myata

No troubles. Just south, a great thought went into creating an intelligent, durable system that can identify problems and renew itself. It includes: 1) independent and empowered executive and legislative authorities that can check each other 2) a strong tradition of independent and impartial justice (that is beginning to erode, slowly, under the pressure of the partisan division, an inevitable result of FPTP) and 3) a strong tradition of independent institutions empowered to check and prevent abuses of power at any level and 4) a strong tradition of independent media (sadly, eroding) based on even stronger tradition of free speech. That's four or close. Now compare it to: 0 (nothing, none). What would be the ratio, from the school math? That's better, right? You should watch the China story, it may not be for nothing that its playing out right now and right before our eyes. They had a great and wise collective system with zero independent checks too and look what it takes. One determined authoritarian boss and a bit of luck. And you just worshiped the Holy Quarantines just on a word from wise gurus without as much as a second thought. I would be worried, really.

Anything can be anything in Canada for a simple reason: because they can.

Seriously? The short answer is: any. Intelligent, responsible thought through model of democratic governance is more effective; and make more sense than its absence, neara absolute vacuum of meaning and thought. It looks very much and increasingly so that nobody, ever gave a minute's thought: how is this going to work, in reality? Maybe that wasn't deemed an important part of it. The cornerstones, 1860 - ..... 1. Cement the entitlement to power (eliminate meaningful competition) 2. Remove all responsibility for wrong decisions and their consequences 3. Protect the culture of privilege and entitlement This is how it works. What "Parliament", why?

Oops...

No. The problem is clear, even obvious: absence of any meaningful checks on majority governments that have total control over majority houses (this is no Parliament really, in its real and true essence, they are representatives far less than "employees" as everything here, confused, diluted of substance and compromised). There are compromises and compromises. A bad, senseless system isn't the same as an imperfect one. Just because it worked somehow in the past is no guarantee for the future. In a system with no real checks on the governments, problems will emerge, develop and spread to consume all of the public administration. Because no limits. Because they can. There's nothing unknown here, in history. Nothing new to learn.

"Because they can". Just watch them.

Why is this, pretty much all of it, such a tortured, convoluted imitation of a clear and transparent democratic process that was actually thought through and can work? A house of majority employees of a Central Committee with sort of, quasi independent imitation of checks and oversight not really though. I don't want to guess anymore, done thing. If it looks and smells like it doesn't make sense, it cannot make any sense, then may be it doesn't.

I'd like to play devil's advocate and hear from those who insist on the "most probable origin". What is their answer to a simple, glaring question: why is this thing nothing or very near, like a regular agent that moved species? There has something special about it, other than percentiles of genetic matches? Did they even notice that?

Will it be good enough for the evolution though? Has "look we just can't" ever been?

So change is not possible? Welcome to Canada. Why be stunned, and furious? Illogical.

They could go with the proportional system. Get a real democracy working with real parliamentary checks and oversight in place of kindergarten-style pathetic spectacle. Why wouldn't they? One reason is obvious at least: the pull of the trough being too strong (read about black hole)?

Why would one be furious at someone who can? What's the point of being, feeling furious? You can try to change things, wouldn't be easy at this point though. Or better relax and enjoy the ride as nothing could be changed anymore. Wherever it takes you obviously, out of your control now You handed out the reins, turned off the brain and now feeling furious? Funny.

The bottom line, from what we have seen of animal to human transmission is that it's not just "jumps hosts". The agent needs at least three essential constituent factors to move species: - an animal population that is close enough to make the initial transmission; - a human population to develop and adapt in; - time. All three were present in the previous coronavirus epidemics: SARS, 2002; MERS, 2006. And exactly: none of the three could be seen in the case of Covid: it came out of nowhere right with the necessary characteristics to transmit in humans, and no animal host in sight. Nothing funny, no? Still, the "most likely hypothesis"? How is this even possible? Are we still talking reason, intelligence and science here? Of course the alternative "conspiracy" until very recently, hypothesis does not have any of these problems. All would be there, the time (in the lab tube), the animal population (in cages) and the desired property. And again, it's not so much the virus a mystery here but what we learn about ourselves. Can a powerful clique really suppress obvious and legitimate and really, gaping questions so that a large part of modern science would produce only expected, prejudged as "correct" results for "as long as necessary"? Wow. How could we tell.

