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    Colbert Gets Tense With Jon Stewart

    There is a phrase in professional wrestling called "putting over." When you help sell another wrestler, that's putting them over. Jon Stewart helped put over Stephen Colbert over a very long period of time.

    Nevertheless, when Stewart came to conclusions Colbert didn't like about the origins of Covid-19, Colbert started deriding him immediately.

    There is a long history of strains of deadly flu coming out of China and, so, Colbert was the one who was actually factually correct. The world had already been struck with coronavirus in the form of SARS and MERS, hince why money was allocated to a laboratory to research it. If a strain escaped a laboratory, it was likely because they were researching a disease that had already existed in hopes of figuring out how to contain it, not engineering a bio-weapon like the Kamino cloners in Star Wars.

    Nevertheless, the ease by which Colbert was able to dismiss what the man who helped make him famous said is telling about what kind of person fame has turned him in to. He once played a character which mocked a person with a rigid worldview who was hostile to nuance and different perspectives. Now he is that character, albeit dressed up as a progressive.

    People are often like that when they're not entirely comfortable with the world they are now in and it's causing them cognitive dissonance. Colbert was basically saying, "Look, Jon, I'm not retired like you. We have to stick straight with facts and can't roam all over like Joe Rogan's podcast." Colbert actually had a segment a few weeks prior where he mocked John Cena for apologizing to China, as well, so maybe he was under heat to stick with the narrative:

     

     

    Comments

    Hmm, you draw different conclusions than I do.

    First, Jon Stewart & family are vaccinated - 1 kid has *5* vaccines if you believe him (no, i don't). So he's not anti-vaxx, and he specifically notes his sadness that the best science came up with in 100 years is "wear a mask and wash your hands" - not saying *don't* do that, just, couldn't we have gotten better disease response in that amazing century?

    (And even if Trumple hadn't dismantled our pandemic response, the CDC and WHO still we're sticking with invalid historical measure of "2 meters airborne" that aren't factually true, so we still would get disease spread from airborne Covid 3-4-5 meters away, depending on room circulation)

    The Chinese government lies and covers up basic details of its disease and weapons research. More than most. Think of Chernobyl level coverup. Several times a year. They have a million Uyghurs in lockup, many doing incarcerated labor for the crime if being Muslim, yet still insist they've done nothing wrong. Similar with Hing Kong's clampdown. So thhis isn't weapons inspectors checking out suspect Iran nuclear facilities - this is badass research, which we may or may not have a handle on its extent.

    (here are Chinese lab scientists off scraping cave walls for bat viruses the year the pandemic started:

    https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/covid-origin-what-do-we-know-a... )

    We now have CRISPR for gene editing, and surprise, Chinese try doing live animal mutations. Even garage projects will be possible. Science could lead us to a mess.

    The Chinese have implemented AI-enhanced facial recognition with camera surveillance tied to incarceration on a massive scale compared to anything anywhere else. We know the Chinese government has a very different attitude to free speech, including spying on and shutting down students abroad.

    All this said, it is possible that the Wuhan Flu was actually an accidental bat or pangolin mutation, or came out of the lab much more accidentally than a directed weaponized Covid-SARS project gone awry. But a commentator/comedian on TV is by no means authoritative or indicative of anything. The only real answers and certainty will come from any on-the-ground investigation without covered up testimony from lab participants, hospital or other treatment records, etc al. Which was hard enough to do with Iraq inspections - harder to do with top secret lab environments. Jon Stewart's skepticism is warranted, but certainly not definitive - nor are Colbert's assurances.

    "If a strain escaped a laboratory, it was likely because they were researching a disease that had already existed in hopes of figuring out how to contain it, not engineering a bio-weapon like the Kamino cloners in Star Wars." - bull fucking shit. You are making an apology for China that cannot be assumed. China is researching offensive weapons - nukes, biological, maritime in the South Sea, their whole Belt and Road global infrastructure/global influence scheme. This is a secretive state that's gone greatly backwards on human rights the last 15 years, and yet you're giving them every benefit of the doubt as if we were talking about Denmark. China has *disappeared* one of its richest tycoons, off somewhere being held and "re-educated". How do you square that with the assumptiion that anything done in Wuhan was because of normal scientific curiosity and humanitarian purposes?

    Give Jon Stewart a break. Perhaps he'll be proven wrong, but the left can stand to consider multiple possibilities rather than cancelling and fairly justifiable alternate view that steps on their carefully cultivated feelings. We used to think alternative lifestyle and viewpoint was "progressive". Now it's a threat to our orthodoxy?


    China kidnaps Jack Ma + dismantles his empire + purges other IT leaders/CEOs.

    As the article notes, what if Jeff Bezos got called to Washington after a disturbing speech, disappeared for 9 months except for 3 "sightings" - a goof game with no mobile photos, an anecdote about him painting, and a "participation" in a Putin Zoom session where one of the world's most flamboyant men in English and Chinese says nothing and isn't referred to (like how hard is it to insert afterwards a separate video frame into a recording of a Zoom session?)

    Both the right and left are acting irrationally blinkered about both China and Russia's activities these past 5 years. Time to get serious, observant, perceptive, and yes, skeptical.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2021/06/24/what-really-happen...


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