good morning again.
Nothing going on here, and according to TV, not in the rest of the world either.
That’s good. We don’t want something going on. It’s usually bad.
And the big news is an attempt to handle the immigration crisis.
They know as well as I that the crisis can’t be settled until the political situation in central America is settled.
That (and I hajte to put it this way) can’t be settled as long as some of those are alive.
But I don’t know if Central America is capable of fair elections.
I’m saying that people have to know how to gevern themselves.
We went to a nephew’s graduation party this weekend. It was nice to be able to see some of the relatives after not seeing them for at least a year. One of my nephew’s daughters is a lacrosse player. I wish I was close enough to watch her play. I know nothing about lacrosse. There are no teams here. It is, appraently the fastest growing sport in the world. Q of the D–What sports do/did you play?
We played baseball/softball with neighborhood kids; kick the can; tag and running games. I played no organized sports, since there were none for girls that I knew of. I am not atheletic anyway.
Big brother, that is my question as well. If the vaccines are effective, why are the vaccinated not wanting the unvaccinated around even with masks and social distancing? Seems very odd and manufactured to me.
I understand the argument on measles and how the unvaccinated are putting babies and the unvaccinatable at risk, but not how the unvaccinated for covid are putting the vaccinated at risk.
It’s part of a plan to continue dividing people, Mumsee.
Science tells you the need to social distance is unnecessary.
The vaccine will not protect you from getting COViD, it just means if you do get it, your case will be mild. Very few, if any, of the few numbers who do get COVID after being vaccinated end up hospitalized.
California definitely flattened the curve to preserve the hospitals’ ability to care for patients. That meant, however, a longer period fighting the disease.
Lacrosse is a Canadian grown sport, developed from a First Nations game known as stickball. It is a bit like hockey, in that the object is to get the ball into the opposing team’s net, but is played on a field or court, with lacrosse sticks, which have a net at the end to hold the ball. Never played it, as it requires more equipment than the casual sports I played, but children who were into sports often played both hockey and lacrosse, as Eldest in-law did. Eldest in-law has a story as a hot-tempered youth, of knocking another player out with his lacrosse stick, for which he got in serious trouble – he has learned to control his Irish temper admirably since. It can be, like hockey and rugby, a violent game.
On the question of whether the unvaccinated endanger the vaccinated, the reply is, as it is is for measles, that not everyone who wants to be protected by a vaccine can be. Certain people will be unable for health reasons to take the vaccine and this will be continually vulnerable to being infected. That is why the request comes that everyone who can be vaccinated get vaccinated – in order to protect those who cannot be. This is the case with both measles and COVID – some will always be vulnerable to either disease, and so it is for their sakes that others are asked to be vaccinated.
Michelle, I do not think any of this was a plot to divide. Pandemics by their very nature cause division. You think people are paranoid now? You should have lived during the waves of the Black Plague in Europe. Nobody’s being burnt at the stake for causing plague this time round at least.
Chas, there is still no proof that China caused this. There is evidence COVID was circulating in Europe months before the three lab workers in Wuhan got sick. Nobody has yet proved that Wuhan was even the point of origin for COVID. SARS (2002-3) coronavirus did come from southern China, but a much more deadly coronavirus variant, MERS originated in the Middle East. I know from personal experience and testimony of firsthand witnesses that there were viruses circulating in West Africa which produced very similar symptoms to COVID in the 2000-2010s that Western medicine was not even aware of and could not identify (one medical student who got sick with one such virus, which had caused fatalities in the village, actually was examined by his teaching hospital in the US and they couldn’t identify it). All that to say, the last word on the origins of COVID is far from being written and may never be.
I only did the team sports we engaged with at school during recess: kickball, tumbling, softball, 600 yard dash, and probably some things I don’t remember. In our neighborhood we played mostly kickball, hopscotch, and the Red Rover game along with Mother May I? Occasionally we attempted to fly kites but never had the right conditions to get them up. We rode bikes, and I had a scooter to ride down the hill (that was fun). We did the same with our homemade skateboards that we made with the skates we had used on the street. We had one summer spent at the county pool learning to swim. I obviously got lots of exercise from all these activities, but none were formal organized sports that required my parents to take me anywhere or pay for instruction. We did have badminton equipment so played that in our yard. Another neighbor had a croquet set which we enjoyed. When young we had an apple tree beside a chicken house. We climbed the tree to get on top of the chicken house to jump off of that. Crazy, I know. We thought we were macho to be brave and do that. Occasionally we would discover strong vines that had grown up into the trees and we used them to swing from. Of course we did go to county parks to swing and slide and have picnics.
I’m talking mostly about the border here, but not entirely.
we had Trump running things. but people didn’t lie the peron Trump is. so? We got someone who is likeable.
But can’t govern.
We played the occasional informal games of baseball, basketball, and indoor floor hockey, mostly with the youth groups we attended. I’ve played more informal soccer with my nephews than I ever did in my childhood. My parents liked a good game of badminton, so we learned the rudiments but it was more fun to watch them play that or table tennis. We preferred simply skating to playing games on the ice, so it was rare that we ever played shinny (the term for informal hockey). Tag and hide and seek gradually matured into games of Capture the Flag, in which features of both were melded into a game between opposing teams. We also liked a good round of blind man’s bluff. We rode bikes and went swimming in the summer and skipped rope, and went sledding as well as skating in the winter – skiing was too expensive and required too much specialized equipment, and besides, if one has to race on a snowy slope downhill, sledding offers excellent thrill value for very little outlay.
Roscuro on vaccinations: the question was: why would entirely vaccinated family members refuse to meet with unvaccinated family members? Nobody at risk beyond the normal.
Roscuro–where I live the vaccinated are being set against the unvaccinated. The latest Cal-OSHA report–which completely ignores the CDC and the US OSHA recommendations–doubles down on the shaming of the unvaccinated.
If one person in your company is not vaccinated, everyone has to wear a mask at work. That defies science and pits the vaccinated against the unvaccinated–even if they have the very good reason you indicate to not be vaccinated.
It drives me crazy that what should be a straight health issue is being used to divide.
And in CA, of course, we’re also being bribed to be vaccinated.
Michelle, CA has always been known for its extreme health measures. I bought some special wood for a project earlier this year from a Canadian supplier and laughed to see the warning label that the product was known to cause cancer in the state of California. They probably got it wrong again, but that doesn’t make it a general rule that it is a conspiracy to divide. Although, if one is unvaccinated for health reasons, their coworkers wearing masks could protect them from other infections to which they also would be vulnerable. I remember seeing comments from those with chronic immune suppression saying during the lockdowns this was their norm, because long before COVID people didn’t stay home when they were sick. I think the Asian habit acquired after SARS of wearing a mask if one had cold symptoms would be no bad social courtesy to adopt. A return to pre-pandemic normal will involve leaving out the vulnerable again. It was interesting to hear an interview of a disabled person with cerebral palsy who said that virtual events during the pandemic allowed her to attend more social and work events that she was physically unable to attend before due to logistics and energy levels. Something to keep in mind.
