Brainworm Bobby news with Scott Ritter bonus!

You can't beat that, can you?

I had planned on running this as part of the third-party and independent candidate roundup that's coming up later this afternoon, but, like Jill Stein's Veepstakes pandering, had to pull this out into a separate piece.

Scott Ritter is officially a fraud (beyond the other ways in which he's a fraud and his cult among the "more credulous precincts of the left," to riff on Jeff St. Clair [it may be the pseudo-left] ignores) by breaking bread with genocidalist Brainworm Bobby.

(Update, Aug. 23: We mean, that is, Ritter was breaking bread with Trump-endorsing Wasted Space.)

When called out for it? He said:

Why don’t you ask him.

Do better, Ryan.

If you follow me at all, you know where I stand on Israel.

You know I am opposed to RFKJr’s position on Israel.

You also know that I view the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations and the threat of nuclear war to be the most existentially important issue of this election.

And RFKJr has been a rare voice of reason in this regard.

And as such RFKJr is someone worth meeting to discuss this issue.

I will continue to hold Israel accountable for its genocidal actions.

And I will continue to try and stop a nuclear conflict between Russia and the U.S.

I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

I wish others could do so as well.

— Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) August 7, 2024

To which I said:

You're a fraud if you can't call out US imperialism in general, Scott. Oh, and what country has nuclear weapons and hasn't signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Can you help me out there, Scott?

— TheRealSocraticGadfly-VoteLeftOfStein 🍉☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) August 8, 2024

That statement of his, right there, shows what a hypocrite Ritter is. Contra the fanbois, there likely was semi-legitimate reason to suspend his passport a month ago, and to have the FBI raid him Wednesday. Even Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dmitri Peskov had a guarded, and distant, statement about the passport suspension.

In a second response tweet I said he could cozy up to Jill Stein or Claudia de la Cruz instead of Brainworm Bobby. No, Scott, you're a hypocrite. (I'm unaware of him backing third-party or independent candidates in previous elections.) Or Chase Oliver, who also opposes the genocide in Gaza, opposes aid to Ukraine, and in general opposes the US imperium, and presumably, nuclear saber-rattling.

As for the fanbois cultists? There's them out there who deny that Ritter was ever convicted, ever served jail time, or ever was arrested more than once for his pedophilia. Like this one:

Reading comprehension is hard for you. He was never convicted of being a pedo. That is a fact.

— #BlueMAGAisAcultJustLikeMAGA (@RobertaAAvery) August 8, 2024

Sorry, but Wikipedia is all over your ass on this one. Actually, not sorry. Here we go:

Ritter was the subject of two law enforcement sting operations in 2001. He was charged in June 2001 with trying to set up a meeting with an undercover police officer posing as a 16-year-old girl. He was charged with a misdemeanor crime of "attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child". The charge was dismissed and the record was sealed after he completed six months of pre-trial probation.

Ritter was arrested again [emphasis added by me] in November 2009 over communications with a police decoy he met on an Internet chat site. Police said that he exposed himself, via a web camera, after the officer repeatedly identified himself as a 15-year-old girl.

The next month, Ritter waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on $25,000 unsecured bail. Charges included "unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation". Ritter rejected a plea bargain and was found guilty of all but the criminal attempt count in a courtroom in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, on April 14, 2011.

In October 2011, Ritter received a sentence of one and a half to five and a half years in prison. He was sent to Laurel Highlands state prison in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in March 2012 and paroled in September 2014.

Boom! The nutter surely knows better and is trying to pretend the 2001 incident is the only one that happened. (I don't think they're that ignorant, unless it's willful ignorance after others besides me have called them out, and in that case it's not ignorance, it's self deception.)

And, lest the nutter claim that 2009 was a "heavy" misdemeanor? Corruption of minors, the first charge I Googled, when it's sexual in nature, is a felony in Pennsylvania.

==

 That said, Scott's "burgers with Bobby," IF it happened in the past month, would be about the closest thing to a public appearance for Brainworm Bobby in that time, as he's been largely AWOL. That's just one of several reasons why Wasted Space dropped out. His failure to pivot to Kamala, his cash burn rate, and his increasingly bizarre public statements all added to that.

Rick Perlstein fellates Josh Marshall

In his weekend link dump, Kuff fellates American Prospect fellating Zionist Josh Marshall. No, really; the word "Israel" is nowhere in the story. Perlstein also doesn't call Marshall out when he claims his audience is "left-wing," even though Marshall earlier admits that he's hated on the "socialist left." (A left-neoliberal audience is NOT "left-wing," Josh.

He's even more hated on the anti-Zionist left. That, in turn, is a mix of funny/ironic/sad because, in his Twitter feed, Perlstein himself seems at least moderately anti-Zionist, certainly on the current war. I don't know what Josh has written about the war itself, but before it, he was a full-on blank-check Zionist.

So, to riff on Perlstein? Yeah, he's had success, fiscally etc. So has Daily Kos, without Markos bigfooting the site in the foreground anymore.

Has either one had POLITICAL success other than as new font of online #BlueAnon tribalism?

Hell, no.

It's no wonder that Kuff, himself a BlueAnon tribalist who continues to maintain radio silence on Gaza, including Texas' own DPS busting up pro-Palestinian protestors at Texas universities, loved this piece. 

In response on Twitter, Perlstein gave me the old "this is the institutional framework, the duopoly is it" spiel on that. I told him that, as a member of the print media, I mentioned third parties from time to time. On Zionism, he admitted that "others were that bad, too."

As for Perlstein? Sadly, I thought he was better than this. And, I think I'll pass on his latest book when it comes it. It sounds like little more than a suaver Dan. Froomkin.

Once more unto the COVID doomers (and #BernAnon) vs COVID wingnuts breach

A week ago, I wrote about that Cochrane Review study of early this year that didn't claim all that much and certainly didn't claim what its Great Barrington-associated lead author said it did.

I then started venturing further and realized I'd written more than too much.

But, I'm picking that up here.

COVID wingnuts are going to wingnut. Zeynep Tufekci said she things part of the antimasking reaction is due to many of the early rules being dumb. That may be part of it, but, I think it's a smaller, maybe much smaller, portion than she claims. A much bigger portion? Tribalism, and wingnuts, tribalism fueled by politics. And, given that she's a sociologist, I don't "get" that she didn't pick up on that angle.

With doomers? I think it's a variety of psychological reasons, from my guesstimates, but with some, I think it is fed itself by tribalism, too.  And, it goes beyond "just folks."

DOCTOR Kent Sephowitz, and an infectious disease specialist to boot, talking about "potentially lethal" paper money? Oh my fucking doorknob. First, given that it's agreed-upon, except for a few wingnuts probably trying to troll rather than promote fringe-of-fringe science, that COVID is airborne, worrying about money (or other "surfaces") is SO 2020. (Beyond that, he looks like a younger, slimmer Ben Stein. Probably comes off as one, too.)

The Skeptical Raptor may be dipping his toes in Doomer water, too. First, WHO has labeled many variants in the last two-plus years "variants of concern." Many of them turned out not to be. (He does, at least, note the "small sample size" of just nine cases with this particular variant.) Second, while he talks about hospitalization rates, he doesn't talk about death rates. See both in the following paragraphs, starting with addressing both him and Sephowitz on severity issues.

So, let's drive out bad science with good, from a doctor in Tex-ass no less but NOT Peter Hotez? Or Peter Hopium? This:

Dr. Nikhil Bhayani, an infectious disease physician with Texas Health Resources, says the latest COVID symptoms are similar to a common cold.

Is indeed the bottom line. (To refresh regular readers and advice new ones, months ago I called Hotez a "#BlueMAGA tribalist, grifter, gaslighter.")

So, stop dooming, and stop being a Tar Baby to wingnuts' Brer Rabbit. And, #BernAnon, stop trying to use this, these lies (they are) about a surge) to own Joe Biden. 

