Brain Worm: The Lab Leak Theory

 

Did SARS COVID-2, the COVID19 virus originate in a lab, and if it did, why would that matter?

Dr. Paul Offit

If it came out of a lab in China, then that opens a cascade of conspiracy theories, that the work in the Wuhan, China lab was funded by Tony Fauci at the NIH in cahoots with President Xi to cause a pandemic to bring down Donald Trump and crush the 2nd amendment and enslave the White world...

Or something.

Enter the New York Times, or the "Failing New York Times" as Dear Leader Trumpsky calls it, whose editors saw fit to publish a full page "opinion piece" by a molecular biologist, Dr. Alina Chan, who wrote a book saying it was a lab leak and then the opinion piece giving 5 arguments for this possibility. 

Even Dr. Fauci has said it's best to keep an open mind about the possibility, but he adds the preponderance of evidence is this virus, like almost all viruses which have become epidemic or pandemic, is derived from nature, from bats most likely, conveyed to other animals and then leaping into human beings.

Semmelweiss

The anonymous editors at the New York Times saw fit to publish Dr. Chan's piece, complete with artwork, without publishing a response from anyone else who might know this field substantially better than Dr. Chan, who though a PhD, does not apparently know much about virology, epidemiology or public health.

Why the NYT decided to leap into the National Enquirer arena, as if possessed by the spirit of "Men In Black," is known only to God and the lost souls on the editorial board of the New York Times.

Paul Offit, of the University of Pennsylvania, who does know a lot about virology, vaccines, the sequencing and structure of viruses, has published a point by point rebuttal, which the NYT should have requested and published side by side with Dr. Chan's article. It is linked below on Substack in written form, or you can watch it on youtube.

Dr. Offit provides everything you will ever need to know when you are at the barbecue this holiday and some blow hard starts bloviating about the lab leak theory.

Basically, what Dr. Offit says is the viruses at the Wuhan lab are well known, gene by gene, and look nothing like the COVID 19 virus, could not have been changed into that virus and the COVID 19 virus was found in blood on the stalls which contained the animals at the Wuhan market, after the Chinese government swooped in to cull all the animals there. The Wuhan lab released the genomic sequence quickly after it was isolated, allowing for the astonishingly swift production of an effective vaccine which saved millions of lives worldwide, before the Chinese government laid the iron fist down on the scientists in a hamhanded way sparked by a  paranoid fear they would be blamed for the virus, which happened anyway.

As Jonathan Swift noted: "Falsehood flies; the truth comes limping after." 

For me, there will always be people like Alina Chan, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Aaron Rodgers, who claim public attention, to scream about bizarre stuff, the Area 51 syndrome,  and I waste little energy getting agitated about them.  For me, it's the people who you thought well of, like the NYT folks, who, inexplicably, behave to support and enhance those who should be ignored, dismissed and denigrated. 

That is the real mystery and exasperating thing here.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. once observed, "In the end, we will not remember the words of or enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Watch Dr. Offit on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukv9H6iAn7A

Or read his Substack article

https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/lab-leak-mania

The Hidden Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Power

 

Do you know these names?

• Mike Donillon
• Ron Klain
• Valerie Owens
• Symone Sandler
• Steve Ricchetti
• Anita Dunn
• Cedric Richmond

One thing about Donald Trump, you know he is not a puppet on strings controlled by others. He is his own enfant terrible, whose tantrums control others.

But in Joe Biden's case, there are people behind him, propping him up, propelling him forward you never or only rarely see, who will keep him in this Presidential race because if he drops how, their lives are ruined.

I caught a glimpse of these folks when Joe Biden arrived at the Community Oven, a capacious Pizza restaurant in North Hampton in 2020, in the midst of the New Hampshire primary. (He left days before the voting, in 5th place, to go to South Carolina.)

I arrived there with my long time guide to New Hampshire politics, with whom I frequently canvassed for votes, and she had met Biden in some previous New Hampshire primary, when he was likely four or even eight years younger, and still had an eye for the ladies, and he told her as he worked his way down the line she had gorgeous eyes, which is still true, but which I'm not sure he can even notice any more.

We had listened to him try to get through audience questions, as he lost his way, and by the end of every sentence had lost track of the original question, words drifting off on clouds of distraction, often unintelligible, slurred and non sensical.