Yes, most of what we buy now warns us that it may cause cancer. I mean seriously, most of what we buy, including random products such as the one roscuro mentioned.
Of course, it’s like the boy who cried wolf and we all simply ignore it now.
And I agree that it’s been the pandemic itself that’s been divisive — largely due to an already very divided culture in the U.S. How could it have played out otherwise? It’s all been quite predictable, it’s neighbor vs neighbor. We don’t really need any encouragement right now.
Our church struggled with many who were firmly anti-mask and insisting on large gatherings indoors at the height of the spread.
That’s when some of us, seeking some in-person worship after months of virtual worship only, chose to go to our sister church which was holding outdoor services.
Our home church currently offers a fully masked service (early) and a free-for-all, come as you are larger service after that.
With vaccinations becoming more readily available and taken advantage of — along with the resulting drop in covid numbers — the issue is becoming moot and I suspect we’ll go back to a single service soon, although that still creates a dilemma for those who are unable to get the vaccine due to health problems.
None of this has been or is easy. And in our elders’ defense, I think they were trying to do the best they could with a divided session and congregation. It was very stressful all the way around.
And regarding my first comment above, it reached a point where some of those who wanted to continue wearing masks (and this was months ago when the spread was still significant and vaccines not yet available) worried they’d be ridiculed by the no-maskers (and indeed there were isolated cases where that did happen).
Such a cool effect on the header‐–special lighting.
I had another dream about being on a bus and trying to figure out where to get off to go to my childhood home where my mother would be at home. I try to figure out which bus stop would put me closest so I won’t have too far to walk. I remember other similar dreams when I am walking there from various directions. We use to take long walks in the area so I guess I incorporate that into the dreams.
I feel the shaming here for the unvaccinated. I actually had the thought that much like lepers had to go around announcing “Unclean,” that I should announce”Unvaccinated,” as I encounter people. In a sense, it is worth not being vaccinated to get a true picture of how those who can’t get it are being mistreated. It is very sad. Neither of my immediate family members who have gotten vaccinated have even asked, “When do you plan to get vaccinated?”
Husband’s doctor has requested he not get the vaccine until a week or two before the next infusion. Husband has requested that I not get the vaccine until further down the road. I am fine with it either way.
Franky Schaefer tried to emulate his father before he started criticizing him. My father had many Christian books from the era in which he was a new Christian and one was coauthored by Franky Schaefer and entitled ‘Bad News for Modern Man’. I glanced through it and found it the usual Christian luving fare of the late 70s/80s era – all about the moral decadence of Western society and how it is all going to come crashing down unless we do something about it. I grew up constantly hearing that it was all ending soon. Now, over three and a half decades into my life, it has lasted a lot longer than what I was given to believe in my childhood. Is it all good? By no means, but it isn’t all bad either. In my teen years, the book of Jeremiah reassured me that if God wanted me to survive the collapse of Western civilization, I would, and if that wasn’t his will I survive (as Jeremiah didn’t survive), then, well, he will carry me through that too. I often have long conversations with Eldest Niece, who is a Gen Z and struggles with the same mental problems I had in my youth. We talk about everything, and I asked her the last time, after we had talked about societal issues, does she feel afraid for the future. She thought and said, no, because she had Christ and she didn’t need anything else.
I was reading in Mark this morning, where Peter, James, John and Andrew Asked Jesus for more info. Jesus made it sound pretty bleak so it is understandable Christians would anticipate bleak times, while trusting God to see us through.
Organic Sprouts coffee has that CA cancer warning. I did not buy more of it because of the juxtaposition of the words organic and cancer; somehow it was off-putting.
Roscuro, I just think we Christians often forget that there is a real, live conspiracy out there. So if I see a conspiracy it is not because I am so smart but that I can’t ignore it any longer.
Bob, have you ever participated in Tuba Christmas? It is a wonderful event we went to in the past where many tuba players gathered and played Christmas music. We were in the audience. My husband does not own a tuba.
Mumsee, curiously it doesn’t seem bleak. Jesus seems rather matter of fact, and the predictions he gives are partly to a general decay, but more specifically to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was, for a limited time, a very bleak event. But the account we have of the destruction, was written an eyewitness survivor of the Jewish rebellion that led to the Second Temple’s destruction, which is is symbolic of the fact that even in that terrible event, some were saved. As Baruch and the Ethiopian Ebed-melech and the tribe of the Rechabites were given deliverance from the death and destruction that ensued in the destruction of the First Temple, so Josephus and others like the two women and their children in Masada survived the destruction of the Second. Jesus does say if the days were not shortened no flesh would be saved, but in saying that, he is saying that the days will be shortened and people will be saved. There is another passage in the Gospels where the disciples ask for more information, and the answer Jesus gives is overflowing with hope: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
We used to have Tuba Christmas outdoors on the waterfront here. Very fun.
Just had to write a breaking story — a candidate for mayor was giving a speech titled ‘plan for a safer los angeles’ — which, after it ended, a homeless bystander was arrested with a hunting knife getting a bit to close to the candidate.
Organized sports: I ran track from 5th to 9th grades and played football in 9th grade.
Unorganized: Football, volleyball, bicycling, hiking, rock climbing, softball, a little basketball, kickball… Maybe it would be easier to list the ones I didn’t play.
I bring this over from the news thread b/c it is touched on here…
With our taxpayer dollars, did we finance a secret Chinese bio-weapon that has killed millions of people? Were Chinese scientists actually working on a vaccine before authorities admitted that there was a coronavirus outbreak?
When we we went to Tuba Christmas it was held in the Omni center which I think was where CNN or Turner Broadcasting was also located, and it was connected to the arena where the Hawks played. It was a place we went occasionally for lunch. It was very much like a large food court at a super-sized mall but it mostly had boutique type stores that did not have much appeal to me for shopping. It was indeed impressive to see so many tuba players gathered in one location.
Art told me that the Hallmark channel has started ads for its Christmas in July programming. If our son makes it home in July we may be doing Christmas and two birthdays in July for him.
Mom in law passed away this morning at home in VA.. Thankfully we got to be there to see her one last time before she did. We just got home. The funeral will be in our neck of the woods on Sat. She’ll be buried next to Dad.
Needless to say, my girls are grieving and could use your prayers. My Brother in law Scott and family could too.
I’ll be around sporadically for the next week.
Having learned my lesson from last time, Peter is in charge until I return. 🙂
Tychicus at 2:12
Nobody in America suspects that the Chinese could do something nefarious. Everybody is working for the good for humanity.