I know, I know, in both cases, I'm trying to vaccinate you against misinformation and that doesn't work. For the doomers, per the better angle of "preaching" or emotional appeal, I'm not sure what will. Realistically, I would "preach" acceptance, turning their anger into better self-protection, and noting that for a variety of other illnesses, from, say MS to recovery from strokes or lung cancer which also have respiratory concern, there are no special societal public health concessions, either. But, before I leave, I'm going to slip back into "vaccinate" mode. Two of the most common "comorbidities" associated with Long COVID are over/misdiagnosed. But, back to the emotional angle. If it's "wanting to be heard"? That ties back to cancer recoverees and others. In a nation of 330 million and growing, there are lots of people wanting to be "heard" on lots of issues.

For the #BernAnon, I guess writing Bernie in as the Green Party candidate for president might float your emotional boat. Yes, that's snark, lest any of them think, "Hellz yeah." The likes of a Pat the Berner, who I don't know if he's an actual Green now or not, probably would lust for that.

Otherwise, even though I'm in a rural-ish area, it is still "exurban" and I'm just 30 miles away from a city of 200K and county of 900K that is a satellite of the Metromess, in turn. I see no reason as of this time to mask up. And, given that I got the J&J, no reason to subject myself to a relatively ineffective mRNA booster.

Moon of Alabama tries to have its cake and eat it on Sy Hersh

Via John Helmer, Moon of Alabama appears to be wanting to have his cake and eat it too, from the left. After claiming both that Sy largely got things correct AND that he had reported similarly in September, 80 percent of his post is about "a few corrections" to Hersh's narrative. (MoA also ignores both that Hersh has never reported on Russia AND, like other blank-check fans of Sy's, that he got bin Laden all wrong, or Not.Even.Wrong, and that he was willing to bite into the Seth Rich apple.)

At the same time, MoA links to a piece of his own from last September, where he claims to have solved it. More problems? It's possible he's right that Poland was involved in some way. But, that would be an entirely different operation than what Hersh describes, not just correcting around the corners. At a minimum, MoA sounds more right than Sy, but again, this is trying to have one's cake and eat it, too. Finally, on that piece, his peculations were not his alone. And, I don't know if all of his ship-siting stands up to Oliver Alexander's OSINT debunking of Hersh, either.

Also, I can't remember exactly what it was over, and whether on his blog site or on Twitter, but, long ago, I had some sort of run-in with Bernhard. I want to say, despite the number of leftist or quasi-leftist links in its links list, it was MoA being some sort of Mark Ames-type tribalist on US foreign affairs. I've not blogged about it here. And, given that he seems to be a tribalist twosider on the possibility of a WIV lab leak, to the degree that he's willing to accuse Snowden of being a US government propagandist, that probably WAS it, especially given he embeds Ames' tweet on the issue.

Did Kyrie spike the #MFFL water at the American Airlines Center?

On Reddit Sunday, multiple Dallas Mavericks fans simply could not accept anybody saying the Kyrie Irving trade was less than fantastic. (I called it "ass.")

The first of three I ultimately blocked had even not once but twice said he didn't like it — before I and others said the same.

On the original post about the trade that had the most comment hits, he first said, and I quote, "oh no."

He later said, showing just how much of a tribalist noob he is:

I honestly would not have pulled the trigger, granted it's VERY hard not to if all they wanted was a 1 FRP and 2 players from a roster where everybody not from Slovenia is for sale. I can't fucking stand Kyrie but I really can't be mad here.

And, after one more exchange, it was "bye." Tribalism 101 on display right there.

I bet the dood buys one of those Kyrie jerseys, only to have to face burning it in 6 months.

Then, a second person, claiming I, but not the first Mavs guy, was too worked up over this, and thinking I was calling them not him (for his icon) "cutie pie" got blocked after two exchanged.

Sunday evening, a third guy did.

Oh, the trade IS "ass." Or as Kevin Pelton more politely put it at ESPN, "risky." My own take was the combo of three draft picks plus not dumping Bertans' contract made it ass. Commenters besides those three couldn't get the idea of the "combination."

Others did, though. A Pellies fan said it was worse than Dell Demps mismanaging the Anthony Davis trade. The comment before was:

Dallas let the "wasting Luka" talk get to them.

There you go.

Let's go better, via the email newsletter of Jay Busbee at Yahoo. After comparing Kyrie to Lindsay Lohan, this:

The Dallas Mavericks are now the latest team — after the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and New Jersey Nets — to think that they’re going to be the ones to capitalize on Irving’s phenomenal talent while keeping his infuriating, me-first, team-wrecking tendencies in check. ‌

Others have tried. For all of his accolades, including eight All-Star berths in 11-plus seasons, Irving has exactly one NBA championship, and that came in 2016, when LeBron James caught fire and brought the Cavaliers back from a 3-games-to-1 deficit against the Warriors. Granted, Irving hit a clutch 3 in Game 7 of that series, but regardless of where he's been, Kyrie has always played for himself, the latest example being his demand to be dealt out of New Jersey prior to this week’s trade deadline … or else. ‌

Irving’s departure brings a crashing end to what was supposed to be a new era of basketball in Brooklyn, a superteam that was supposed to set the league on fire but ended up only igniting itself. Kevin Durant’s decision to leave Golden State looks worse with every passing day; he’s all that’s left of the Nets’ would-be dynasty. Like Irving, he asked for a trade; unlike Irving, he didn’t threaten to blow a hole in the side of the franchise if he didn’t get what he wanted. Now KD might just end up out West too, and wouldn’t that be a fine bit of score-settling, if he ended up facing off against Irving in the playoffs? ‌

Assuming Kyrie's calf injury that, coincidentally enough, was going to keep him out of Nets' games through the trade deadline suddenly heals up, Irving now suits up for a Dallas team that sports Luka Doncic, a bonafide superstar, and Jason Kidd, a coach well-versed in the nuances dealing with temperamental point guards, since he was one himself.

THERE you go.

Odds? No more than 50-50 that Dallas re-signs him. IF that happens, 50-50 he forces a trade before that new contract is done. If he doesn't? IF that happens, no more than 50-50 odds he plays more than 55 games a year each of those four seasons.

Oh, and Mavs fans who think there was some "understanding" with the deal? Nope. And, per Yahoo quoting Mark Stein, they're going to let it play out a year. The Lake Show wanted a 2-year guarantee if they made the trade. Can't blame them.

And, boo fucking hoo for Kyrie saying he felt "disrespected" in Brooklyn. He'll be saying the same about Dallas at some point, Mavs fans.

Sidebar: "Can" the Nets expand this to a three-team deal? I posted this on Reddit in part to say, hey, could the Lake Show get back in? (I knew they couldn't, it was a troll.) But, it's also a troll of sort for the Mavs; if the Nets can expand this deal and it only benefits them, it would underscore Dallas paying too much. Obviously, they weren't able to. 

Sidebar 2: After the Lakers move, and especially after the Suns move to get KD, this looks like treading water at best.

Indicting Alec Baldwin

Jill Filipovic had a good piece at CNN last week that shows that it's not outlandish that Baldwin was indicted for involuntary manslaughter.

First, contra the #BlueAnon wingnuts on Twitter, this ain't because he's an outspoken Democrat. It was the First Judicial District of New Mexico, ie, the DA for Fanta Se, or Santa Fe County, the bluest (and occasionally Greeny in the past) bastion of the state of New Mexico. (The district also covers Rio Arriba and Los Alamos counties.)

Second, she reminds us of the more important salient facts:

Baldwin was one of the producers of "Rust" as well as starring actor;

The set was described as disorganized, and a "good Democrat" and other producers had camera crew walk off the set before this because their pay was late;

The set had two previous gun incidents; 

The assistant director had complaints of lax safety on other sets.

And, it IS "involuntary manslaughter" on the charge. Filipovic cites the NM statute then explains why she thinks Baldwin was tagged:

In New Mexico, “Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection.” 

t’s that second clause that prosecutors seem to be applying to Baldwin. And so the question is: Did Baldwin act without due caution and circumspect?