Trump says would give a mad dictator part of other people's country to have imaginary "peace". Wherever some sh*t is going on you'll sure to find the red-haired buffoon right in the middle of it, bathing and enjoying the spotlight. Unmistakable.

So look at it this way: 1. We take water, a very stable neutral chemical element. 2. We put it in a chamber, do some magic to it et voila: a small sun, here, on Earth. Great! A virtually unlimited source of energy. 3. We improve and perfect the technology, make it net positive, in total not just the laser. Now we do have it, the artificial sun and in practical operation. 4. What happens next? No I'm not even talking about mishaps but thousands then millions of small suns transforming water.. to what? Sure no carbons thankfully, but what else is there, think, think? Yeah right the heat, heat energy, transfer, radiation and it will be there can't be avoided. So we take water and forget burning, turn it strait into heat. Still great? While we think that we have a free, unlimited and absolutely harmless source of energy and burn it to our heart desire (as we will, believing it to be free and harmless) until... what? What have we solved here? There's nothing special to the problem of carbon, it's the problem of balance with the environment, understanding it and maintaining it. Will burning water instead of oil and gas make it any easier?

I read a few papers on the origin of Covid and what strikes me in most pieces is an apparent derailment of the logical direction, especially in the analysis of genetic similarity. Bats have 96% proximity no wait pangolins over 90% all of this is beyond the point (from the outset I admin that this is not my area of specialization; maybe I don't get something or miss some important piece in the arguments). We have a fact: a virus that emerged apparently from nowhere, with very high, to extremely high transmission in humans. Many, most, all? that I know of, see disclaimer above, cases of zoonotic transmission have starkly, almost opposite characteristics: difficult, slow transmission in humans; identifiable animal host. SARS is like that, MERS and ebola, facts and they aren't going anywhere, regardless of probabilities. So shouldn't that be the question, the mystery to be answered in the first place, why and how, not the percentages of similarities? How can one just walk by it without even noticing? A mutation facilitating transmission in humans can emerge in bats randomly, sure. But it would have few to no advantages for a bat virus and would be washed away in a few generations. It wouldn't last. A combination of a lucky mutation with successful transmission would be double luck or super luck, and we have two different strains too! To what level can one credibly stretch improbability as "the most probable cause"? Surely that has to have been discussed in the research community, possibly I'm missing something and I'm curious to know the arguments.

So given these perspectives, I think we absolutely need to get to the bottom of this mystery. Dr. Fauci's commissioned evidence can be a great scientific exploration in theory but the public has the right to know the true, factual answer to a simple question: what has actually happened? could it be that we just lived through the first, ever, instance of a human-engineered pandemic? No theories, finger-pointing accusations, only a clear, objective answer supported by solid, confident, factual evidence.

1. Serious efforts, if not massive, that needs to be evaluated somehow, to divert the direction of research and attention of the research community and general public to an unverified and weak in my personal opinion, based on the arguments presented, hypothesis appears to be confirmed in the recent releases of information. 2. An attempt of a coverup by Chinese authorities in the early days of the pandemic, a fact. 3. Some viral genome research in China was funded by NIH and that great humanitarian corporation (confirmed) haven't seen indications of specifically a) Corona-type virus and b) Gain of Function research. With pp. 1 - 3 together (if / when confirmed), plus plausibility of lab mishaps and accidents, the general appearance of the matter can become quite ugly indeed.

