Wideleft

The headline is horribly optimistic and the author (who has a credible background as an investigative journalist) is a little too sure of her findings given that this is yet to be proven, but the article is sourced sufficiently to suggest that COVID-19 may have arisen from the trade in bat guano. COVID-19 Origin Mystery Solved May 7, 2020 By: @MsAmyMacPherson Part of the challenge in finding a cure for the COVID-19 pandemic is determining the original source of infection. The majority of scientists are convinced it came from bats, but they don’t yet know how it transmitted to humans. Others suggest it was caused by accidental release from a research lab, while war hawks propose theories that relate to a bioweapon. But the best answer to complex mysteries is often simple and Free The Press Canada has determined the likely culprit. The solution for this missing link is so unassuming that it was under everyone’s nose all along. The records have existed since the 1700’s and this bat-to-human conduit is cited as the legal basis for the American Empire. It’s the original cause of blackbirding (kidnapping) and Chinese slavery, Indigenous slavery, as well as Black slavery, in case anyone didn’t grasp the meaning of that famous Beatles song. It solidified Peru’s existence and reshaped entire countries in South America. It poured the foundation for British and European wealth. It won and lost wars as a prime ingredient to make gunpowder. Its Indigenous name appears in an early American law and it traces all the way back to 5,000 years ago, as a resource worshipped by the Incas. Today this product is exported by Africa and Asia and it can fetch as much as $350USD per ton, or $2,400USD every three hours with a very small crew of labourers. The organic food revolution, hydroponic agriculture, and the legalization of marijuana have made it so popular again that western grandmothers are trying to produce their own. The colloquial phrase ‘bat-****-crazy’ may even be derived from this common carrier of several coronavirus types. So what could be in everyone’s garden shed that has the potential to elevate or wipe out the human race, depending on the quality of each batch? https://freethepresscanada.org/2020/05/07/covid-19-origin-mystery-solved/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Hehehe....

There have been clinical studies including brain scans that support this.

I think this is becoming less and less valid as social media has been taken over by bots, troll armies and bored unhappy men with mental defects not covered by pharmacare. I do however find this approach absolutely valid and even enjoyable in a face to face discussion. Totally agree with the second paragraph and when you do it enough, it doesn't take long to figure out who is debating in bad faith and therefore wasting your time.

Trump is badly botching the virus. New polls show Americans know it. May 12, 2020 at 9:03 a.m. CDT In what should be seen as a rebuke of President Trump, Anthony S. Fauci will tell a Senate panel on Tuesday that reopening the country too quickly risks causing “multiple outbreaks” of coronavirus, resulting in “needless suffering and death.” Majorities of the American people appear to agree with Trump’s most prominent coronavirus task force member. Indeed, two new polls strongly suggest Trump has lost the argument over how to respond to the virus right now on just about every level. A new Post-Ipsos poll finds that 56 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, while only 43 percent approve. By contrast, 71 percent approve of their governor’s handling of the disease. Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic Tellingly, this also applies to specific swing-state governors in Trump’s crosshairs. He has raged that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer must “LIBERATE” Michigan, and has fumed that people in Pennsylvania “want their freedom now.” But in Michigan, approval of the governor’s handling of the virus is 72 percent, while Trump’s is 39 percent. In Pennsylvania, those numbers are 72 percent and 45 percent, respectively. Another finding from the poll confirms even more clearly how badly Trump has lost the argument: It finds that an astonishing 57 percent of Americans say Trump is not doing enough to ensure that people can return to work safely. By contrast, only 42 percent say he’s doing enough. By contrast, 69 percent say their governors are doing enough to ensure that people can return to work safely. And 56 percent say their state governors are handling the pace of lifting restrictions “about right,” while only 16 percent say they’re not lifting them quickly enough. And 74 percent agree with the view that the United States should keep trying to slow the coronavirus even if it means keeping many businesses closed. Only 25 percent take the opposite view — Trump’s view. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/12/trump-is-failing-disastrously-americans-know-it-new-polls-show/

So you've learned nothing from your discussions with Pigseye, then?

When the right stops thinking antifascists are just as bad as fascists, I'll give this take a second look.