There you go. This isn't a slam dunk, either way. But, I can see the case. We'll see where it goes.

Coronavirus week 131: Problems with the People's CDC

First, yes, there is an organization billing themselves as such, the People's CDC, complete with website.

I came across them via a New Yorker story by Emma Green. As she narrates it and I interpret it, they're the other hand, or other pole, of the twosiderism and tribalism on this issue that I work to avoid.

Her Twitter thread is worth reading not only for the highlights of the story, assuming you hit a New Yorker paywall, but also for the degree of vitriol she gets from the one of the two sides, which has definitely lost me.

As far as main points?

• The CDC as eugenicist is laughable, and sounds like something the other half of the tribalism says about Big Pharma's mRNA vaccines
• That's only amplified by it being mainly White folks attacking Green
  
• Taking money from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation would be hypocritical.
• Their claims about risk levels on Long COVID haven't been scientifically tested. (In addition, there's no scientifically agreed definition of Long COVID, which of course makes it "easier" to claim whatever you want. More on that below.)
  

There you go.

Let's look at the Long COVID issue. Here, first on their side:

More grievances: the People’s C.D.C. believes that the C.D.C. downplays the risk of long COVID, a post-viral syndrome that can follow the initial infection. The People’s C.D.C. matter-of-factly reports that getting COVID more than once increases your risk of death and hospitalization, and of developing chronic conditions affecting your lungs, heart, brain, and other organs. No amount of COVID is safe, and no number of shots can protect you: “We want to say plainly that you can have a mild infection and still get Long COVID,” the organization wrote, in a Weather Report in June. “Vaccinated people can also get Long COVID.” They frequently cite the figure that one in five cases may lead to long-COVID symptoms, based on a C.D.C. study of data gathered, in part, before vaccines were widely available. All of this is an argument against treating COVID like any other inevitable seasonal yuck, the People’s C.D.C. argues—instead, we should think about it as a “mass-disabling event.”

Then, the response:

Leana Wen, a professor at George Washington University’s school of public health and the former health commissioner of Baltimore, told me that there’s a distinction between patients who have trouble recovering from a bad COVID case or who experience lingering symptoms and those who are truly debilitated afterward. “That’s not one in five patients,” she said, of the latter group.

If these folks are really claiming "one in five," they're fucking laughable. They're probably also goalpost-shifting on just what Long COVID is, which also wouldn't surprise me. I also wonder exactly what they mean by "immunocompromised." Is it cancer patients, organ transplant persons and some other narrow group? I agree with those concerns. But, is it defined broadly and vaguely?

Another way of looking at this is via "anecdotal math." Let's say that half of all adult Americans have gotten COVID. I don't think that's wild-eyed and could be conservative. If one in five has Long COVID, that would mean that 10 percent of adult Americans have Long COVID. Does that describe your social world? Including yourself, are 1 in 10 people in your circles afflicted with Long COVID?

I think some want "masks forever." You can do that — as individuals. But, even in Japan, where pre-COVID individual mask-wearing was a deal, it's not happening nationwide.

That said, I'm not totally unsympathetic to them, either. Nor is Green, for that matter:

Among the people I spoke with who have actually led public-health agencies, all were sympathetic to some of the critiques that the People’s C.D.C. makes. “The pandemic has opened what were cracks in our health-care system and exposed them as large chasms,” [Anne Zink, Alaska's chief medical officer], said. “The systems that we have built have failed America and failed us individually.” But these experts also found it hard to take the group seriously because of its strident analysis. “To make claims that C.D.C. is beholden to big business—this is just nonsense, frankly,” [Tom] Frieden, the agency’s former leader, said. “Once you’re sitting at C.D.C., your goal is not to say the thing that makes you feel best or sounds most politically correct or radical.” 

The C.D.C. has become “the punching bag of our country,” Zink told me. She recognizes that the pandemic has been scary, sad, and frustrating for many people. Her reaction to “hearing those criticisms, particularly the eugenics comment—it’s just more sadness.”

There you go. And, it's why I called this a "semi-crappy takedown," not a "crappy" one. (More on the "semi" below, though.)

Related to that is the People's CDC saying the CDC et al are getting this that and the other wrong, but not only not offering, rather, actively refusing to offer, anything in the way of ideas to do things differently, beyond "masks forever."

I've talked myself about some of this before. I've talked hard about my wondering why we don't have non-mRNA boosters. And, the likes of Walker Bragman, who is at least a fellow traveler to the People's CDC? Crickets. But not crickets on the piece, calling it, via a retweet of Gregg Gonsalves, a "hit piece." And, the People's CDC has nothing about this on their website. And, I think that's deliberate, especially if current as well as former CDC are involved. They're not going to criticize the government on vaccines, period, which is sad.

Contra Green, and some of her "other side" interviewees, I think there IS room to criticize capitalist capture of more then FDA than the CDC, and specifically Big Pharma. Bragman, who should know better, has never gone there. I think they're all afraid of looking like MAGAts. Tough shit. The lack of better boosters is an issue, and the mRNA jabs, while not ineffective, are of relatively limited effectiveness.

So, to put it in tribalist terms, until it starts pushing for non-mRNA boosters, it can pretty much fuck off. That's even as daily cases so far this winter show but a mild uptick and daily deaths remain flat, per the latest info from Worldometers. Per Worldometers, the P-CDC claim that 2,000 people a week are dying is too high by one-third right now. (Carl Zimmer also makes this not-totally-true claim.) And, even if true, that is NOT worse than at least a more severe flu season. Oh, and you can stop the alarmism, likes of The Fed Up Chef, over Omicron SUBvariants. (And is Rob Wallace of the People's CDC actually looking for variants in wastewater, or subvariants?)

Anyway, shadowtweeting about the likes of these people:

Anybody panicking over the likes of Omicron SUBvariants which have not shown themselves to be any worse than other subvariants has lots the right to be treated 100 percent seriously on COVID pronouncements in my world.

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) December 30, 2022

But Emma Green can fuck off to some degree herself, and deserves some the vitriol. This IS a schtick by her and I first called her out SEVEN years ago. It, and this, were both two-dimensional strawmanning.

There's an actual piece to be written about the problems with the People's CDC, one with more nuance than this. Sadly, it will now never be written; Emma Green's made those waters too toxic.

One side note: The venue kind of surprises me at first glance. I could easily see The Atlantic, where Green did her schtick seven years ago, doing a piece like this. But the New Yorker? This seems at first glance like eating their own. But, really, not so much. It's left-neoliberal, not leftist, so just a few steps away from Atlantic on the spectrum.

==

Related: STAT talks about lessons from COVID so far. One is how public health measures have both been imposed, and to some degree, opposed, without nuance either way. Something else the People's  CDC could take to heart — but probably won't. It also notes the rapid dropoff of mRNA effectiveness, something which, as noted above, the People's CDC and fellow travelers don't discuss, at least not from what I could tell browsing their website.

In that piece, re the one big issue above, Nancy Messionier notes there's still no accepted definition of Long COVID. That's one of many science-tentative issues around COVID, she says.

This:

“I’ve been sort of repeatedly surprised by how often I see statements in the press attributable to scientists that have an unwarranted level of confidence associated with them,” [Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at Rockefeller University] said, suggesting this has contributed to a decline in trust in science and in public health experts over the course of the pandemic. 

Bieniasz thinks scientists should have started most statements with “I don’t know, but my best guess is …”

Is big. But, again, the People's CDC half of twosiderism won't be listening. Nor will many of the science experts who may not be twosiderists but are unwittingly fueling the problem.

==

Update: Related issue? Zeynep Tufekci tells you what Bragman and the People's CDC won't — RSV and flu cases have both sharply dropped again after their initial surge. I suspect two years of masking and isolation lessened natural immunity, which is a thing, even if misinterpreted by the denialists and minimalists. (And, she's been attacked on Twitter herself.)