Something must have accidentally gotten out.
We need to send them some money.
Tych, the New York Post is about as reliable as the Toronto Sun, that is to say, not reliable at all. The Post’s sorce is a book of doubtful provenance and the information quoted in the article is merely assertion of suspicion. It is not providing documentary evidence from the lab in question. If there were such documentary proof, the former President would undoubtedly have had it published, but he didn’t, because there isn’t any. Suspicion by US intelligence or government is not evidence. My father always used to quip “only believe half of what you see, a quarter of what you read and nothing of what you hear.” My skeptic position toward the lab origin theory is based on prior knowledge of the nature infectious disease and of the patterns of history, and also on the fact that in the Bible, diseases only became plagues by the will of God.
SARS and MERS, neither of which anybody suggested were manmade, were both much more potentially deadly viruses. SARS killed ten percent of those infected and MERS killed thirty percent of infected, while COVID-19 kills two to three percent of those infected. But COVID-19 has killed more people than SARS and MERS because it is a less potentially deadly infection than SARS and MERS and thus traveled farther more quickly. Ebola has always been localized in its outbreaks for the same reason as SARS and MERS have been limited in spread – it was too deadly to spread quickly. Speaking of Ebola, I remember when the American public was panicked over an imported case of that and demanded that all travel from the region of outbreak be stopped, and a certain Dr. Fauci was involved in helping to cure an American nurse who had caught it from the imported case. How the American public so quickly forgets, and, as George Santana says, “those who cannot remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.”
Plagues in the past have often been blamed on human agency. The Jews were blamed for the Black Death I Europe, and some conspiracy theorists even now have tried to blame COVID on the Jews now. Now Pharaoh and the Egyptians might have had some reason for attributing plagues to the presence of Israel, but as we know, it was due to the God of Israel that those plagues occured. While Pharaoh’s magicians managed to imitate the first few plagues, when lice, a disease bearing insect broke out, the magicians were forced to confess that the hand of God was at work. Humans’ power is severely limited, even with the help of demonic forces as Pharaoh’s magicians had. Plague in the Bible, is always a sign of God’s judgment. I find it hard to believe that after 6000 years, God would allow a group of humans to wrest that control away from him.
I know something about the molecular structure of diseases, and I still find it ludicrous to think humans have the capability of engineering one – as much as science fiction might portray the possibility, it is still pretty remote, as we still don’t fully understand the complexities DNA and RNA. Indeed the latest renewal of the lab origin theory does not claim it is an engineered virus, but rather one formed accidentally by gain-of-function testing, which is in a nutshell, the rapid reproduction of a virus to see how far it will mutate. The mutations in such testing are occuring naturally, just, in theory, more rapidly than they would occur in nature. But, as COVID has demonstrated since it became a pandemic, it doesn’t require a lab to produce rapid mutations in a virus. COVID has been mutating at ridiculous speed worldwide. There are unique variants of it in every country and those variants keep changing themselves. The variants named in the media are only a fraction of those that are occuring, and only identified because they are the most serious ones. If anything COVID has demonstrated that epidemiologists underestimated the speed at which a virus can mutate in nature. Gain-of-function is a foolish kind of experimentation (and one that American scientists have also indulged in), but since rapid mutations is clearly possible in nature without the aid of labs, there is really no proof that COVID was lab created, even by gain-of-function. Clearly, the COVID virus is capable of rapid mutation all by itself, and if it can become 100 percent more infectious in humans from the first identified strain to the India variant in just a year, it wouldn’t have taken it long to spread from its host in nature to humans by natural means.
Part of the general Western gullibility in believing that a pandemic must be the result of manmade interference is the underlying assumption that both progressive and conservatives have embraced that a) nature is good and benign and b) humans, with their interfering ways (for progressives it is industrial production, for conservatives it is scientific and medical experimentation), are a blight upon the good of nature. The Bible teaches that humans did bring a curse upon nature, one that meant nature would become a hard and dangerous home for humanity, but also teaches that human are made in the image of God and have dominion over nature, broken as they and it are. The same God who had Adam name the animals – the first scientific classification of creation – also requires the blood of man at the hands of the animals that kill man (Genesis 9:5). Has it ever occured to anyone that mosquitoes and other small life forms that cause the death of man are held accountable by God? God gives life and he takes it away by the means he chooses, and he does not give his power to another.
It’s almost 5:00 and I see conversation has been going on all day, so I’m behind.
We didn’t get to bed till 12:30 or so, which means I probably didn’t get to sleep until 2:00. We’re supposed to get rain every day this week, but I’ve been wanting to do the long walk since I haven’t been on either of those two trails in perhaps three weeks. So I decided if it happened not to be raining when I got up, I’d go out. I looked out about 8:00 and it was overcast and the leaves were wet, so I went back to bed. I was actually a bit relieved, since I didn’t really want to get up. 🙂 Then at 9:30 or so I was just getting up when my husband came in and told me I had about a three-hour window if I wanted to hit the trail.
I told him I’d call him when I needed him to pick me up, and tell him how far I’d gotten. I was hoping to do both trails (5.5-6 miles) but not optimistic with the chances of rain and also a bit later start (warmer). But I did both trails, drank all the water I took (40 ounces), changed camera batteries two times (meaning I was on the last one I have), and my camera was telling me it had no more room on the card as I hit the parking lot. My husband hadn’t understood that I still needed him to come get me even if I made it past the point I’d guessed I might make it to before it rained, but I was tired and out of water by the time I got to the end and could certainly not have easily retraced my steps!
Anyway it is 5:00 and I need to eat “lunch,” so I’d probably better go put something in the oven.
I DO own my own tuba! I bought it from Drum City in L.A. 50 years ago for $5-. Unfortunately my tuba teacher at the time told me it was an E flat horn with a F horn bore. I learned to play on a BB flat horn. But I still own my own tuba! I could get it out and practice but the only place I could play would be at church in the “praise band.” I don’t particularly like the music they play… That would show them!
Way to attack the messenger, though I doubt the Post cares. They did a pretty good job of making their case. It was quite in depth. I fear you’re missing the obvious because you don’t like where it’s coming from. The media does the same, with Covid and all things Trump, and that’s a huge part of the problem here. Just because you dislike Trump or the Post, it doesn’t make them wrong. Trump’s been proven correct on a lot of things recently, as exposed by Fauci’s emails, but he still get’s no credit for it.
You still can’t admit what has become more obvious by the day, so much so that even much of the mainstream press, having nothing to lose politically by finally admitting the truth, are coming around to admitting too.
The Chinese took a known virus and tinkered/weaponized it. And then it escaped their Wuhan lab.
There is no jump from bat, pangolin, zebra, fish, insect or any other animal. This did not occur naturally.