Some of the facts up there in the links and they are established facts, by the House commission smell quite strongly and not really of honest and transparent science. Commissioned a study with a predetermined outcome then cited it as "evidence"... false "pangolin" trail.. but OK. This is really interesting and intriguing mystery, sure. Let's see, there are three main lines of possibilities: - purely natural origin. Challenges: previous coronaviruses MERS, SARS that were actually traced to animals, all had quite high transmission barrier so individual quarantines worked (even then a great health care system managed to achieve one of the highest mortality rates internationally). If the emerging virus had some time to develop in the human population, why hasn't it been detected before it reached very high rate of transmission? A very lucky mutation and undetected development both have strong tension with plausibility. To sum, another coronavirus with stark differences to the known ones: very high transmission, no known animal host. Two different strains squares already small likelihood. Still, the preferred theory? - field sample leak: may explain the emergence of the epidemics in Wuhan, but not the origin of the infection; if sample was collected and not altered, the question of origin still open. Can somewhat explain two strains: while one was developing naturally, the other leaked from an earlier sample. - modified virus leak: one of the exchanges stated what virus genome "gain of function" work authorized by NIH grant was done with different genetics, but: how would it know and would it know? Supposed to be done and what was happening in the reality isn't necessarily the same. And we may never know with certainty any time soon. Anyways, the modified virus theory could explain the origin (perhaps as in one communication, "through culture selection" just a bad day of a lab worker), transmission, and depending on the work culture that we may not know any time etc, multiple strains. If the attention to safety measures was.. low then a squared probability of a leak could still be higher than of two independent host jumps. There's another possibility for two strains, that after the initial contamination in the market the strains were developing independently for some time in two different areas, e.g. "market" and "institute". A temporal analysis of the very early cases could shed the light, but doesn't look like anybody bothered in the rush to discredit "the conspiracy". As it stands now, the "preferred" theory would imply a simultaneous combination of all of: a) two independent transmission events b) from unknown animal host c) with starkly different transmission characteristics from known zoonotic events plus d) within a very short window of time. Nobody noticed anything unusual here, while all cheered for the preferred theory? Or deep, serious problem(s) with independence, quality and transparency in some branches of modern science?

Interesting. This is no conspiracies, a reputable edition Forbes: Lab theory timeline. Look here: "March 7, 2020 A group of scientists sign an open letter condemning the “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin”; this letter is later scrutinized, as one of its signers, Peter Daszak, is the head of EcoHealth Alliance, a group that has does work in China at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which some saw as a conflict of interest". To recall, in many countries Covid only began to develop into a serious epidemic in February - March time frame. And looks like they already knew something about its origin. Something that we don't know today. And while at it, what Fauci said. More interesting stuff here. Memorandum of US House on released emails, Dr. Fauci and others. References to possibility of genetic modification. Only reputable published information, no conspiracies.

Can't confirm any of these, but the piece itself paraded as some glorious achievement of modern science (naively or not so necessarily, not ready to conclude) makes me worried for its future. If it's so easy to compromise, suppress legitimate questions and pump out an unproven hypothesis with next to zero factual evidence as the leading theory, wouldn't you be?

Could have put 'Nazis' there (the Russians). How would that be different, checked the pictures lately? Great progress, there.

As if it mattered. The Emergency Powers still there. With zero accountability or oversight. And I can guarantee that nothing, exactly 0.000000 will change in that domain no matter what smiley face is glued on the facade next. This is how it was supposed to be from the origin in the sweet days of Adam. Change is not possible. Change is weird.. so foreign.

Reading the piece that's routinely quoted as convincing evidence for "animal origin" and can't help being amazed at the obvious logical gaps combined with overconfidence of the claims. Gap 1: epicenter of a developing epidemics may not be the same as the origin Cases used in the analysis are reported at the time when epidemics was already developing. All were of December 2019 (155) without, at a quick look distribution by the date. Yet the first cases were reported in very early December and even late November so the origin case has to be still earlier as it isn't not likely that the very first cases were detected given similarity with regular infections. The value of detailed description of various market features is negligible because the whole premise of the market being the origin as opposed to a natural transmission hub hinges on a single sample produced by Chinese authorities at a later time, clearly not an impartial agent in this story. We know that incubation period of Covid is 5 to ten days yet all cases thrown onto the same map like they happened at the same time. Smart. I cannot fathom why the data being so detailed in the market-related aspects lacks a simple distribution of cases by the time of report. So we know the market has been an active point in spreading the infection, but very weak indication of the actual origin. Gap 2: animal connection is so weak down to well ok nothing. How this passed peer review, another great modern mystery. Basically none, except that some live animals sold there that could have been potential carriers if identified as such that they were not. Great evidence, there. Overall, if there is, without more confident evidence, a better example of the famous correlation-causation fallacy it wouldn't be easy to find. Look we have Covid here and animals are sold here so Covid has to be from animals, right? Wait. What if it's there because so many people come to buy animals? Just great.

That's right. Only logic and facts and nothing unnecessary (that is Occam's razor): - A leak from totalitarian lab: can happen any one day. Indirect indications and coincidences; plus undisclosed evidence. - Animal transmission chain: may but does not exist (as yet). Which of the two would you judge as more likely, based on available information? Wrong! ExSpert knows better!