Update 2: The Nation decides to go "all in" on the left hand  of tribalism, with a piece by People's CDC fellow traveler Gregg Gonsalves (you ARE a "fellow traveler," Gregg) that's as much a hit piece if not more than Green's original. He has no substantive engagement with Green on Long COVID and other issues. I also find it "interesting" that the likes of a Zeynep Tufekci aren't interviewed.

The piece has other strawmanning. No, we don't have a memorial to COVID dead, unlike 9/11. And? As I wrote in a newspaper column 20 years ago, we also don't have a memorial to dead diabetics and other things.

Finally, Gregg? Show your homework. Worldometers doesn't show 4,000 US dead in the past week. Even a full week of 500-death days (which we don't have) would be 3,500.

Update 3 (as we get material enough for a new post): Former Pro Publica editorial top cheese Dick Tofel also suggests it's time to move from pandemic to endemic, in terms of journalism coverage, and how we should get beyond twosiderism:

The answer seems not to be to pretend that COVID has disappeared, but rather to integrate what we have learned these last three years into public life, urging (and making it feasible) for those who are ill to stay home, taking special precautions around those at highest risk, varying our own behavior at times and in places where illnesses are more prevalent, acknowledging that those who choose to avoid or delay available vaccines are assuming risks for which they must bear at least some of the consequences.

Sounds pretty sensical.

Update 4, mainly as a bookmark for me when I start that new thread: Leana Wen, a professor of public health like Gonsalves, and one of the experts mentioned in Green's story, wonders if we're not overcounting COVID deaths and talks about deaths "from" vs deaths "with." And, she actually interviews two people, which is two more than Gonsalves. Both the people she interviewed are infectious disease physicians. Both have themselves been attacked as COVID minimalists.

Wen has the advantage of having been, pre-COVID, on the ground lines of public health as the city of Baltimore's health commissioner, too.

Update 5: A Dutch immunologist says there's a bunch of clear evidence COVID is moving in the direction of seasonal waves.

Coronavirus week 129: ProPublica stands by latest lab leak story

About a month ago, Pro Publica, working jointly with Vanity Fair, reported on a Senate committee's minority report on the latest work on the idea that coronavirus, as in SARS-CoVID-2, originated in the human public from a lab leak at Wuhan Institute of Virology. I blogged about that at the time it came out.

Well, per updates to that post, it got LOTS of pushback. Not all of it was from St. Anthony of Fauci fellating BlueAnon tribalists, but a fair amount certainly was.

I don't know if Vanity Fair has said anything in response, but, ProPublica now has.

ProPublica HAS COMPLETED a review of its initial reporting, and generally stands by it, and specifically totally stands by it on anything of consequence, including Toy Reid's translation work.

Since that was the No. 1 criticism from the tribalists (and others), this:

We commissioned three Chinese language experts with impeccable credentials who were not involved in the original story to review Reid’s translation. They all agreed that his version was a plausible way to represent the passage, though two also said they would have translated the words to refer to the dangers of day-to-day lab operations. The third produced a translation that was in line with Reid’s. All agreed the passage was ambiguous. We have updated the story to underscore the complexity of interpreting that dispatch.

Sounds pretty straightforward.

Bigger issue No. 2:

We continue to see our story as a measured exploration of the array of questions raised about the WIV’s laboratories. The possibility that a biosecurity breach at the WIV occurred, and sparked the pandemic, remains plausible.

Indeed it is. And, with St. Anthony of Fauci's retirement and the air-kisses he's getting, this is important.

And sorry, tribalists, Pro Publica's not going away on the issue, either:

We plan to keep reporting on this issue and expect new evidence to emerge. It is our view that both the natural-spillover and laboratory-accident hypotheses for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic merit continued investigation. Given the human toll, which continues to mount, it is imperative that we continue this work.

Deal with it.

Minor corrections relate to the timing and details of China's Zhou Yousen filing a patent for a vaccine. ProPublica notes others filed earlier claims, but these were all provisional, indicating they wanted patents for planned future research. 

The complete addendum follows up on the second and third pull quotes. It stresses it, including via medical experts it has interviewed in the past and for this addendum, that it does not believe it has a lab-leak theory smoking gun. But it stresses that its experts see the lab-leak idea as plausible enough to indeed warrant further, ongoing investigation.

And, there's the tribalism issue. See this:

(A)s interviews with other scientists before and after publication have made clear, the question is far from resolved. In their view, there is not enough evidence to establish how the virus first reached the now-infamous Wuhan market or to assert that zoonotic spillover is the sole possible explanation for the pandemic’s origin.'

(Jesse) Bloom, the virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, is among those scientists. “I’ve never seen anything as controversial as this in my field,” he said. “The amount of toxicity is out of control. Each side feels uniquely wronged. To me, it remains an open question.”

Agreed. And, it does cut both ways, especially outside the professional science world, and into the Twitterati of #MAGA vs #BlueMAGA.

Part of that, often from #MAGA but not always so, is the move from a lab-leak hypothesis to claims about weaponization. I noted that this has not always been "MAGA," and blogged specifically about leftist Sam Husseini making empirically unsubstantiated AND logically unlikely claims to this end. My refutation of him applies to both MAGAts and to horseshoe-theory leftists. There's no way China would have done weapons work at a lab built with large French assistance. As with the old USSR, there's no way they would have mixed medical research with weaponization. That's true of the old US, as well.

Meanwhile, Dr. Peter Hotez is a tribalist and twosider on the lab leak. Bigly, starting with attacking non-wingnut Richard Burr over the Senate minority committee report, coming off as a kinder, gentler Orac:

Bottom line: the lab leak GOF is all political theater, designed to cripple our national biomedical infrastructure. All so a few uneducated chuckleheads in the US Congress can flex their muscles, exercise authoritarian control. It will make us more vulnerable to future pandemics

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) November 1, 2022

And this isn't new from Hotez, as his Twitter feed and stories will show.

Not at all. As I said in quote-Tweeting that first tweet, he's lost some serious credibility in my book. I noted that Alina Chan, Scott Gottlieb and Jaime Metzl, among others, are not members of Congress (and by extension, not chuckleheads or uneducated). May blog just about that.

Coronavirus Week 128: Masks do work; correlation is not causation

Time Magazine had three public health officials, one an academic, report on a new study about just how well masking works at schools. The horse is out the barn door on COVID, and I presume it will not get severe enough to require state-level or higher mask mandates. But, in case we have another viral pandemic and either wingnuts or Saint Anthony of Fauci pops off again, good to keep in mind.

==

The second item is the biggie. Walker Bragman and some other have been talking about the rise in child RSV cases and wondering if, or even speculating that, it's due to undiagnosed child COVID cases of the past two years.

Really? What if, instead, it's due to the amount of protectiveness that mothers gave toddlers and pre-schoolers the last year reducing their potential naturally-developed immunity? There IS such a thing, and, beyond the Great Barrington folks' angle, it DOES work that way.

Going straight to childhood COVID angles is not only confusing correlation with causation, it's assuming correlation where it's not known if it exists, and ergo, if violates good science because, contra abduction, it does NOT reason to the best inference. Indeed, the RSV rate is higher than the last couple of pre-COVID years. That COULD be due to COVID-based susceptibility. Or, as I note, it COULD be due to diminished natural immunity. And, it also COULD be due to this year's variant being a bad one. It COULD also be due to the last two possibilities interplaying.

But, it likely IS a bit of tribalism against both the Great Barrington types and against Team Biden and Rochelle Walinsky et al for not doing more, and hence being subject to your bankshots.

Orac: Still a tribalist on COVID — Coronavirus week 117

Orac, David Gorski. He's not a pseudoskeptic in the way that Michael Shermer is, confusing libertarianism with skepticism.

He IS a pseudoskeptic in confusing tribalism with skepticism, though. And he just can't get over it on COVID.

After waiting for months, even a year, for him to talk seriously about the lab-leak hypothesis at Wuhan Institute of Virology, I simply stopped waiting.

And, then, yesterday, lo and behold, he writes about it!

Only to go into tribalist bullshit.

