes me wonder what are guys like this getting paid to be so blind to the truth.

[URL]https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/biden-administration-finally-admits-its-mistake-canceling-keystone-xl-pipeline[/URL]

The Biden Administration Finally Admits Its Mistake In Canceling The Keystone XL Pipeline.

At long last, the Biden administration is admitting what experts have always known: reckless energy policies have disastrous consequences. This time, the Department of Energy quietly released a report highlighting the positive economic benefits of developing the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, an energy project canceled by President Biden in the hours following his inauguration.

Released without a formal announcement, the DOE's report points out that the pipeline would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had an economic benefit of between $3. 4 and 9. 6 billion. That's no small impact. Yet with one stroke of his pen, Biden slashed the project and instead focused his efforts on costly "green energy" goals. As a result of his executive action, 11,000 pipeline workers were promptly laid off and told to "go to work to make solar panels" instead.

Ah yes, but Biden is the great job creator, right Tooms?

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2781859]It isn't anyone from the left who called for a Civil War, it was this guy who wants to be first in line. I guess he is still a little boy who wants to play army. He can have his one man Civil War and go shoot himself. Civil War and killing is not a joke. Let's get some sense here. Maybe he will cut and paste his way through his Civil War too.[/QUOTE]Yes I know the blue team doesn't want a civil war, the red team has a bunch of guns jajajajaja.

[URL]https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/more-than-400-million-guns-from-sea-to-shining-sea/[/URL]

No big surprise the Fed govt wants to confiscate them all jajajaja good luck.

Long live the 2 A!!

All the smart money is on the red team jajajajajaaaaaaa.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2781866]Your reasoning, as usual, assumes Trump caused the pandemic, which doesn't make sense.

Employment increased by 4.8 million from the date TCJA took effect (January, 2018) until COVID started (February, 2020). Employment grew at 1.6% per year, during a period when the working age population actually declined. The unemployment rate declined to levels last seen during the late 1960's. The unemployment rate among blacks and Hispanics may have been the lowest ever. Now was the TCJA the only reason this happened? I doubt it. But it was one of the reasons, and we have continued to reap the benefits. Perhaps that's why Democrats didn't repeal it when they controlled the presidency, House and Senate.

I am glad you've at least modified your $2.5 trillion estimated effect of the TCJA on government revenues (which assumes all the provisions of the act will be extended) to incorporate the CBO's original $1.5 trillion estimate. Which may be on the high end considering revenues from corporate tax rates are where the CBO estimated they'd be WITHOUT the TCJA. See my reply to Xpartan below for more.[/QUOTE]Trump himself did all the simple calculations necessary to reasonably conclude he caused Trump's Pandemic:

[URL]https://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html[/URL]

[QUOTE][b]Trump, on recorded audio:[/b]
"I said, it came out of China, Barron. Pure and simple. It came out of China. And it shouldve been stopped. And to be honest with you, Barron, [b]they shouldve let it be known it was a problem two months earlier ... the world wouldnt have a problem. We could have stopped it easily.[/b][/QUOTE][B]Trump says China should have told us about coronavirus. He removed the official meant to do that.
A US epidemiologist was embedded with the Chinese CDC. The Trump administration discontinued the position.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/23/21190713/coronavirus-trump-china-cdc-embed-quick[/URL]

[QUOTE]With the administration planning to discontinue the role, the embed return to the US about [b]five months before China began to see its first Covid-19 cases.[/b] Under normal circumstances, the embed likely would have passed information about the novel virus to US officials. Instead, Chinese officials were able for weeks to conceal the virus and the threat it posed, leading to a delay in the worlds response to what was then a matter of great concern and is now a pandemic.[/QUOTE]If Obama, Hillary, Biden or any other Dem had done what Trump did, every Repub and all typically pro Repub Mainstream Media would be making that exact same reasonable calculation and coming to the exact same sensible conclusion; that the World Leader who pulled that monitor five months before the first cases emerged when a 2 month heads up would have easily prevented the Pandemic from deceloping, and did so against all dire expert warnings not to do something so stupid and dangerous, "caused" the Pandemic.