“I had met, myself, with my successor, General Michael Flynn, on four occasions over 12 hours. I handed off over 100 briefing papers to him and shared with him the issues I thought were most salient and most important for him to grasp. Among them, the risk that we would face another pandemic,” Rice recounted. “The reality is, Jonathan, anybody who knows national security, anybody who knows global health, knows development issues, understood that we were not only inevitably going to face another global pandemic, but in fact, that the world was overdue.” Rice said that the Obama administration’s experience with swine flu in 2009 followed by Ebola in 2014 and Zika in 2016 proved that “pandemic preparedness needed to be a top national security priority.” It was of such concern that Rice and her colleagues included a scenario on pandemic preparedness in a tabletop exercise with the incoming Trump team. Rice also said, “We left behind a 69-page playbook, which was sort of ‘Pandemic for Dummies.’ If you don’t know where to start, start here, and ask these questions and do these things.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/06/susan-rice-trumps-coronavirus-response-he-has-cost-tens-thousands-american-lives/

It's pretty evident that this virus could have originated anywhere and Trump would have screwed it up in much the same way. Along with ignoring the Pandemic playbook that the Obama administration handed to them and shutting down the Pandemic response team, the ignored factor is that Trump deeply cut the State Department which also could have provided valuable information through diplomatic channels.

That would be ignoring all the dog whistles. "SJW" is a construct invented by right wing talking heads to minimize what their critics are saying, so I don't buy that. If people are too stupid to realize what they're saying is going to cause a backlash, I have no sympathy. If people think that they can say whatever they want in front of whoever they want without potentially getting challenged, boo f'ing hoo. When people like Ezra Levant and Ben Shapiro make their living off of doublespeak, dog whistles and gaslighting, sometimes you have to use your brain and see that there is more to their plainly written words than meets the eye.

I'd much rather society be sensitive to these issues than to let them slide until it gets even worse than it is now. Do you think the Deep South or Southern Alberta just evolved to be more racist or is it because the voices that challenged "leadership" weren't given a voice?

And I still don't know which generation is the one he's referencing. I'm too old to play on his lawn.

This is where people start putting on their "lawyerin'" hats to figure out what his intent was when all they have is the words he wrote. In isolation, it appears to be an uninformed (because we actually still don't know the source) rant to complain about lost earnings and to further his support for veganism. The problem is that this didn't occur in isolation. Given the anti-Asian backlash in North America since COVID-19 graced us with its presence and the increase in overt racism since 2016, it has all the appearance of a dog whistle (rightly or wrongly). Adams has the right to tweet, but people are thankfully getting more intolerant of intolerance and he shouldn't think there won't be an equal and opposite response for a tweet with that tone.

It doesn't seem to me that a specific generation is condemning his comments. If you can back that up, I'd be grateful. You see how easy it is just to say something without really thinking about what you're saying?

I haven't watched this yet, but the book was amazing.

You won't get a direct answer from a direct question from him. Best to ignore.

If Americans keep getting shot at McDonald's and Dollar Tree's over asking people to follow guidelines, armed checkpoints might actually save lives. The so-called "freedom" that America's Right has created might only be mitigated by police state tactics. The irony...

I am all for replaying the entire 2019 CFL broadcast schedule in lieu of a fresh one.

We. Still. Don't. Know. If. Herd. Immunity. Works. With. COVID-19! Infecting 75% of your population to test a hypothesis on a new lethal strain of virus is madness. The potential level of oops is unfathomable.

I agree that the American economic and health care delivery models are so flawed that the country cannot withstand a temporary setback. But hey, stock markets are on the rise, so it's all good!

And he wouldn't even do these things if there weren't something in it for him.

And she makes a great point. By not only flattening the curve, but squashing it, her country is now way ahead in terms of getting back to normal, which makes investment more appetizing. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-05-06/pm-ardern-touts-new-zealand-as-safe-haven-for-investment

New Zealand: .4 deaths per 100,000 Sweden: 29.9 deaths per 100,000 I'm shocked! Shocked that a Conservative politician would put business before lives. Interesting how many New Zealanders have reacted to his response: Simon Bridges' leadership questioned after missteps in response to coronavirus crisis https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/121237712/simon-bridges-leadership-questioned-after-missteps-in-response-to-coronavirus-crisis

It's way too early to make any kind of determination as to what is/was the best approach. New Zealand pretty much kicked everyone else's ass by locking things right down immediately.

Millions of illegal voters died, so they don't count.😏