The lack of curiosity from many in the medical field has been astounding throughout this. Fauci himself has admitted to not reading half of what the “experts” sent him, yet he’s been touring the media circuit, and setting policy as if he’s all knowing. We also have proof he funded research at the Wuhan lab with US taxpayer dollars. This is indisputable. He’s hardly credible at this point. I’d take the Post over his word any day. Ignoring the obvious won’t change anything, and doesn’t do anything to ensure this type of event doesn’t happen again. The scientific community needs to be held to account for their role in this from the start.
“The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins
Throughout 2020, the notion that the novel coronavirus leaked from a lab was off-limits. Those who dared to push for transparency say toxic politics and hidden agendas kept us in the dark.”
——-
If you, Tychicus and myself wish to discuss this further, we should do so on the news thread, so we don’t interrupt them here. 🙂
Thankful, AJ, that y’all were there. So sad that she is gone so soon. I know Liz would have wanted her around to see the milestones she will hit during her next ten years. But thankful she got to see what a nice young lady that Liz bloomed into. Blessings of comfort and God’s peace with love to you all.
Aj I am sorry for your loss and we continue to lift you all before our Lord as you miss her ♥️
(And thanks for your post concerning the virus / China/…and Fauci…. 🤔)
I played no sports in school…I sang in a singing group in High School and the choir in Jr. High. 🎶
roscuro: I suppose the Telegraph and the Guardian are somehow more trustworthy? 😉
A full investigation is certainly warranted. We’ll see how it all plays out…
Given your experience, perhaps you can comment on yesterday’s WSJ piece on the genetic fingerprint of CoV-2. (Interestingly, there are huge differences in the genetic diversity of CoV-2 as compared with the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS – see below.)
The double CGG code has not appeared naturally in any other virus in the coronavirus category – yet it suddenly appears in Covid-19. It doesn’t appear in nature – so how did that particular code get in there?
“In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus.
Although the double CGG is suppressed naturally, the opposite is true in laboratory work. The insertion sequence of choice is the double CGG. That’s because it is readily available and convenient, and scientists have a great deal of experience inserting it. An additional advantage of the double CGG sequence compared with the other 35 possible choices: It creates a useful beacon that permits the scientists to track the insertion in the laboratory.
Now the damning fact. It was this exact sequence that appears in CoV-2. Proponents of zoonotic origin must explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favorite combination, the double CGG. Why did it replicate the choice the lab’s gain-of-function researchers would have made?”
“There is additional scientific evidence that points to CoV-2’s gain-of-function origin. The most compelling is the dramatic differences in the genetic diversity of CoV-2, compared with the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS.
Both of those were confirmed to have a natural origin; the viruses evolved rapidly as they spread through the human population, until the most contagious forms dominated. Covid-19 didn’t work that way. It appeared in humans already adapted into an extremely contagious version. No serious viral “improvement” took place until a minor variation occurred many months later in England.
Such early optimization is unprecedented, and it suggests a long period of adaptation that predated its public spread. Science knows of only one way that could be achieved: simulated natural evolution, growing the virus on human cells until the optimum is achieved. That is precisely what is done in gain-of-function research. Mice that are genetically modified to have the same coronavirus receptor as humans, called “humanized mice,” are repeatedly exposed to the virus to encourage adaptation.
The presence of the double CGG sequence is strong evidence of gene splicing, and the absence of diversity in the public outbreak suggests gain-of-function acceleration. The scientific evidence points to the conclusion that the virus was developed in a laboratory.”
Aj, praising the Lord that you went quickly and had a last visit. Sad that it was the last, but glad for the memories you now share. Praying for the family together time at the service. May it be sweet.
The Real, I have explained my reasons for disbelieving the theory. Politics doesn’t come into it. I am an outsider to US politics, and the views of any given President are not a factor in changing my opinions for or against something. When first I heard lab theory floated last year, I doubted it then, and I hadn’t even heard about the then President having supported the view. I will reply to a few points in the Vanity Fair article briefly on the News thread as you request.
DJ High body count? I watch the BlackList. Now THAT show has a high body count!
My wife sometimes watches, but she misses a lot of it because she can’t see through her hands.
Now, first order of business: ALL COVID related comments are temporarily banned from the open thread. Please use the news/politics thread. Don’t make me write you up and send you you to the principal’s office.
Oh, sorry. I no longer have high school students to deal with.
Roscuro, very sobering piece on the prodigal. Reminds me of my adopted niece. Her brother rebelled against the adopted family for a while, but has been a true son for several years, but she has been doing her own thing and wanting almost no contact with them. And they fear for the future of her daughter.
AJ, so sorry for your family’s loss. I’m glad you got there in time. My mom died alone, but I’d spent a few days with her just two weeks before, and that was very comforting not only for me but for my siblings. Those last visits matter, when they’re possible.
Wandering Views 
good morning again.
Nothing going on here, and according to TV, not in the rest of the world either.
That’s good. We don’t want something going on. It’s usually bad.
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And the big news is an attempt to handle the immigration crisis.
They know as well as I that the crisis can’t be settled until the political situation in central America is settled.
That (and I hajte to put it this way) can’t be settled as long as some of those are alive.
But I don’t know if Central America is capable of fair elections.
I’m saying that people have to know how to gevern themselves.
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Good Morning all.
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Good morning.
This post is from someone members of my family know: https://fbcchurch.ca/blog/2021/6/4/when-the-prodigal-does-not-come-home
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We went to a nephew’s graduation party this weekend. It was nice to be able to see some of the relatives after not seeing them for at least a year. One of my nephew’s daughters is a lacrosse player. I wish I was close enough to watch her play. I know nothing about lacrosse. There are no teams here. It is, appraently the fastest growing sport in the world. Q of the D–What sports do/did you play?
We played baseball/softball with neighborhood kids; kick the can; tag and running games. I played no organized sports, since there were none for girls that I knew of. I am not atheletic anyway.
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Good morning from the great State.
Big brother, that is my question as well. If the vaccines are effective, why are the vaccinated not wanting the unvaccinated around even with masks and social distancing? Seems very odd and manufactured to me.
I understand the argument on measles and how the unvaccinated are putting babies and the unvaccinatable at risk, but not how the unvaccinated for covid are putting the vaccinated at risk.
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Kathaleena can get by with no sorts talent
Men can’t get away with int so wellj.
I knowj I have always been underweight and awkward in sports.
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In all this dicussion about a virus escaping China, no one has yet asked if tis was intentional on someone’s part.
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It’s part of a plan to continue dividing people, Mumsee.
Science tells you the need to social distance is unnecessary.
The vaccine will not protect you from getting COViD, it just means if you do get it, your case will be mild. Very few, if any, of the few numbers who do get COVID after being vaccinated end up hospitalized.
California definitely flattened the curve to preserve the hospitals’ ability to care for patients. That meant, however, a longer period fighting the disease.