And on the relatively irrelevant difference between Trump flushing $1. 5 Trillion or $2. 5 Trillion down the shitter in order to produce 1 million FEWER jobs with his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act with it than without it and not one single percentage point increase in GDP growth, I only allowed for that fanciful range in order to keep you from pulling a lame diversionary tactic of cherry picking that relatively irrelevant point to refute as though you found a marble sized gold nugget buried in a Mount Everest of dog shit.

But since I see that generous gesture on my part didn't prevent you from pulling that bit, I will now go back to citing the more realistic amount Trump and his Repubs flushed diwn the shitter with their one and only economic legislation in 4 years other than the panic emergency spending they had to rush to after Trump created Trump's Pandemic; $2. 5+ Trillion.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2781898]Yes, those are the viruses identified, and China claims to have no more of those samples and will not let anyone else in to go to the caves to get them.

From your paper, "This furin site is novel to SARS-CoV-2 compared to its near relatives. The theory also explains the exceptional affinity of the virus spike protein for human receptors, which has also surprised virologists".

The question is where did the perfect furin site come from. There is no evidence of this virus occurring in nature.

And you do not isolate for histoplasmosis. If these workers had the Covid we think of, they would have spread it to health care workers. They had this deadly virus but it stayed with them because the spike proteins on that virus were lousy with regards to transmission.

And it is nothing to modify. Omicron has an even better spike protein than earlier versions of the virus. If you put that spike protein on the older and more deadly versions of Covid, you get a scary as hell mortality rate.

[URL]https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.13.512134v1.full.pdf[/URL]

And if you use the no-see-um technique you can modify a virus in such a way that you do not leave a fingerprint of what you have done.

So did China have Covid like viruses in its possession? Yes although they initially tried to hide that they did. Were they doing gain of function research in China? Yes. Were they bragging about this research? Yes. Were the first people sick with Covid in Wuhan? Yes. And Wuhan was the site of a gathering of athletes right before the pandemic started. Did you know they did a coronavirus safety drill before the athletes got there? Gee, I wonder why.

If the virus was naturally occurring, the outbreak would have started with those lab tech workers or near the bat cave in which the virus was found.

Then you add in this scumbag Peter Dazsak who spearheaded the initiative to say the virus was naturally occurring, and he declared that anyone who said otherwise was spouting conspiracy theory. The author of that paper wrote Dazsak and he said everyone in his lab believed Covid was man made. Two months later, he writes the article that says Covid is naturally occurring, and Fauci rewards him with a $2 million grant for bullshiting when it comes to his beliefs. And by the way, Dazsak thanks Fauci for pushing the naturally occurring theory. Why? Because that asshole was overseeing and funding the project.

And the one thing that galvanized all the scientists? It was a hatred of Trump. The scientists put all their energy on sticking the virus on Trump and ignoring China's horrific role with creation of the virus.

And to this day, you see douches like PVM and Tooms swearing that all these deaths are on Trump, and China is blameless. It is disgusting, and it makes me wonder what are guys like this getting paid to be so blind to the truth.[/QUOTE]The one thing we agree on is that it's ridiculous to blame Trump.

Furin cleavage sites are uncommon in bat coronaviruses but not unknown. Two bat coronaviruses closely related to MERS, BatCoV-HKU5 and BatCoV-HKU4, have furin cleavage sites.

The mine in China which Latham and Wilson postulate the virus came from is close to northern Laos. Bat viruses have been identified there that have spike sequences enabling them to readily bind to human ACE2, like COVID 19. From the paper below, "We found that the receptor-binding domains of these viruses difer from that of SARS-CoV-2 by only one or two residues at the interface with ACE2, [b]bind more efficiently to the human ACE2 protein than that of the SARS-CoV-2 strain isolated in Wuhan from early human cases, [/b]and mediate human ACE2-dependent entry and replication in human cells, which is inhibited by antibodies that neutralize SARS-CoV-2. " They also note the viruses don't have furin cleavage sites in the spike protein. But who's to say either the mine workers weren't infected by another bat virus with a furin cleavage site, or the Wuhan researchers didn't recover a bat virus, at the mine or in a cave, that was COVID 19? Or the explanation favored by Latham and Wilson, the furin cleavage site evolved in the lungs of one of the mine workers. Here's the paper about Laos.

