Limo

Can't find the article now but I read somewhere that not only does it happen fairly often but also it turns out viruses usually don't spread very far. Like maybe a dozen or so people get infected by a specific virus that suddenly appears in a population but then it peters out. They did some modeling with COVID-19 and they couldn't get it to spread anywhere except in Wuhan and even then not very reliably (which maybe can be interpreted as evidence that it may have escaped from that lab that's smack in the middle of Wuhan). So not only is news suppressed but often there actually isn't any news because these things pass by unnoticed. Still, places like Wuhan exist, so I'm still not sure why we don't have accidents or natural spreading events more often. There's at least a dozen cities I could name in Indonesia that would make for prime pandemic starter material, for example.

I honestly don't see what difference it makes. Either the virus made its own way to Wuhan (and every virus that makes it to that place is pretty much guaranteed to spread to the rest of the world on account of Wuhan being such an important transportation hub) or it slipped out of a lab because labs are staffed by humans and humans are sloppy but in any case the result is the same. No matter what the Chinese government wants to cover up, I can guarantee you technicians at that Wuhan facility will be a little more careful for the next few years. Until they inevitably get sloppy again. Frankly it amazes me that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

The solution, then, is obvious.

Is there a non New York Post source for this?

There was a young girl of Baroda Who built an erotic pagoda; The walls of its halls Were festooned with the balls And the tools of the fools that bestrode her. (Swinburne)

Probably wisest to stop digging ?

My goodness. Perhaps you should read up on your history sometime because you seem to be taking on a bit more than you can chew here, attempting to equate between 200 to 50 years of world wide Western Imperialism to the fairly benign integration of Taiwan into Japan (seriously, look it up), a 13 year long military occupation of part of China and 4 years of occupying SE Asia during, as you correctly point out, a World War. You cannot possibly expect me to believe that that you take the boasts of Chinese civil servants at face value. I assume anyone would understand there flattery of writers at one court have no bearing whatsoever on where another court thinks it derives it’s authority from. Honestly, you should maybe spend a little more time actually studying history instead of just arguing about it on the internet. This is embarrassing.

Japan in Korea is a good example, agreed (but note their attempts to create an East Asian Co Prosperity sphere elsewhere didn't last for more than half a decade) . The others are questionable. China demanding tribute from all over the place is vastly different from what, say, Japan did in Korea. Earlier examples really are just one ruler replacing another one with life for people on the ground remaining pretty much unchanged (apart from a little massacre here and there). This is distinctly different from Western style imperialism. But, you know, you can choose to shrug it off. The worst that will happen is that you'll be angry all the time at brown people calling white people off for what seems to you to be no reason at all and those brown people will think you're an asshole. In the greater scheme of things that's probably not too bad.

Other people in other cultures are free to do so. We in the West ate not because we’re on probation. What other entity are you thinking of that systematically and thoroughly plowed under entire continents for profit? The best I can come up with is rapacious conquerors like Genghis Khan, but those merely pillaged, which is very different from forcing entire societies to work for you as slaves.

Doesn't matter. After what the West did to the rest of the world, it has to conform to an extra strict set of norms for a while to make up for it. See also: nazi jokes are not acceptable when made by Germans, probably acceptable when made by other Europeans, definitely ok (if in poor taste) when made by people from Asia or Africa. It's very likely Westerners will shortly be joined by the Chinese in this. I watched a documentary about the Chinese expansion into the rest of the world, Africa, Madagascar and Serbia and such, and it was pretty much Heart of Darkness all over again. But until they, too, have ravaged entire continents and shredded other people's ancient societies to bits, it'll be only us Westerners that are stuck here in this sort of moral time out room. Sucks, but such is life.

How about you put your money where your mouth is? I showed you one of mine (thought up by an American, btw - in all seriousness I think the food that's being thought up there these days is really quite interesting and tasty) now show me one of yours.

Awww … Here you go: Brussels Sprouts and Kimchi - 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil - 8 ounces (230g) brussels sprouts, halved - 1 cup minced kimchi - 1 tablespoon butter - Salt and freshly ground black pepper - 1 lemon - 2 tablespoons minced shiso leaves (I can’t get these so always leave them out) Caramelize sprouts. Add kimchi and toss. Only THEN add butter. Season with salt, pepper, a squeeze of lemon and “a sprinkle of shiso leaves”. Even in rural France it should be possible to make kimchi yourself.

Well d'uh. I think you're conflating cause and effect here, tbh. The proper order seems to me "there's a pandemic, Pfizer has a vaccine, therefore they get rich" and not "Pfizer has a vaccine, so decides to have a pandemic, so it can get rich".

*especially* here. Hahahaha

You obviously didn’t see the performance.

Of course.

Motley Crue - Girls, Girls, Girls

Maybe that’s for the best. If he’d responded, he’d have made it seem as is it was a coherent statement of a respectable point of view, which it is not. I seriously think that at this point the West should stop engaging with Israel. It is not particularly meaningful to us economically and it is clearly not in any way the Western country it wants us to believe it is. #IsraelOutOfEurovision

It’s a nice track but the panning is *way* too wide. Love the melody that comes in at 4:33 btw.