To put it bluntly, his heater, "Is the lab leak conspiracy theory dead?" is a lie. There's no other word for it, because Orac operates willfully on the scientifically unproven idea that all discussion of the lab leak is conspiracy theorizing.

And, yes, he needs to be called a liar.

As I told him on Twitter, he entirely ignores Jamie Metzl's discussion of the issue. He notes he caught the attention of Beijing (land of 2 million deaths) enough that he's been attacked by name. Scott Gottlieb also thinks it's plausible. Contra the well-written book she did with Matt Ridley, he insinuates (though won't say directly) that Alina Chen is a crank. Instead, he cherry-picks a couple of new studies that he says vindicate him and people like him. He also doesn't even mention Ridley as coauthor.

I'll give him credit for linking to a Chen blog piece on Medium, even though he probably expects tribalist leaders to buy his thinking. She tore to shreds a previous, pre-print essay in Science in February by the same authors of a July piece who pretty much claim they've nailed it. Here's details Orac probably doesn't want you to read:

• She notes they backed off of things like "incontrovertible" in the July peer-reviewed print, and elsewhere notes this does not "establish" origin.
  
• They added a "Study Limitations" section.
• She says, contra Orac, that the piece still isn't free of ascertainment bias, and rejects the lead author's claims that they're free of it.
• And questions their explainer behind the "two strains" theory.

Read the whole thing, or at least give it a decent grok.

Besides tribalism being in his personal cultural DNA, I think Orac is a tribalist on this issue because, per the 2 million deaths link, he still takes the Chinese government, Chinese CDC, etc., at way too close to face value. That, in turn, shows how much he's a pseudoskeptic.

As I noted on "still a tribalist" and also tweeted to him? John Horgan had his number six years ago. Aong with the Novella brothers and others. COVID just gave Gorski new room to let his tribalism run rampant.

Glasgow: Sound and fury on climate change, signifying nothing

First, here is the actual agreement, all 10 pages.  You'll see lots of "urges." No "agree that they will" or anything like that, of course. So, with that, let's dig in.

1. John Kerry is turd-polishing the Glasgow climate deal. Tells us non #BlueAnon folks all we need to know. A deal with no enforcement got even worse to kowtow to India on coal.

2. Tree planting climate offsets were already full of both loopholes and bullshit. Pledges at Glasgow only doubled that. So does the larger idea of getting to "net zero" with an offsets-first approach. Indigenous people are right that this is a new form of colonialism. Greta Thunberg is right that this is greenwashing. (In turn, that undermines Wrong Type of Green if it still claims she's under the thumb of corporate neoliberal minders.)

3. If carbon markets are like carbon cap-and-trade was in the EU, they're bullshit, too.

4. Gizmodo nails it; the US has been a bit of a bully in the past (but China has hid behind our skirts).

Bottom line? This will be Jell-O, just like Paris.

5. Therefore, it's no surprise that a mainstream climate science neoliberal like Michael Mann is scribbling for the LA Times, avidly stanning for the "deal" at Glasgow. In fact, this shite is exactly why I've called the likes of him and Texas' #BlueAnon national climate change treasure Katharine Hayhoe climate change neoliberals, or actually, from the blog, not from memory, "climate change Obamiacs," for years. Focusing on Hayhoe and fellow travelers of hers, I talked about this four years ago. I most recently tackled her in a piece late this summer, kind of a warning shot about Glasgow, and another one about the mainstream media on climate issues.

Let's break out how much BS he has, starting here:

COVID-related restrictions made it difficult for climate activists to participate in the proceedings.

Uhh, wrong! The rich nation-states organizing Glasgow had more to do with this than COVID. DeSmog Blog and other sites have written about this. Even you admit the overwhelming presence of fossil fuel execs, but can't, or won't, tie this to activist exclusion.

Then, this:

Meanwhile, the leaders of the world’s largest carbon emitter, China, and petrostates Saudi Arabia and Russia were AWOL. Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia was shunned for his woefully inadequate climate commitments. Yes, there were pledges aplenty, but the “implementation gap” seemed ever more yawning. A leaked draft of the COP26 decision text lacked any mention of a fossil fuel phaseout.

Uhh, China sent officials. Just not Xi Jinping, who hasn't left China since the start of COVID and, if recent internal indications are any worry, is concerned about a new round of COVID. (He probably didn't want to face even a suggestion of hostile questioning from either world leaders or world press.) Shameful? Per the Paris Jell-O link above? The US has also been shameful. As for attendance? Biden did go, didn't stay that long, and barked up the wrong tree. Nor did many other world leaders. Mann having a "we" in a following paragraph comes off as American tribalism, even if not meant that way.

And, the capper on the bullshit? This:

But the biggest breakthrough was unexpected. On Wednesday, China and the U.S. — the world’s two largest climate polluters — said they would commit to “enhanced climate actions” to keep global warming to the limits set in the Paris agreement. Most critically, the statement included a commitment to phase down coal. And while we can’t yet quantify the impacts of this development, it presumably moves us closer to the 1.5 Celsius goal. This level of U.S.-China cooperation quickly shifted the entire COP26 narrative and outlook. 

It is noteworthy that a similar bilateral agreement in 2014 brokered by the same two lead negotiators — China’s top climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry — laid the groundwork for the Paris agreement a year later. This week’s agreement might prove even more important. Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Biden will meet virtually on Monday to discuss further actions.

EXACTLY like how Paris ended. A joint communique full of purely voluntary items. (Mann either knows this about Paris and is being mendacious, and does not, and is an idiot. I'm taking 5-1 odds, minimum, on the former.)

Until either the US or China passes a carbon tax PLUS carbon tariff, the likes of Michael Mann should STFU. Right now, per Greta Thunberg, he's full of "blah, blah, blah."

Except more of that in days and weeks ahead from Hayhoe herself and the fellow travelers like Bob Kopp, as well as the climate change Obamiac mainstream environmentalists like Audubon and even the AOC-touted (and AOC-queenmaking) Sunrise Movement. They've done it before, too, in the case of Audubon; see the "late this summer" for Sunrise.

6. So, in summary, I agree with Vox that it was a "tiny step." I agree that Dear Leader Obama is a hypocrite. (Right, climate change Obamiacs?) I disagree that this provides any sort of international political lever.

7. Finally, where am I at on the realities on the ground, using the measuring stick of global warming? As for my degree of alarmism? I'm not quite James Kunstler, but I'm far more than Mann or Hayhoe.

I think if we do EVERYTHING we can right now, reasonably, with mandates, not voluntary unenforceable agreements, 2C is still cooked in the books and hits by 2100.

I think if the current actual reality continues? About a 50 percent chance of 2C by 2050. I think a 10 percent chance of 3C by 2050, 30 percent by 2075 and more than 50 percent by 2100. I think a 10 percent chance of **4C** by 2100, and if that happens, there’s the possibility of “runaway Earth” tipping points. Mother Jones thinks the world will hit 2.4C, and apparently that's it. THAT is too low.

Update 1 and confirming that? The Independent Media Institute, Richard Wolff-affiliated org, in discussing the "climate chinwag," says that even if all pledges at Glasgow were met, it still wouldn't get us to Paris targets. It also notes that most consumers in advanced nations, above all but not limited to the US, aren't really ready to change their lifestyles much. It adds that many don't know what the best things are to do, anyway. 

Update 2? It was noted at Glasgow that rich countries have missed the targets for money for a climate mobilization fund to assist poor countries. Per Quartz, there's an even bigger problem. Nobody knows what's been done with the. money that HAS been raised.