[URL]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04532-4.pdf[/URL]

Latham and Wilson apparently believe histoplasmosis was a cover story, concocted by the Wuhan lab. If the Chinese knew they might have a tiger by the tail, they would have been taking precautions to prevent infection of health care workers. Good point though, why didn't the virus seep out into the general population, and why didn't we have a pandemic before 2020.

Yes you can modify a virus without leaving a fingerprint. But why would you do that? I don't buy the theory that the Chinese military was trying to engineer some kind of weapon at Wuhan.

As to your comment, "Yes, those are the viruses identified, and China claims to have no more of those samples and will not let anyone else in to go to the caves to get them," that sounds like a strategy for a cover up that could be applied to either a leak of a naturally occurring or engineered virus.

As to "Omicron has an even better spike protein than earlier versions of the virus," please note this, from Latham's blog, about the explanation favored by most virologists for how COVID variants like Alpha, Delta and Omicron emerged.

"Long incubation inside a single infected patient allowed evolution to occur at an unusually rapid pace, leading ultimately to the creation of radically different versions of SARS-CoV-2. Eventually, these patients transmitted their novel virus, thereby seeding the global spread of a new variant. This idea is strongly supported by multiple publications describing patients with chronic SARS-CoV-2 infections who accumulate large numbers of adaptive mutations. " Note the similarity to Latham and Wilson's theory of how COVD 19 evolved from a bat virus encountered in the mine.

You may very well be right. The risk is that we conclude the virus was engineered and so that's all we need to worry about. Or that it came from a wet market and that's where we need to focus. We need to look at everything -- getting developing countries to get rid of wet markets. Try to avoid human exposure to viruses from bats and bat guano and rodents and the like. Isolate people so you can avoid pandemics. Make sure the labs are safe. And be better prepared the next time this happens.

Tooms’ solution, that we won’t have pandemics if we just elect Democrat presidents, doesnt make a lot of sense to me.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2781899][URL]https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/biden-administration-finally-admits-its-mistake-canceling-keystone-xl-pipeline[/URL]

The Biden Administration Finally Admits Its Mistake In Canceling The Keystone XL Pipeline.

At long last, the Biden administration is admitting what experts have always known: reckless energy policies have disastrous consequences. This time, the Department of Energy quietly released a report highlighting the positive economic benefits of developing the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, an energy project canceled by President Biden in the hours following his inauguration.

Released without a formal announcement, the DOE's report points out that the pipeline would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had an economic benefit of between $3. 4 and 9. 6 billion. That's no small impact. Yet with one stroke of his pen, Biden slashed the project and instead focused his efforts on costly "green energy" goals. As a result of his executive action, 11,000 pipeline workers were promptly laid off and told to "go to work to make solar panels" instead.

Ah yes, but Biden is the great job creator, right Tooms?[/QUOTE]It was insane. Why wouldn't you want the oil going to USA Refineries instead of to the Canadian west coast and then Asia? I suspect Biden wouldn't make the same choice today, given what we see going on in Europe as a result of the Ukraine / Russia war. And given his new found enthusiasm for domestic oil and gas production, in the short term at least. But the majority of the politicians in his party would foolishly do it all over again.