"Oh," my guide said. "This is not the same man." 

That was 4 years ago, 2020.

But what fascinated me was watching Joe Biden outside, in the parking lot, after the event, as he waited to be loaded into a limousine SUV, standing there with older women and men I did not know, but who were clearly his "handlers."

Some of them may be the folks named in that list at the top of this post. 

Whoever they were, they were clearly guiding Joe, at his elbow, behind him, and he looked very much like an addled old man being guided by others, as if he would simply have remained chatting with random citizens had they not guided him into his car.

He particularly seemed to enjoy hearing stories of distress from wounded people on the receiving line, telling them to give their names to his people so he could call them back, to be sure they got the help they needed, as if a President should be someone who personally helps a half dozen people in a small New Hampshire town.  More a parish priest consoling the flock than a man who wanted to be President, who needed to rule from the top and get big forces in motion which would provide help to legions of wounded.

He was incapable of connecting with words with a crowd, so he was trying to connect with individuals.

And I thought of Obama, on that rainy Chicago night in Grant Park, his election just won, walking out on that stage and saying to the crowd: 

"If There Is Anyone Out There Who Still Doubts That America Is a Place Where All Things Are Possible... Tonight Is Your Answer."

The cameras panned across the crowd--found Ophra Winfrey with tears streaming down her cheeks, and other anonymous souls weeping for joy.

If Joe Biden was ever capable of that sort of stagecraft, that time is long gone. 

The debate was not, of course an aberration, a single bad night, it was the confirmation of what we had all been seeing for some years. Sure, even people with dementia have lucid moments, but the obvious decline in President Biden is there for all to see.

It is only this inner circle, who see their own jobs and fates circling the drain if Mr. Biden withdraws, as he surely ought to do--it is only this inner circle, this cabal, which is keeping the country on tenterhooks.

Beating Charisma with Charisma

 Charisma:  Compelling attractiveness or charm inspiring love or devotion in others

Charisma is generally spoken of as a good attribute possessed by a good person, but there have been some pretty unappetizing people who succeeded by charisma: Hitler being the most obvious example. We think of Hitler today as being repellent, but to many Germans he was irresistibly attractive in a time when Germans felt Germany was flat on its back and Hitler offered supreme competence and reassurance.

Trump, too, is a candidate of charisma. For 60% of us, he may be repellent, but for that core 40%, he, like Hitler, is irresistible.

As Hillary Clinton and the entire Democratic party and all its elected officials have discovered, you cannot beat Mr. Trump with policies and discussions. You have to beat him on the ground where he makes his bloody stand: the colluseum of personality, humor and shouting. You do not debate Mr. Trump--you enter a World Wrestling Association ring with him.

Now, you will say Democrats have charismatic leaders: Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Jamie Raskin, J.B. Pritsker. But the fact is, if they were to enter the race now, the Republicans' disinformation/oppoisition research machine would quickly launch its swift boat attacks.

No, what Democrats need is a candidate of charisma who has such a long presence in the national consciousness he cannot be swifted, or swift boated.

This candidate must be already famous and unimpeachable and widely loved.

But who can fill that bill?

First the categories: Eliminate from consideration any politician, elected office holder. All too vulnerable and nobody with national standing.

Eliminate academics for reasons too innumerable to enumerate.

Consider sports stars: Tom Brady, Caitlin Clark, Aaron Rodgers. Nope, nope, nope. Brady's a Trumpie; Rodgers is a lunatic, anti vaaxer and Caitlin is too young to run.

So that leaves entertainers. Only this group has people who are known from Birmingham to Boston, from Providence to Peoria, from Oregon to Oshkosh.

Among this group there may be many worthies, but the most obvious would be a man who has played a gay lawyer, a hero with autism, an Army office who saves a soldier who was the last surviving son in a family, a bereft widower seeking love on the internet, a man washed up on a deserted island, the conductor of a magical train to the North Pole on Christmas eve.

The guy could walk away with the 2024 election.

But first, people in power would have to understand all this, would have to defer their own ambitions, would have to put country (and democracy) above personal reward.

I'm not sure our party or our government is up to this challenge.

But it's comforting to know there's a solution out there: If only we will reach for it.