Coronavirus week 83C: More Orac tribalism

There's plenty to not like about the Great Barrington Declaration. That would include that, arguably, technically, on denotative definition, that it was "eugenics-embracing," yes. But, Orac knows his #BlueAnon readers. I'm assuming, given his past tribalism, that him making that statement, and in the subheader, not body copy, of a post last week about Martin Kulldorff, that he was going for connotative meaning, and he is, of course, wrong. That's not to mention that there was no need to go there, and this was arguably gratuitous. Also, taking Wiki's definition, it arguably isn't even eugenics-embracing from a denotative stance. Great Barrington didn't explicitly claim this would improve the human genome; beyond that, given that the elderly are past reproductive age, unlike 1920s America and Nazi Germany sterilizing or killing the allegedly mentally deficient, that would not be a reproductive-futures difference. Thirdly, Orac knows that immunological resistance is only loosely tied to genetics; epigenetics and environment have a lot to say about disease resistance.

That said, going back to the main point? Again, per Wiki and beyond, connotatively, it's not eugenics-embracing at all.

(And, with that, having him put on blogroll watch list last quarter, he's now moving closer to the exit door.)

Coronavirus, week 76A: Neoliberals vs nutbars, big biz vs nutbars

The header applies to the first piece in this week's roundup.

So, let's start there. At the Atlantic, which has had decent to good stuff by Ed Yong and others, Yasmin Tayag says stop calling it a pandemic of the unvaccinated because it's not productive. So what? It's A. True; B. Fun. NOT calling it that won't be any more productive, will it?

Her piece, IMO, goes further off the rails from there, saying that vaccine mandates can also be counterproductive. Well, ANYTHING "can be" counterproductive if you believe the only final answer is continued coddling. I don't.

Otherwise, her framing of how to reach out to the unvaccinated presumes they're rational actors. I don't do that, either. Given that the likes of Jason Kimball are claiming that the COVID self-induced death of denialist Gregg Prentice was "really" murder, they're not even close to rational actors, as his whole Facebook feed clearly shows. Shit like this shows the old neoliberal fiscal, neoliberal in larger thought Atlantic of years and decades past remains that way at bottom line.

Meanwhile, big biz like the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce LIKE the mandate. They probably recognize, contra Tayag, that the resisters are NOT rational actors, that the compulsion is needed and that Biden's doing the dirty work for them.

(Note: I originally forgot to truncate items I left on here before I decided to split this blog post into two. They are here.) 

Finally, Tayag forgot to discuss tribalism. When a hospital in Missouri, last month, as Delta (we hope) peaked, created a private vax room so that antivaxxers couldn't be seen by family, antivax friends and tribalists, etc., as they got the shot, that's Tribalism 101. It also undercuts her claims to "they're really thinking." It also undercuts the likes of Jonathan Bernstein at the "here" link in the paragraph above that this is still really about vax-hesitant, not antivaxxers. No it's not. Whether it's wingnuts like the two of them, or never-Trumper (at times) wingnuts like National Review, also cited in the piece just above, they're making these claims for their own tribalist reasons.

Jeff Kloha, Hobby Lobby, #BlueAnon, Gilgamesh

Trust me. As normal with a post like this, I'll tie all threads together.

I blogged a little over a ago about the breaking of the Dead Sea Scrolls scandal at Hobby Lobby-owned The Museum of the Bible, and how the man dealing with the fallout is old seminary classmate Jeff Kloha, who now prefers the full Jeffrey. I then added to that an initial follow-up post a couple of months later about the first specifics of the Augean stables clean-up he faced.

The Department of Justice got a court ruling today that Hobby Lobby must forfeit the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, which means that it sounds like Jeff Kloha has more Cleanup on Aisle 6 to do. Right?

The details? The tablet was shipped to the US in 2003 by Jordanian Antiquities Association, without proper paperwork but with the claim it was found in miscellaneous rubble in 1981. In reality, like much other stuff the Green family got its mitts on, it was looted from Iraq. There is no honor among thieves, and we'll see how much remorse there is.

But, not so fast. There's also politics involved.

Some of this on the political side is a #BlueAnon dogpile on the Green family. Hobby Lobby surrendered the tablet a nearly a year ago, after federal authorities ruled to that end a full year ago. Let's ALSO note that Hobby Lobby supports its return to Iraq. That may not be "remorse," but it's an acceptance of reality. The actual court ruling is more icing on the cake than anything, though it gives the feds leverage if there's anything Hobby Lobby tries to keep its hands on.

In fact, it's arguable that Christie's (yes, THAT Christie's) is at least as big a villain as Hobby Lobby.

Christie's, the international auction house from which Hobby Lobby bought the item, previously told CNN that "any suggestion that Christie's had knowledge of the original fraud or illegal importation is unsubstantiated."

Christie's can use the weasel word "unsubstantiated" all it wants. And, yes, "weasel word" it is.

 

The second-biggest villain overall, not so much with Gilgamesh but with the Dead Sea Scrolls mentioned in my first link? As I said there and in the second link, the "specific effects"? It's pop biblical culture magazine Biblical Archaeology Review. Herschel Shanks has long turned a semi-blind eye to advertisers who might be peddling stuff like this behind more legit stuff. And, with stories accepting as factual the forged James ossuary, he's added fuel to the fire on more than one occasion.

Re Hobby Lobby, Christie's and looted Iraq, there may be plenty of people who aren't hard-right conservative Christians who willingly bought larger or smaller sums of ill-gotten booty pilfered from Iraq, and some of it may have sifted through Christie's hands.

Related to that? I want to hear NOTHING from American do-gooders claiming we should hold on to it because ISIS will just destroy it. First, that would be yet another form of thievery. Second, that's why much of the rest of the world hates American do-gooders. Third, destruction of antiquities has been happening since the rise of civilization. Fourth, Christians have done this in hte past. The Iconoclastic Controversy. Worshipers, led by ex-priest pastors such as Karlstadt, shattering stained glass in the early Reformation. Some "Mark of the Beast" types (generally ignorant) destroying things related to that alleged mark today.

So, the idea, from one apparent BlueAnon do-gooder on Twitter, that it would have been better had it been stolen on the QT, is laughable.

No, really! The "HL" in his Tweet, part of a thread from a now-muted person, goes exactly down that rabbit hole. 

C. Is the same point I'm making. For one, DOJ wouldnt know about it if HL didnt declare it. It could've easily ended up in the hands of a private collector that kept it secret.

— Edward Davis (@Mag_neto_) July 28, 2021

Besides, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? That's true on everything from antiquities to importing exotic plants and animals to a new country or continent. I tweeted back to the guy exactly on that line:

So, now you're advocating that thievery is fine as long as it's on the QT? Gee, that's what organized crime says. Keep extending the rope to further hang yourself.

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) July 28, 2021

There may eventually be a blank space there. Twitter, in its usual literalism, said that last sentence was encouraging suicide or self-harm and forced me to delete it. I of course screenshotted it first.

And yes, IMO, that's what it boils down to. I thought of Juvenal's maxim shortly after that. And, see what I said above about Christie's. They may have sold Iraq antiquities to other buyers who made exactly that argument. Or, Christie's senior staff, with their attempt at plausible deniability, may have internally made that argument themselves, that selling these items got them out of Iraq.

No, per the Wiki link, the phrase doesn't come from Plato's "Republic," though the idea behind it is raised indirectly. Plato's answer on how to guard them? The heart of the fascism behind the "Republic" — mind control through the Platonic Noble Lie. No thanks, as I've said about St. Anthony of Fauci, on masks and herd immunity. I don't even consider his "gain of function" a Platonic noble lie. More like a Jesuitical one, or just a plain old grubby one.

To put it another way, also in terms of philosophy, and again, basic Ethics 101? "Two wrongs don't make a right."

To put it yet one more way, in terms of geopolitical issues? Mr. Davis has a mindset of neoliberal colonialism. That's what "American do-gooderism" taken abroad is. "Ugly American" stuff, normally.

And, per other people thinking "why can't it just stay here," whether out of ignorance of the law or neoliberal colonialism? The law says it goes back to where it's stolen from. Oh, and on Twitter, if you don't know the law on something like this, per the old maxim, it's better not to Tweet and remain silent rather than Tweet and remove all doubt of your ignorance.