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Lacrosse is a Canadian grown sport, developed from a First Nations game known as stickball. It is a bit like hockey, in that the object is to get the ball into the opposing team’s net, but is played on a field or court, with lacrosse sticks, which have a net at the end to hold the ball. Never played it, as it requires more equipment than the casual sports I played, but children who were into sports often played both hockey and lacrosse, as Eldest in-law did. Eldest in-law has a story as a hot-tempered youth, of knocking another player out with his lacrosse stick, for which he got in serious trouble – he has learned to control his Irish temper admirably since. It can be, like hockey and rugby, a violent game.
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On the question of whether the unvaccinated endanger the vaccinated, the reply is, as it is is for measles, that not everyone who wants to be protected by a vaccine can be. Certain people will be unable for health reasons to take the vaccine and this will be continually vulnerable to being infected. That is why the request comes that everyone who can be vaccinated get vaccinated – in order to protect those who cannot be. This is the case with both measles and COVID – some will always be vulnerable to either disease, and so it is for their sakes that others are asked to be vaccinated.
Michelle, I do not think any of this was a plot to divide. Pandemics by their very nature cause division. You think people are paranoid now? You should have lived during the waves of the Black Plague in Europe. Nobody’s being burnt at the stake for causing plague this time round at least.
Chas, there is still no proof that China caused this. There is evidence COVID was circulating in Europe months before the three lab workers in Wuhan got sick. Nobody has yet proved that Wuhan was even the point of origin for COVID. SARS (2002-3) coronavirus did come from southern China, but a much more deadly coronavirus variant, MERS originated in the Middle East. I know from personal experience and testimony of firsthand witnesses that there were viruses circulating in West Africa which produced very similar symptoms to COVID in the 2000-2010s that Western medicine was not even aware of and could not identify (one medical student who got sick with one such virus, which had caused fatalities in the village, actually was examined by his teaching hospital in the US and they couldn’t identify it). All that to say, the last word on the origins of COVID is far from being written and may never be.
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I only did the team sports we engaged with at school during recess: kickball, tumbling, softball, 600 yard dash, and probably some things I don’t remember. In our neighborhood we played mostly kickball, hopscotch, and the Red Rover game along with Mother May I? Occasionally we attempted to fly kites but never had the right conditions to get them up. We rode bikes, and I had a scooter to ride down the hill (that was fun). We did the same with our homemade skateboards that we made with the skates we had used on the street. We had one summer spent at the county pool learning to swim. I obviously got lots of exercise from all these activities, but none were formal organized sports that required my parents to take me anywhere or pay for instruction. We did have badminton equipment so played that in our yard. Another neighbor had a croquet set which we enjoyed. When young we had an apple tree beside a chicken house. We climbed the tree to get on top of the chicken house to jump off of that. Crazy, I know. We thought we were macho to be brave and do that. Occasionally we would discover strong vines that had grown up into the trees and we used them to swing from. Of course we did go to county parks to swing and slide and have picnics.
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I’m talking mostly about the border here, but not entirely.
we had Trump running things. but people didn’t lie the peron Trump is. so? We got someone who is likeable.
But can’t govern.
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We played the occasional informal games of baseball, basketball, and indoor floor hockey, mostly with the youth groups we attended. I’ve played more informal soccer with my nephews than I ever did in my childhood. My parents liked a good game of badminton, so we learned the rudiments but it was more fun to watch them play that or table tennis. We preferred simply skating to playing games on the ice, so it was rare that we ever played shinny (the term for informal hockey). Tag and hide and seek gradually matured into games of Capture the Flag, in which features of both were melded into a game between opposing teams. We also liked a good round of blind man’s bluff. We rode bikes and went swimming in the summer and skipped rope, and went sledding as well as skating in the winter – skiing was too expensive and required too much specialized equipment, and besides, if one has to race on a snowy slope downhill, sledding offers excellent thrill value for very little outlay.
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Roscuro on vaccinations: the question was: why would entirely vaccinated family members refuse to meet with unvaccinated family members? Nobody at risk beyond the normal.
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Mumsee: I don’t know the background of your question.
but it makes one thing something else is happening.
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Mumsee, I sympathize with Peter’s situation with his daughter, and was not remarking on that, but on your more general question.
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Roscuro–where I live the vaccinated are being set against the unvaccinated. The latest Cal-OSHA report–which completely ignores the CDC and the US OSHA recommendations–doubles down on the shaming of the unvaccinated.
If one person in your company is not vaccinated, everyone has to wear a mask at work. That defies science and pits the vaccinated against the unvaccinated–even if they have the very good reason you indicate to not be vaccinated.
It drives me crazy that what should be a straight health issue is being used to divide.
And in CA, of course, we’re also being bribed to be vaccinated.
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Michelle, CA has always been known for its extreme health measures. I bought some special wood for a project earlier this year from a Canadian supplier and laughed to see the warning label that the product was known to cause cancer in the state of California. They probably got it wrong again, but that doesn’t make it a general rule that it is a conspiracy to divide. Although, if one is unvaccinated for health reasons, their coworkers wearing masks could protect them from other infections to which they also would be vulnerable. I remember seeing comments from those with chronic immune suppression saying during the lockdowns this was their norm, because long before COVID people didn’t stay home when they were sick. I think the Asian habit acquired after SARS of wearing a mask if one had cold symptoms would be no bad social courtesy to adopt. A return to pre-pandemic normal will involve leaving out the vulnerable again. It was interesting to hear an interview of a disabled person with cerebral palsy who said that virtual events during the pandemic allowed her to attend more social and work events that she was physically unable to attend before due to logistics and energy levels. Something to keep in mind.
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Yes, most of what we buy now warns us that it may cause cancer. I mean seriously, most of what we buy, including random products such as the one roscuro mentioned.
Of course, it’s like the boy who cried wolf and we all simply ignore it now.
And I agree that it’s been the pandemic itself that’s been divisive — largely due to an already very divided culture in the U.S. How could it have played out otherwise? It’s all been quite predictable, it’s neighbor vs neighbor. We don’t really need any encouragement right now.
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Our church struggled with many who were firmly anti-mask and insisting on large gatherings indoors at the height of the spread.
That’s when some of us, seeking some in-person worship after months of virtual worship only, chose to go to our sister church which was holding outdoor services.
Our home church currently offers a fully masked service (early) and a free-for-all, come as you are larger service after that.
With vaccinations becoming more readily available and taken advantage of — along with the resulting drop in covid numbers — the issue is becoming moot and I suspect we’ll go back to a single service soon, although that still creates a dilemma for those who are unable to get the vaccine due to health problems.
None of this has been or is easy. And in our elders’ defense, I think they were trying to do the best they could with a divided session and congregation. It was very stressful all the way around.