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2781859]It isn't anyone from the left who called for a Civil War, it was this guy who wants to be first in line. I guess he is still a little boy who wants to play army. He can have his one man Civil War and go shoot himself. Civil War and killing is not a joke. Let's get some sense here. Maybe he will cut and paste his way through his Civil War too.[/QUOTE]Hey ChucoLoco, the Marquis is messing with you. He's playing bad cop to my good cop, in our struggle to save Democrats' souls.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2782078]Hey ChucoLoco, the Marquis is messing with you. He's playing bad cop to my good cop, in our struggle to save Democrats' souls.[/QUOTE]I kind of thought that it was BS Tiny but to be honest, I don't like his game but that's me maybe others find him funny. Anyway at my age, I would rather get some poosy or a BJ rather than save or be saved but you have a good attitude. Thanks.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2782078]Hey ChucoLoco, the Marquis is messing with you. He's playing bad cop to my good cop, in our struggle to save Democrats' souls.[/QUOTE][URL]https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/01/20/maher-wokeness-turned-into-ugly-authoritarianism-that-very-much-reminds-me-of-religion/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/20/illegal-ms-13-gang-member-accused-of-murdering-20-year-old-kayla-hamilton/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/01/20/barr-radical-progressive-movement-is-main-danger-to-our-democracy-today-makes-the-mccarthy-era-look-like-childs-play/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2023/01/20/report-gay-couple-accused-pimping-adopted-sons-local-pedophiles/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/01/20/majority-of-british-and-eu-nationals-want-to-preserve-christian-culture-fear-illegal-immigration/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/01/20/italy-sees-thousands-of-illegals-arrive-in-first-weeks-of-2023-more-than-same-2021-22-period-combined/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/01/21/maher-medical-schools-are-the-problem-for-lying-about-science-to-downplay-risk-of-transitioning-children/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/01/21/maher-biden-was-very-shady-on-classified-documents-they-hid-it-for-two-months/[/URL]

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2782114]I kind of thought that it was BS Tiny but to be honest, I don't like his game but that's me maybe others find him funny. Anyway at my age, I would rather get some poosy or a BJ rather than save or be saved but you have a good attitude. Thanks.[/QUOTE]I used to be the same way. It's an age thing Chucoloco. As I've gotten older I think more about my immortal soul and less about poontang.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2781927]Trump himself did all the simple calculations necessary to reasonably conclude he caused Trump's Pandemic:

[/QUOTE]We've debated this to death. The last word was yours Tooms.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2782127]We've debated this to death. The last word was yours Tooms.[/QUOTE]Isn't she a little old for him?

A) why the fuck is marrying her at all lololol.

B) when I'm 93 I want be banging hot college freshmen not their great grandmothers jajajaajajaja.

[URL]https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/buzzaldrin-ancafaur-wedding/2023/01/21/id/1105384/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2781830]No, no Brother Marquis. I'm convinced that a message of love and redemption and logic will cause our brethren on the left to see the light and change their wicked ways. We must bring the word to them, the word of the Saints. Saint Milton Friedman, Saint Friedrich Hayek, and Saint Ludwig von Mises. Don't take up arms Brother Marquis. Pray for them and for their immortal souls.[/QUOTE]And at the same time, don't forget to say a prayer for yourselves, brother Tiny 12. You'll need it!

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2782071]The one thing we agree on is that it's ridiculous to blame Trump.

Furin cleavage sites are uncommon in bat coronaviruses but not unknown. Two bat coronaviruses closely related to MERS, BatCoV-HKU5 and BatCoV-HKU4, have furin cleavage sites.

