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First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

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Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#461
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addresses of things change on Google maps. They fix problems and find issues and it's entirely possible that an address changing means something was updated. Or there's an international address conspiracy that Google is part of, you'll have to decide for yourself!

This change of address is initated by an authority of that region or owner of that business. What exactly is your motivation is spreading FUD on this matter?

I don't think it's fine. When I worked at Google, we got updated address information for businesses periodically and we had an official process that applied updates to the data we had stored. It was actually a colossal pain in the butt. I could see that still being the way that addresses can get updated?

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#462
post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize the MSM lies. I just also realize that “alternative” media lies as well, especially when it’s full of hyper-partisan or ideologue hacks. Taibbi is clearly a partisan hack that only attacks one side, ever. I don’t know the other one but his feed has a strong new right hack feel to it. There are plenty of lefty hacks around too. It’s not a one sided phenomenon.

> Taibbi is clearly a partisan hack that only attacks one side, ever. You should probably expand your reading to his articles in Rolling Stone, particularly those from 4-5 years ago. You would not say “ever” if you did that. But…for a writer that admittedly leans left in his politics, he is willing to call out that side when a story leads there. He is much like Glenn Greenwald in that respect. Both he and Glenn get a…

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Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#463
post #225

I don't trust this article at all . > Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus. > It is unclear who in the U.S. government had access to the intelligence about the sick WIV workers, how long they had it, and why it was not shared with the pub…

You won't have to wait long for confirmation. The Director of National Intelligence will be required by law to declassify information about the infected researchers on June 18th, including their names, symptoms, date of onset and role at WIV.[1] [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/619...

At the moment I’m skeptical of how revelatory the report and documents will be. The act specifically mentions the possibility of redactions to protect sources and methods. We’ll have to wait and see what size of bus the DNI attempts to drive through that hole.

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#464
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mehdi Hasan is proof that MSNBC can air someone who's as much of a shouty partisanship-addled blowhard as Fox's Sean Hannity. Investigative journalist Lee Fang goes deeper into Hasan's allegations about Taibbi – plus Hasan's history of plagiarism & viewpoint-flexible controversialism-for-pay at: https://www.leefang.com/p/mehdi-hasan-plagiarized-pro-spanki...

Anyone who has seen the interview knows Mehdi wiped the floor with Taibbi and pointed out humiliating mistakes in his reporting -- even Taibbi accepted that. As for the plagiarism, the article in question is from over 20 years ago, hardly a slam dunk nor is it a representative of his journalistic career. The only reason Fang wrote that is because Mehdi accused him of Islamophobia, it's just petty and desperate nonsen…

I did watch it. Mehdi Hassan found two errors in the entire body of work: One acronym (Taibbi wrote CIS when it was supposed to be CISA), and one date that he got wrong.

Then he hammered Taibbi for an hour on those two errors, as if he were a career fraudster, instead of a lion of journalism.

Mehdi Hasan is a fraud, an establishment actor on a failing corporate propaganda news network no one takes seriously. A tool of his billionaire owners and of the Biden neocons.

Petty and desperate nonsense indeed.

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before I get painted as a Trump supporter and therefore blind to my team, I’m not. Don’t support him, and when listening to him yell about China virus and then listening to people calmly say that was racism, I went with the calm people. But the man did get the PDB every day. Maybe he heard some of this intelligence and made some leaps to suit his purpose. But if we were all lied to about the origin, our family and fr…

The way humans convince each other of the merits of our ideas is by describing our thought processes. The problem isn't actually something being said by someone who "is" a blowhard, but rather that the thing is being said in a blowhard manner - aggressively asserted, with poor supporting reasoning. If there were concrete supporting evidence for the assertion of "China Virus", it would have been mentioned. There wasn'…

> memetic fog

Yeah, that's the perfect phrase for it. SCP fan; or did you make that up?

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#467
post #16

Note that this is NOT the Wuhan CDC, which is the building across the river from the wet market. They did not do any research there. This building is ~10 miles south, well outside the main city. https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?pagename=Wuhan_Ins... The fact that researchers were sick with flu-like symptoms has been openly stated by the US for a long time. This was put out in the state department Jan 2021, 2…

>As we’ll see later, there may actually have been two jumps from animals to people at the market.

Mixing fact with speculation is never a great sign for an argument. Many people pushing the lab leak theory are doing this, but the people pushing against it don't need to start. If there were two spillovers, that needs a very good explanation, particularly because events like this tend to fall into the categories "one" and "many" — if there were two spillovers, why not three or four? Why not a whole gaggle of infected raccoon dogs?

> Based on number of visitors, Worobey estimated the odds at only 1 in 10,000 that the market would be the first superspreading event in Wuhan.

This is based on a location analysis of early cases around Wuhan. That doesn't imply that the first event was at the market, only near the market. In particular, the market is across the street from a railway station and one block away from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology Tongji Medical College Union Hospital. Huazhong University of Science and Technology is one of China's top ten universities and might have a pretty good hospital.

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a broken clock is right once a day doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a broken clock, and after being identified as such doesn’t get to claim oppression after rightfully being relegated to the garbage bin. The same people who asserted things about the origins of covid were the same as those peddling quack “cures” to church groups and reposting Q anon memes. With respect to your follow up, as much a…

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If that terminally online person was vaccinated against covid, they were far less likely to die than the terminally online conspiracy of the week anti vax crowd.

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it could do the opposite. Both Taibbi and Shellenberger are independent investigative journalists with no party loyalties. Their funding comes directly from readers rather than corporations or billionaire owned outlets. They can make a few mistakes from time to time but own up to them. Their opinions are their own, but they rarely report anything not factual.

The claim that the funding doesn't come from a "billionaire owned outlet" doesn't really track if you look at the investors[0] in Substack. I count at least one billionaire-run fund in that list. There was also an incident a couple months ago where Elon Musk accused Taibbi of working for Substack, which he denied, but in leaked texts says they "originally hired" him[1], which I find confusing. [0] https://www.crunchb…

> if you look at the investors[0] in Substack

FFS this is like claiming you are funded by BoA or JPM if your salary is deposited there.

They are literally paid by their subscribers, Substack is a mere payment & publication tool. Substack do not pay them.

Moreover w.r.t. Taibbi he has picked fights with his employers and quit at the first hint of them trying to influence his work. His credibility on that front is actually excellent and better than anyone at the NYT, for example (Who may be excellent but can't point to a history like that).

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