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And regarding my first comment above, it reached a point where some of those who wanted to continue wearing masks (and this was months ago when the spread was still significant and vaccines not yet available) worried they’d be ridiculed by the no-maskers (and indeed there were isolated cases where that did happen).
So the ‘shaming’ goes in both directions, sadly.
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I found this book on sale for Kindle and remembered someone here said they were reading books similar to this one (maybe Kizzie):
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Such a cool effect on the header‐–special lighting.
I had another dream about being on a bus and trying to figure out where to get off to go to my childhood home where my mother would be at home. I try to figure out which bus stop would put me closest so I won’t have too far to walk. I remember other similar dreams when I am walking there from various directions. We use to take long walks in the area so I guess I incorporate that into the dreams.
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I may have to dig out this book, or watch the series again: https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/death-in-the-city/
I saw what Schaefer warned about all those years ago.
Of course his so has spent the last 10 years trying to destroy his parent’s image, sigh.
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I feel the shaming here for the unvaccinated. I actually had the thought that much like lepers had to go around announcing “Unclean,” that I should announce”Unvaccinated,” as I encounter people. In a sense, it is worth not being vaccinated to get a true picture of how those who can’t get it are being mistreated. It is very sad. Neither of my immediate family members who have gotten vaccinated have even asked, “When do you plan to get vaccinated?”
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Husband’s doctor has requested he not get the vaccine until a week or two before the next infusion. Husband has requested that I not get the vaccine until further down the road. I am fine with it either way.
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I like Francis Shaefer but it is tough reading.
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Franky Schaefer tried to emulate his father before he started criticizing him. My father had many Christian books from the era in which he was a new Christian and one was coauthored by Franky Schaefer and entitled ‘Bad News for Modern Man’. I glanced through it and found it the usual Christian luving fare of the late 70s/80s era – all about the moral decadence of Western society and how it is all going to come crashing down unless we do something about it. I grew up constantly hearing that it was all ending soon. Now, over three and a half decades into my life, it has lasted a lot longer than what I was given to believe in my childhood. Is it all good? By no means, but it isn’t all bad either. In my teen years, the book of Jeremiah reassured me that if God wanted me to survive the collapse of Western civilization, I would, and if that wasn’t his will I survive (as Jeremiah didn’t survive), then, well, he will carry me through that too. I often have long conversations with Eldest Niece, who is a Gen Z and struggles with the same mental problems I had in my youth. We talk about everything, and I asked her the last time, after we had talked about societal issues, does she feel afraid for the future. She thought and said, no, because she had Christ and she didn’t need anything else.
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Ha! Christian *living
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I was never any good at any sports. I played tuba in band. I still like it.
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Has anyon considered “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven”?
Ther is one conspiracy we Christians so easily forget about, directed by the smartest, most powerful ruler of all earth.
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Another free Kindle book, What New Beginnings Are Made Of by Debra Clopton. Jo might like it.
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I was reading in Mark this morning, where Peter, James, John and Andrew Asked Jesus for more info. Jesus made it sound pretty bleak so it is understandable Christians would anticipate bleak times, while trusting God to see us through.
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Organic Sprouts coffee has that CA cancer warning. I did not buy more of it because of the juxtaposition of the words organic and cancer; somehow it was off-putting.
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My husband played tuba in the band and was not good at sports. It is an exclusive club, lol!
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Bob, I have often considered that, as the hymn says, “though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.”
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Janice, we should start our own club, the NAATP- National Association for the Advancement of Tuba Playing!
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Roscuro, I just think we Christians often forget that there is a real, live conspiracy out there. So if I see a conspiracy it is not because I am so smart but that I can’t ignore it any longer.
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Bob, have you ever participated in Tuba Christmas? It is a wonderful event we went to in the past where many tuba players gathered and played Christmas music. We were in the audience. My husband does not own a tuba.
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Mumsee, curiously it doesn’t seem bleak. Jesus seems rather matter of fact, and the predictions he gives are partly to a general decay, but more specifically to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was, for a limited time, a very bleak event. But the account we have of the destruction, was written an eyewitness survivor of the Jewish rebellion that led to the Second Temple’s destruction, which is is symbolic of the fact that even in that terrible event, some were saved. As Baruch and the Ethiopian Ebed-melech and the tribe of the Rechabites were given deliverance from the death and destruction that ensued in the destruction of the First Temple, so Josephus and others like the two women and their children in Masada survived the destruction of the Second. Jesus does say if the days were not shortened no flesh would be saved, but in saying that, he is saying that the days will be shortened and people will be saved. There is another passage in the Gospels where the disciples ask for more information, and the answer Jesus gives is overflowing with hope: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
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How large an auditorium will you need for qa convention of tuba players.??
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We used to have Tuba Christmas outdoors on the waterfront here. Very fun.
Just had to write a breaking story — a candidate for mayor was giving a speech titled ‘plan for a safer los angeles’ — which, after it ended, a homeless bystander was arrested with a hunting knife getting a bit to close to the candidate.
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https://twitter.com/griffingulledge/status/1401736219848069121
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Organized sports: I ran track from 5th to 9th grades and played football in 9th grade.
Unorganized: Football, volleyball, bicycling, hiking, rock climbing, softball, a little basketball, kickball… Maybe it would be easier to list the ones I didn’t play.
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Oh, we had the basketball hoop for learning to shoot hoops at home, too. We had one and my best friend had one at her home, too. We both had brothers.
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I bring this over from the news thread b/c it is touched on here…
With our taxpayer dollars, did we finance a secret Chinese bio-weapon that has killed millions of people? Were Chinese scientists actually working on a vaccine before authorities admitted that there was a coronavirus outbreak?
The answers to both questions appear to be ‘Yes’.
https://nypost.com/2021/06/05/trump-wanted-to-publicly-grill-fauci-on-wuhan-lab-funding/
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When we we went to Tuba Christmas it was held in the Omni center which I think was where CNN or Turner Broadcasting was also located, and it was connected to the arena where the Hawks played. It was a place we went occasionally for lunch. It was very much like a large food court at a super-sized mall but it mostly had boutique type stores that did not have much appeal to me for shopping. It was indeed impressive to see so many tuba players gathered in one location.
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Art told me that the Hallmark channel has started ads for its Christmas in July programming. If our son makes it home in July we may be doing Christmas and two birthdays in July for him.
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Hey all.
Mom in law passed away this morning at home in VA.. Thankfully we got to be there to see her one last time before she did. We just got home. The funeral will be in our neck of the woods on Sat. She’ll be buried next to Dad.
Needless to say, my girls are grieving and could use your prayers. My Brother in law Scott and family could too.
I’ll be around sporadically for the next week.
Having learned my lesson from last time, Peter is in charge until I return. 🙂
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Tychicus at 2:12
Nobody in America suspects that the Chinese could do something nefarious. Everybody is working for the good for humanity.