As for the value of Gilgamesh? It's at least partly behind the tales of Moses' birth and similar birth stories around the ancient Near East, as well as some documents from Qumran (which tie back to Hobby Lobby's larceniousness as well as to why Kloha was hired) and to the Iliad and Odyssey. Arguably, it's connected indirectly to just about any later epic tale in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean.

No, antivaxxerism is not INHERENTLY racist

The key to the phrase above is in the capitalized word. Paula Larsson, as a graduate philosophy student at Oxford, should be ashamed for writing a piece claiming that it is inherently so, as she should know the extra burden of proof involved in claiming that any social idea, group or movement is INHERENTLY "X." 

The Conversation should be ashamed for running this.

People like Juan Cole should be ashamed for spreading this.

None of them, of course, WILL be.

The "inherently" claim is ultimately a structural claim. And, with that, I see the camel's nose of Critical Race Theory — and its misuse, overuse, stretched use and abuse. As an actual leftist, at least for America, and as one who's read one of the seminal texts of CRT, actually does know something about it, and sees both things to like and dislike about it, I can say this with a high degree of confidence.

To wit, I've actually read Eddie Glaude's Democracy in Black, who is on the edges of the movement, and Derrick Bell, a founder of the theory, whose Silent Covenants was a good introduction. 

I've also read many other books about how the concept of race was developed. And, blogged about the good, bad and ugly of CRT here.

And, Larsson's just not proven her claim AT ALL.

In fact, she's not proven that leading White antivaxxers like RFK Jr. and their organizations are NON-inherently (casually?) racist.

To take a counterexample? Some anti-abortion people target minorities in general and Blacks in particular, claiming abortion is genocide. Does that make them racist? Of course not. AND? It's built on the fact that Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist, among other things. Ditto for antivaxxer pitches to minorities; they're built on facts like the Tuskegee Airmen.

Does that mean they're not distorting facts? Of course they are, and so is Paula Larsson. I've heard many things hurled at RFK Jr., but inherently racist (if the movement is, then he is, as a leader, by default definition) is NOT one of them. As a public figure,  with the "actual malice" standard, there's no way the likes of him could win a lawsuit against Larsson, but, I feel that, ethically if not legally, she's skating on thin ice.

Basically, what we have here, as I see it, is an "own the wingnuts" form of tribalism. It's the same type of tribalism that ignores St. Anthony of Fauci's Platonic Noble Lies and refuses to even talk about the possibility of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or that, at one time, we did indeed fund gain-of-function research there, or that St. Anthony can even be wrong at any time. (I may feel the urge to blog about this gain-of-function stuff, as it's yet another of St. Anthony's lies, this time done by trying to redefine the most commonly accepted definition of the phrase.)

In other words? #BlueAnon tribalism. Cole's a definite #BlueAnon tribalist. Larsson's Canadian, so we call her the Canadian fellow-traveler or equivalent of BlueAnon.

And, in most these cases, and definitely this one? It's a self-own, at least for us who strive not to be tribalists and who actually engage in critical thinking. Other than that, all it does is increase tribalism and give fuel to wingnuts attacking CRT. Or to wingnuts attacking #BlueAnon over ideas like this.

Zeynep Tufekci officially calls out COVID tribalism!

And, #BlueAnon probably won't like it even more than what she's said before, as I've blogged.

Public intellectual Zeynep Tufekci has written a long piece at the NYT about the possible origins of COVID. It's very interesting. VERY interesting. She starts with the relative stability of the H1N1 virus and says that, ACCIDENTALLY, the Chinese government appears to have caused that stability.

Next, she notes that social media users in China, before Xi Jinping could institute a Xi Jinping Thought crackdown, were among the first skeptics of the official WIV story. (Orac hasn't told you that in the past, either.)

Apparently, more skeptical than Blue Anon, either in the media or the US science world.

On her Substack, Tufekci then explained the backdrop of the piece and promises a further breakout there.

She then had a SECOND follow-up, and among its hot takes are a specific decrying of the attitudes behind that Lancet letter. 

Biggest takeaway? She uses the phrase "cover-up."

She also thinks that people saying "don't make people mad" were in reality not wanting to talk about lab leaks.

Finally, this, which is DIRECTLY relevant to Orac and others of #BlueAnon. It's a long quote, but needed:

Again and again, throughout the past year, the more unlikely and extreme scenarios get “debunked” and the many actual questions and sensible and factual worries have been treated like… they don’t exist. 

After enough of that faux “debunking” and knocking down of genuinely unhinged stuff and/or strawman versiions of reasonable questions, people have gotten used to treating the entire question of virus-origins as something of only interest to crazies, or of no interest to anyone because there is no question there. 

Any discussion about potential lab/research connections are then deemed to be “conspiracy theories” (used in the sense of extremely unlikely or impossible events being speculated on because of other reasons), rather than substantive discussions we can use as figuring out how to take steps so as not to find ourselves here again. 

In this worldview, just saying there is a cover-up and that there are real questions about the virus origins, can be called a “conspiracy theory,” too, if you define conspiracy theory to mean any scenario in which authorities and people in power are lying, and are potentially coercing and pressuring everyone else, including the scientists. In reality, given this is China, such deliberate obstruction is obviously likely.

And, Orac has posted twice at his site since I first started trolling him on Twitter. (I have no problem admitting that that's what I'm doing, but also have no problem saying that he deserves it.) He hasn't addressed Tufekci at all; he has worried SO much about ivermectin that he blogged twice about it.

And now, a third Substack piece, which directly throws down the gauntlet of tribalism.

She doesn't call out the likes of Orac or the Novella brothers; rather, it's tribalist science writers working for major media outlets.

==

Update: Since a Chinese defector has apparently spilled the beans about WIV, and since France warned the US about the lab before the COVID outbreak, Orac's tribalism has even less to stand on.

Coronavirus week 64B: St. Anthony of Fauci and COVID tribalism

Even more than my previous piece on COVID, tribalism and twosiderism, per the theme of this newsletter, the release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails has underscored just what the problem is, and how bad it is. And, because that original piece had gotten so many updates since first writing it, I thought a tighter consolidation of the original, with focus on the key points on both sides of the twosiderism, and sharpening how bad this has gotten, especially on the "BlueAnon" side, was needed.

People believing that there was a conspiracy to cover up a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — whether they believe that the virus, if originating from there, was being bioweaponized or just gain-of-function research that escaped — are all called cranks and conspiracy theorists by natural-origin defenders who refuse to admit any other possibility having more than the remotest likelihood.

There are a few, like me, who think that the natural origin theory is more likely, but nowhere near a lead-pipe cinch.

There are those who think a lab leak is even more likely than I do, but still stay within the confines of reasonable science.

But, we’re few and far between.

Rather, it’s the natural-originers refusing to consider options at all who shove aside others who tilt toward that explanation but want to still investigate.

And, it’s the conspirators, whether conspiricizing about bioweaponing a coronavirus, as some inside Trump’s State Department and some on far-right media have done, or those “just” conspiracizing about a massive coverup of an allegedly massive, and very deadly, leak of a gain-of-function program that escaped, who have pushed out others on “their” side.

And, the two extremes have become like Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby to each other.

And, they like that. If they’re in the media, for either side of the false dichotomy, it juices their ratings, clicks, etc.

If in the media or not, it juices adherence to them by their tribalists. Let’s look at some of the specifics of either side.

It starts with Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed did the FOIA request to get these emails, which far-right websites and Twitter accounts first called a leak. Leopold planted his flag firmly in the other half of the tribalism camp, though, with a story that totally fellated Fauci as a master scientist who has always, all along, had all things COVID under his control. 

Leopold “conveniently” ignored Fauci’s past telling of a Platonic Noble Lie about mask-wearing, followed by a second Platonic whopper about herd immunity.

As I've noted before and elsewhere, by the start of March 2020, if not in late February, people like Zeynep Tufekci were calling out Fauci, or beyond or instead of calling him out by name, insisting that masks really did offer at least some degree of help both ways — protecting others from ourselves AND protecting ourselves from others. And, Fauci has remained unrepentant about this, about shading his definition of what constitutes gain-of-function research and more. He also has allowed associate Kristen Andersen to lie on his behalf. None of this, of course, proves a lab-leak is the more likely cause. They only show Fauci’s mendacity.

