circuscritic

Is the Biden administration lead by conspiracy theorists as well?

Again, inclusive and circumstantial, but pretty far removed from crackpot conspiracy theories and tinfoil hats.

Direct quote from that NYT article I linked:

In addition to the Energy Department, the F.B.I. has also concluded, with moderate confidence, that the virus first emerged accidentally from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses.

They aren’t conspiracy theories, at least, not according to the US Government and Biden’s DoE:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/us/politics/china-lab-leak-coronavirus-pandemic.html

Circumstantial evidence, not conclusive either way, but clearly the Biden administration feels the evidence is weighted slightly more on the side you just called a conspiracy theory.

Which again, is all they allege for ebola, but unlike the co-author of that first paper I linked, I don’t have a PhD in virology, so what do I know.

Those are both pretty through examples of indepth investigative reporting, by credentialed and experienced independent journalists and researchers. There’s plenty of threads to pull on once you start reading into it.

It’s also been covered by Ryan Grim, former DC Beauru Chief for The Intercept. I believe he has recorded interviews up with either researchers from those articles, or some other journalists specializing in covering scientific and medical fields, I forget which.

I’ve read the reporting, looked into the journalists and researchers behind it, and find them credible.

If you don’t, it doesn’t affect me any.

https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/did-west-africas-ebola-outbreak-of-2014-have-a-lab-origin/

https://jacobin.com/2016/07/ebola-west-africa-sierra-leone-bah-zoonotic-health-corruption-imperialism/

I have no idea how this lab will operate, but these types of labs are often used by government agencies whose own countries have prohibited certain types of extremely dangerous and risky research.

There’s actually a lot of good circumstantial evidence that the really big Ebola outbreak some years ago likely originated from a lab in neighboring country, that was being used by US government funded scientists, doing work that they were not legally allowed to do on US soil.

It’s late and I’m tired so I am not going to dig up the reporting on that, but there has been some great coverage on the topic in the few years that it’s worth reading up on.

Whether or not any of that has any relevance to this specific laboratory, or how they’ll operate, I have no idea. Just pointing out that whatever upside can be gained by this type of research, is also accompanied by serious risks.

Actually…that makes a lot more sense and I don’t recall that being brought up in article, but maybe I missed it.

I would say that elections are public affairs, and have widespread coverage, including public polling data, but I can see the analogy to insider trading.

Even if the only one’s hurt here are the bookies, it’s probably not an activity that should be publicly accepted as normal.

Did I miss the part where the bet was something oddly specific where the aide could actually significantly impact akin to shaving points, or throwing a fight…?

Because it just says he bet on the general election, which honestly feels relatively harmless in the context of a society with widespread legalized gambling.

Not that I’d shed any tears over a Sunak aide getting fucked by any legal process, including a dubious one.

Can someone tell me if I’m missed something here?

That’s all well and good. They clearly deserve much much worse.

Unfortunately, what comes next is New Labour pissing on everyone’s head, while their media toadies write endless columns about how their prayers for rain have finally been answered…and everyone better be grateful for it.

There are GreaseMonkey/ViolentMonkey scripts that work fine as well.

I still use Reddit infrequently, and delete what few comments I leave after a couple days using those scripts.

So now even our Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, is a junky. This is emblematic of what is happening to our Country. The whole world is laughing at us as we go to hell on our Borders, our fake Presidential Election, and everywhere else!

https://web.archive.org/web/20210509170756/https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk/desk-8pttbep59x/

This reminds me of when Trump called a race horse a junkie after winning the Kentucky Derby and being disqualified for a failed drug test. As if the horse was tying off and shooting up in the stable outhouse.

While this child has more agency than a horse, it’s not like she had a choice in the matter.

Is it right for her for be DQ’d? Yes, but she’s still a victim.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that she’s was a child made to take drugs by her own government.

Isn’t it more racist to act as if being Russian is a singular racial demographic?

Russia is an empire, a decaying one, but still, it’s full of a wide variety of different racial groups that aren’t Slavic in origin.

Also, when people criticize the actions of the American government, should we all accuse them of being racist towards… Americans?

Saying Team USA doesn’t get government funding is inaccurate.

It’s not a holistic nationalized system like many other countries have, but that doesn’t mean Team USA athletes and athletic programs aren’t direct recipients of government financial support.

For example:

Team USA athletes have access to some of the best training facilities and coaching teams in the world, many of which get direct, or indirect government funding e.g. grants, subsidies, tax incentives, etc.

On a side note, that’s a great graphic. I was going to mention the hole in the wall in my other comment, but I was too lazy to go grab a source. Kudos.

The issue wasn’t athletes cheating individually. The issue was that Russia had a state sponsored doping program from top to bottom. That is significantly different than one off athletes, or one off coaches.

War crimes have nothing to do with honor, and everything to do with horror. It’s product of statecraft, not a code chivalry.

Also, white phosphorus is a legal illumination munition, but becomes illegal/warcrime when used as an incendiary device. It has nothing to with asphyxiation, or chemical warfare.

Imagine it as a modified transport plane. The American versions are typically based off the 737 airframe, although Russia’s are not, it’s still similar enough to see why “eject” isn’t really an option.

The border towns had armed security and IDF soldiers lived within them. Does that make them legitimate targets as well?

Pretty sure you mean his mommy dearest, Pinky MacArthur.

Huawei’s chip was impressive, but not for the reasons you think.

It was based off an existing chip design originally intended for cryptocurrency mining and made using old fab technology that China still had access to post sanctions.

It was impressive because they did push the old fab technology to new levels, but also probably pretty close to its technical limitations.