Something must have accidentally gotten out.
We need to send them some money.
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I’m sorry, AJ. I’ll be praying for you and yours.
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Tych, the New York Post is about as reliable as the Toronto Sun, that is to say, not reliable at all. The Post’s sorce is a book of doubtful provenance and the information quoted in the article is merely assertion of suspicion. It is not providing documentary evidence from the lab in question. If there were such documentary proof, the former President would undoubtedly have had it published, but he didn’t, because there isn’t any. Suspicion by US intelligence or government is not evidence. My father always used to quip “only believe half of what you see, a quarter of what you read and nothing of what you hear.” My skeptic position toward the lab origin theory is based on prior knowledge of the nature infectious disease and of the patterns of history, and also on the fact that in the Bible, diseases only became plagues by the will of God.
SARS and MERS, neither of which anybody suggested were manmade, were both much more potentially deadly viruses. SARS killed ten percent of those infected and MERS killed thirty percent of infected, while COVID-19 kills two to three percent of those infected. But COVID-19 has killed more people than SARS and MERS because it is a less potentially deadly infection than SARS and MERS and thus traveled farther more quickly. Ebola has always been localized in its outbreaks for the same reason as SARS and MERS have been limited in spread – it was too deadly to spread quickly. Speaking of Ebola, I remember when the American public was panicked over an imported case of that and demanded that all travel from the region of outbreak be stopped, and a certain Dr. Fauci was involved in helping to cure an American nurse who had caught it from the imported case. How the American public so quickly forgets, and, as George Santana says, “those who cannot remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.”
Plagues in the past have often been blamed on human agency. The Jews were blamed for the Black Death I Europe, and some conspiracy theorists even now have tried to blame COVID on the Jews now. Now Pharaoh and the Egyptians might have had some reason for attributing plagues to the presence of Israel, but as we know, it was due to the God of Israel that those plagues occured. While Pharaoh’s magicians managed to imitate the first few plagues, when lice, a disease bearing insect broke out, the magicians were forced to confess that the hand of God was at work. Humans’ power is severely limited, even with the help of demonic forces as Pharaoh’s magicians had. Plague in the Bible, is always a sign of God’s judgment. I find it hard to believe that after 6000 years, God would allow a group of humans to wrest that control away from him.
I know something about the molecular structure of diseases, and I still find it ludicrous to think humans have the capability of engineering one – as much as science fiction might portray the possibility, it is still pretty remote, as we still don’t fully understand the complexities DNA and RNA. Indeed the latest renewal of the lab origin theory does not claim it is an engineered virus, but rather one formed accidentally by gain-of-function testing, which is in a nutshell, the rapid reproduction of a virus to see how far it will mutate. The mutations in such testing are occuring naturally, just, in theory, more rapidly than they would occur in nature. But, as COVID has demonstrated since it became a pandemic, it doesn’t require a lab to produce rapid mutations in a virus. COVID has been mutating at ridiculous speed worldwide. There are unique variants of it in every country and those variants keep changing themselves. The variants named in the media are only a fraction of those that are occuring, and only identified because they are the most serious ones. If anything COVID has demonstrated that epidemiologists underestimated the speed at which a virus can mutate in nature. Gain-of-function is a foolish kind of experimentation (and one that American scientists have also indulged in), but since rapid mutations is clearly possible in nature without the aid of labs, there is really no proof that COVID was lab created, even by gain-of-function. Clearly, the COVID virus is capable of rapid mutation all by itself, and if it can become 100 percent more infectious in humans from the first identified strain to the India variant in just a year, it wouldn’t have taken it long to spread from its host in nature to humans by natural means.
Part of the general Western gullibility in believing that a pandemic must be the result of manmade interference is the underlying assumption that both progressive and conservatives have embraced that a) nature is good and benign and b) humans, with their interfering ways (for progressives it is industrial production, for conservatives it is scientific and medical experimentation), are a blight upon the good of nature. The Bible teaches that humans did bring a curse upon nature, one that meant nature would become a hard and dangerous home for humanity, but also teaches that human are made in the image of God and have dominion over nature, broken as they and it are. The same God who had Adam name the animals – the first scientific classification of creation – also requires the blood of man at the hands of the animals that kill man (Genesis 9:5). Has it ever occured to anyone that mosquitoes and other small life forms that cause the death of man are held accountable by God? God gives life and he takes it away by the means he chooses, and he does not give his power to another.
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I see on TV where Biden is planning a comprehensive 15% tax.
That means that the price of everything will go up.
Corporations do not pay taxes.
We do.
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AJ, I’m so sorry — glad you were able to visit when you did, that happened pretty fast.
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I am sorry, The Real, for your family’s loss and have been praying.
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It’s almost 5:00 and I see conversation has been going on all day, so I’m behind.
We didn’t get to bed till 12:30 or so, which means I probably didn’t get to sleep until 2:00. We’re supposed to get rain every day this week, but I’ve been wanting to do the long walk since I haven’t been on either of those two trails in perhaps three weeks. So I decided if it happened not to be raining when I got up, I’d go out. I looked out about 8:00 and it was overcast and the leaves were wet, so I went back to bed. I was actually a bit relieved, since I didn’t really want to get up. 🙂 Then at 9:30 or so I was just getting up when my husband came in and told me I had about a three-hour window if I wanted to hit the trail.
I told him I’d call him when I needed him to pick me up, and tell him how far I’d gotten. I was hoping to do both trails (5.5-6 miles) but not optimistic with the chances of rain and also a bit later start (warmer). But I did both trails, drank all the water I took (40 ounces), changed camera batteries two times (meaning I was on the last one I have), and my camera was telling me it had no more room on the card as I hit the parking lot. My husband hadn’t understood that I still needed him to come get me even if I made it past the point I’d guessed I might make it to before it rained, but I was tired and out of water by the time I got to the end and could certainly not have easily retraced my steps!
Anyway it is 5:00 and I need to eat “lunch,” so I’d probably better go put something in the oven.
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Thanks all, for the well wishes and prayers. It’s appreciated. 🙂
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I DO own my own tuba! I bought it from Drum City in L.A. 50 years ago for $5-. Unfortunately my tuba teacher at the time told me it was an E flat horn with a F horn bore. I learned to play on a BB flat horn. But I still own my own tuba! I could get it out and practice but the only place I could play would be at church in the “praise band.” I don’t particularly like the music they play… That would show them!
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Roscuro,
Way to attack the messenger, though I doubt the Post cares. They did a pretty good job of making their case. It was quite in depth. I fear you’re missing the obvious because you don’t like where it’s coming from. The media does the same, with Covid and all things Trump, and that’s a huge part of the problem here. Just because you dislike Trump or the Post, it doesn’t make them wrong. Trump’s been proven correct on a lot of things recently, as exposed by Fauci’s emails, but he still get’s no credit for it.