The mine in China which Latham and Wilson postulate the virus came from is close to northern Laos. Bat viruses have been identified there that have spike sequences enabling them to readily bind to human ACE2, like COVID 19. From the paper below, "We found that the receptor-binding domains of these viruses difer from that of SARS-CoV-2 by only one or two residues at the interface with ACE2, [b]bind more efficiently to the human ACE2 protein than that of the SARS-CoV-2 strain isolated in Wuhan from early human cases, [/b]and mediate human ACE2-dependent entry and replication in human cells, which is inhibited by antibodies that neutralize SARS-CoV-2. " They also note the viruses don't have furin cleavage sites in the spike protein. But who's to say either the mine workers weren't infected by another bat virus with a furin cleavage site, or the Wuhan researchers didn't recover a bat virus, at the mine or in a cave, that was COVID 19? Or the explanation favored by Latham and Wilson, the furin cleavage site evolved in the lungs of one of the mine workers. Here's the paper about Laos.[/QUOTE]Well, Tiny you have gotten me from being 100% certain that Covid started in the Wuhan lab to 99.9%, and that is a compliment. But there are so many problems with this including where Covid started and the behaviors of government officials in China and the USA.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2782071]TYes you can modify a virus without leaving a fingerprint. But why would you do that?[/QUOTE]Because scientists can. Why did Boston University make a form of coronavirus that was 80% fatal? Scientists do crazy and dumb shit all the time. This is what Jon Stewart was taking about. Dems worship "scientists" while Jon Stewart was saying how crazy they can be. BU came under a lot of fire for making that super potent virus.

I think the military is more interested from a distance. It is like nukes. You want to have them and understand them if someone else uses them against you. Bioweapons are last resort type items.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2782071]"Long incubation inside a single infected patient allowed evolution to occur at an unusually rapid pace, leading ultimately to the creation of radically different versions of SARS-CoV-2. Eventually, these patients transmitted their novel virus, thereby seeding the global spread of a new variant. This idea is strongly supported by multiple publications describing patients with chronic SARS-CoV-2 infections who accumulate large numbers of adaptive mutations. " Note the similarity to Latham and Wilson's theory of how COVD 19 evolved from a bat virus encountered in the mine.

You may very well be right. The risk is that we conclude the virus was engineered and so that's all we need to worry about. Or that it came from a wet market and that's where we need to focus. We need to look at everything -- getting developing countries to get rid of wet markets. Try to avoid human exposure to viruses from bats and bat guano and rodents and the like. Isolate people so you can avoid pandemics. Make sure the labs are safe. And be better prepared the next time this happens.[/QUOTE]Well, the frustrating part to me is the gain of function research has not even stopped because the naturally occurring theory won the day. I think you can get further with that though than prohibiting people from exploring caves or selling goods at a wet market.

But this lab leak stuff needs to be clamped down as hard as we do with nukes, and it has not been. There have been way too many accidents. And if you are going to go with the naturally occurring theory and say it jumped from animal to human, IMO you have to find the animal and find it near Wuhan. There is have been no evidence to back up the bat-pangolin theory. None. And people have looked.

But congratulations on getting me to the point where naturally occurring is even possible. Your explanation of how it could have happened was much better than Daszak's.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2781886]Lololol I am not a republican or a democrat, I hate them both (I am an [b]ardent atheist[/b] that voted for Bernie and Trump in 2016) [b]I am a pro America-Populist.[/b]

But I hate the democrats way more, if there is evil in this world then they will eagerly embrace it, they are EVIL. [/QUOTE]Really now, not shocking at all! Believe in nothing, stand for nothing, and fall for everything.

And if you really are "pro American", you wouldn't [B]hate half the country.[/B].

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2781886]Case in point.

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2023/01/20/report-gay-couple-accused-pimping-adopted-sons-local-pedophiles/[/URL]

But I guess its obvious why the trash on this site hate Breitbart so much. They don't like them showing stories like this, they prefer they be swept under the rug.[/QUOTE][B]Embattled US congressman George Santos was drag queen in Brazil pageants, associates say[/B]
[URL]https://www.rappler.com/world/us-canada/united-states-congressman-george-santos-drag-queen-brazil-pageants[/URL]
[URL]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/19/george-santos-drag-queen-brazil-new-york-republican[/URL]

Hillarious as always, as if gay-life doesn't happen on the right. I can only image, your very own Drag Queen Repub (R) George Santos, was no doubt "groomed", much the same way.

Ohhh!...the pageantry of the Brazilian cross-dressing Drag Queen George Santos, by all reports could make even the most hardcore harden drag queen on [b]'RuPaul's Drag Race',[/b] blush for days.