Are such leaks possible? Yes, says former FDA head Scott Gottlieb.

And, Pro Publica did a piece about leaks at a North Carolina lab studying coronaviruses — a lab with ties to WIV.

Reinforcing this as an idea worth considering? Shi Zhengli of Wuhan Institute of Virology had connections with that lab — via the controversial Peter Daszak.

The reply of Dr. David Gorski, commonly known by his blogging nom de plume, Orac, and a leader in the “they’re all cranks” set? Note that Gottlieb touts his press clippings from far-right groups, ignore Pro Publica and ignore Fauci’s past Platonic lies. Given that Orac has been a tribalist on various matters related to “movement skepticism,” this is no surprise.

Pretending to have a new angle? On Substack, it’s Leighton Akira Woodhouse, attacking “the new clerisy.” It’s not a total strawman; much of modern American research science IS dependent on government grants, and between that and its bureaucratization, that does cause problems.

But, Woodhouse then reveals his “other side” affinities when he touts crank cures for COVID and more. He then tops it off by blaming tribalism for this problem without admitting his own contribution to it.

Woodhouse also has been touted by Glenn Greenwald. Glenn has no appearance of being an outright Trumper, but IS a Biden-hater who left the Intercept over that. He’s also on record on Twitter as rejecting most masking mandates.

Back on the “they’re cranks” side, Nautilus gives space to Tom Levenson. Levenson eventually tries to gaslight readers by claiming that a weaponization angle is the only endgame for lab-leakers and that this all boils down to Trumpism. This totally ignores that Mr. Neoliberal anti-Trumper, Jon Chait of New York mag, has pushed for more of a look at the lab-leak idea.

Jonathan Cook at Counterpunch tries to get past twosiderism, but does a less than stellar job. While attacking much of the “mainstream media,” he ignores the tribalism of far right media who, before Jan. 20, 2021, even if not believing in bioweaponization, were totally Trumpist in looking for tools to attack Fauci.

Per Cook and others? The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists piece by Nicholas Wade has been cited by at least some lab-leakers, and attacked by the “they’re cranks.” It’s interesting yet problematic. Contra the likes of Orac, maybe it wasn’t in a biological journal because they all rejected it, because Wade isn’t a PhD, or both. And, the Bulletin ran it because of its long history of writing about the politicization of science. It's also part of a set of articles at the Bulletin by various authors that entertain the lab-leak theory. 

At the same time, Wade comes close to strawmanning himself. He also has a problematic past as a fellow traveler of Charles Murray on promoting racialism.

To wrap up the issue? The tribalism and twosiderism, as should be clear by now, ties in with American duopoly tribalism. 

And, per Alina Chan and 17 other scientists who co-signed a letter to Science magazine and are part of more and more scientists not worried about being considered crazies by #BlueAnon tribalists, either among the general public or among the likes of Orac, we may finally be moving that way.

And, that’s a good wrap-up spot.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Gebreyesus, while indicating he doesn’t think it’s likely, in March called for more investigation of the lab-leak theory.

Why can’t the “they’re cranks” do that, while still ignoring actual cranks?

Tribalism.

 

Someone like Zeynep Tufekci cuts through tribalism, why can't Orac?

Coronavirus, week 64A: Zeynep Tufekci speaks big truth!

And, #BlueAnon probably won't like it, as it challenges a bunch of tribalism.

Public intellectual Zeynep Tufekci has written a long piece at the NYT about the possible origins of COVID. It's very interesting. VERY interesting. She starts with the relative stability of the H1N1 virus and says that, ACCIDENTALLY, the Chinese government appears to have caused that stability. Tufecki addresses all the things that I have before in giving Orac and others from #BlueAnon (as well as wingnuts) a good smackdown — lab insecurity, "gain of function" research at the UNC lab where Dr. Shi, along with Dr. Baric, worked, and lab leaks for other pathogens, like hoof-and-mouth disease from a British lab. (Note: I have a follow-up to my smackdown coming later in the week. It's already mostly written; I'll try to remember to include whether or not he talks about Tufekci's piece by then. Actually, in another week, given her second Substack piece, at bottom, I'll have yet more.)

Next, she notes that social media users in China, before Xi Jinping could institute a Xi Jinping Thought crackdown, were among the first skeptics of the official WIV story. (Orac hasn't told you that in the past, either.)

She then notes that the virus the Chinese identified as 96 percent like SARS-CoV-2 had first been identified in 2012, not 2016. She notes that this and other facts were mentioned in the 2016 paper about this virus. In short, Chinese lies related to COVID go back 5 years.

What's really clear in all of this is that the Obama Administration's 2014 decision to pause gain of function research was correct. It's even more clear that outsourcing US gain of function research to China in 2017 was as disastrous as outsourcing our manufacturing there. What's also really clear is that a number of WIV's actions, as Tufekci puts it, "weren't deviations from international norms."

Back to WIV, though. Tufekci busts Peter Dazsak in lies about his claim that WIV didn't collect bats. It did then and likely still does.

After that? What Orac also probably won't tell you in the future? A number of signers of that (in)famous Lancet letter of early 2020 have since at least partially repented of their stance.

One, Bernard Roizman, an emeritus virologist at the University of Chicago with four honorary professorships from Chinese universities, said he was leaning toward believing there was a lab accident. 

“I’m convinced that what happened is that the virus was brought to a lab, they started to work with it,” he said, “and some sloppy individual brought it out.” He added, “They can’t admit they did something so stupid.” 

Charles Calisher of Colorado State University, another signatory, recently told ABC News that “there is too much coincidence” to ignore the lab-leak theory and he now believes “it is more likely that it came out of that lab.” 

Peter Palese, the virologist who wrote about the 1977 flu pandemic, said that “a lot of disturbing information has surfaced since The Lancet letter I signed” and that he wants an investigation to come up with answers.

Tufekci goes on to note that a number of other virologists and related scientists who did not sign the Lancet letter but supported its general ideas have also since changed their minds.

Next, Tufekci hints that Dr. Shi, despite head-fakes at transparency, not only isn't actually transparent but is likely a liar when she claims zero infection of anybody at the lab.

But wait, that's not all!

On her Substack, Tufekci explains the backdrop of the piece and promises a further breakout there.

She also has a SECOND follow-up, and among its hot takes are a specific decrying of the attitudes behind that Lancet letter. 

Biggest takeaway? She uses the phrase "cover-up."

She also thinks that people saying "don't make people mad" were in reality not wanting to talk about lab leaks.

Finally, this, which is DIRECTLY relevant to Orac and others of #BlueAnon. It's a long quote, but needed:

Again and again, throughout the past year, the more unlikely and extreme scenarios get “debunked” and the many actual questions and sensible and factual worries have been treated like… they don’t exist. 

After enough of that faux “debunking” and knocking down of genuinely unhinged stuff and/or strawman versiions of reasonable questions, people have gotten used to treating the entire question of virus-origins as something of only interest to crazies, or of no interest to anyone because there is no question there. 

Any discussion about potential lab/research connections are then deemed to be “conspiracy theories” (used in the sense of extremely unlikely or impossible events being speculated on because of other reasons), rather than substantive discussions we can use as figuring out how to take steps so as not to find ourselves here again. 

In this worldview, just saying there is a cover-up and that there are real questions about the virus origins, can be called a “conspiracy theory,” too, if you define conspiracy theory to mean any scenario in which authorities and people in power are lying, and are potentially coercing and pressuring everyone else, including the scientists. In reality, given this is China, such deliberate obstruction is obviously likely.

And, Orac has posted twice at his site since I first started trolling him on Twitter. (I have no problem admitting that that's what I'm doing, but also have no problem saying that he deserves it.) He hasn't addressed Tufekci at all; he has worried SO much about ivermectin that he blogged twice about it.

It's exactly things like this that led me to add her to my