You still can’t admit what has become more obvious by the day, so much so that even much of the mainstream press, having nothing to lose politically by finally admitting the truth, are coming around to admitting too.
The Chinese took a known virus and tinkered/weaponized it. And then it escaped their Wuhan lab.
There is no jump from bat, pangolin, zebra, fish, insect or any other animal. This did not occur naturally.
The lack of curiosity from many in the medical field has been astounding throughout this. Fauci himself has admitted to not reading half of what the “experts” sent him, yet he’s been touring the media circuit, and setting policy as if he’s all knowing. We also have proof he funded research at the Wuhan lab with US taxpayer dollars. This is indisputable. He’s hardly credible at this point. I’d take the Post over his word any day. Ignoring the obvious won’t change anything, and doesn’t do anything to ensure this type of event doesn’t happen again. The scientific community needs to be held to account for their role in this from the start.
——
Required reading….
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins
“The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins
Throughout 2020, the notion that the novel coronavirus leaked from a lab was off-limits. Those who dared to push for transparency say toxic politics and hidden agendas kept us in the dark.”
——-
If you, Tychicus and myself wish to discuss this further, we should do so on the news thread, so we don’t interrupt them here. 🙂
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Thankful, AJ, that y’all were there. So sad that she is gone so soon. I know Liz would have wanted her around to see the milestones she will hit during her next ten years. But thankful she got to see what a nice young lady that Liz bloomed into. Blessings of comfort and God’s peace with love to you all.
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Aj I am sorry for your loss and we continue to lift you all before our Lord as you miss her ♥️
(And thanks for your post concerning the virus / China/…and Fauci…. 🤔)
I played no sports in school…I sang in a singing group in High School and the choir in Jr. High. 🎶
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Dear AJ,
We pray for you and your family. We ask for GOD’s peace to be with you and yours.
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roscuro: I suppose the Telegraph and the Guardian are somehow more trustworthy? 😉
A full investigation is certainly warranted. We’ll see how it all plays out…
Given your experience, perhaps you can comment on yesterday’s WSJ piece on the genetic fingerprint of CoV-2. (Interestingly, there are huge differences in the genetic diversity of CoV-2 as compared with the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS – see below.)
The double CGG code has not appeared naturally in any other virus in the coronavirus category – yet it suddenly appears in Covid-19. It doesn’t appear in nature – so how did that particular code get in there?
“In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus.
Although the double CGG is suppressed naturally, the opposite is true in laboratory work. The insertion sequence of choice is the double CGG. That’s because it is readily available and convenient, and scientists have a great deal of experience inserting it. An additional advantage of the double CGG sequence compared with the other 35 possible choices: It creates a useful beacon that permits the scientists to track the insertion in the laboratory.
Now the damning fact. It was this exact sequence that appears in CoV-2. Proponents of zoonotic origin must explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favorite combination, the double CGG. Why did it replicate the choice the lab’s gain-of-function researchers would have made?”
“There is additional scientific evidence that points to CoV-2’s gain-of-function origin. The most compelling is the dramatic differences in the genetic diversity of CoV-2, compared with the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS.
Both of those were confirmed to have a natural origin; the viruses evolved rapidly as they spread through the human population, until the most contagious forms dominated. Covid-19 didn’t work that way. It appeared in humans already adapted into an extremely contagious version. No serious viral “improvement” took place until a minor variation occurred many months later in England.
Such early optimization is unprecedented, and it suggests a long period of adaptation that predated its public spread. Science knows of only one way that could be achieved: simulated natural evolution, growing the virus on human cells until the optimum is achieved. That is precisely what is done in gain-of-function research. Mice that are genetically modified to have the same coronavirus receptor as humans, called “humanized mice,” are repeatedly exposed to the virus to encourage adaptation.
The presence of the double CGG sequence is strong evidence of gene splicing, and the absence of diversity in the public outbreak suggests gain-of-function acceleration. The scientific evidence points to the conclusion that the virus was developed in a laboratory.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-suggests-a-wuhan-lab-leak-11622995184
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Aj, praising the Lord that you went quickly and had a last visit. Sad that it was the last, but glad for the memories you now share. Praying for the family together time at the service. May it be sweet.
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The Real, I have explained my reasons for disbelieving the theory. Politics doesn’t come into it. I am an outsider to US politics, and the views of any given President are not a factor in changing my opinions for or against something. When first I heard lab theory floated last year, I doubted it then, and I hadn’t even heard about the then President having supported the view. I will reply to a few points in the Vanity Fair article briefly on the News thread as you request.
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Thych, see the News Thread.
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Wait, the real? What?? Big brother? of all people….that is a scary thought..
Praying for you, of course, dear brother, and for your lovelies. A sorrowful time, so glad you could say goodbye.
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I did a fine job last time, in case you forgot.
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And Chas helped.
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Unbelievable.
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Chas, you have been fired. No explanation.
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Chas was fired? And mumsee too?
Peter has seen all the Chicago PD episodes so watch out.
What did someone say about that show, there’s a “high body count”?
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I’m in charge?
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And I get 75 to boot!
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Seriously, though, AJ- give my regards to your wife and family. We all grieve with you at this time.
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DJ High body count? I watch the BlackList. Now THAT show has a high body count!
My wife sometimes watches, but she misses a lot of it because she can’t see through her hands.
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Now, first order of business: ALL COVID related comments are temporarily banned from the open thread. Please use the news/politics thread. Don’t make me write you up and send you you to the principal’s office.
Oh, sorry. I no longer have high school students to deal with.
Thank you. You may now return to “normal”.
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AJ, I am so sorry for your loss. Praying especially for your girls along with you.
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AJ – I, too, am so sorry for your family’s loss. Please relay my condolences to “the girls”.
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Peter – When have we ever been “normal”?
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Roscuro, very sobering piece on the prodigal. Reminds me of my adopted niece. Her brother rebelled against the adopted family for a while, but has been a true son for several years, but she has been doing her own thing and wanting almost no contact with them. And they fear for the future of her daughter.
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AJ, so sorry for your family’s loss. I’m glad you got there in time. My mom died alone, but I’d spent a few days with her just two weeks before, and that was very comforting not only for me but for my siblings. Those last visits matter, when they’re possible.
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BBC Midsomer Murders is the show with a high body count.
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Normal? What is he talking about, Kizzie?
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My condolences as well, AJ, for you and your family. You have my prayers for you as you all go through this time of grief.
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i also roller and ice skated and went sledding in the winter and swimming all summer long. That was just the life style here.
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Peter, we will try not to disobey
too often
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“Normal” is what we call “the usual”.
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You want a high body count?
The Punisher on Netflix.
Pretty much everyone dies. 🙂
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