1 Slight correction..  The mental meltdown only admitted that Pfizer was conduction gain of function research on COVID to develop vaccines against more virulent forms, he never stated they were releasing it.  Of course, Pfizer doesn't have any legal BSL-4 labs and would be doing this in BSL-3 labs or below.  Introducing gain of function to COVID to make it more virulent makes this decision questionable at the least; Musolini treament in a worst case.

2 Not nearly as skeptical as you wish you could be, I think.

I'm not as skeptical as I wish I could be. 

The basic issue is that we do have a massive problem of betrayal by experts. 

However, I have every reason to believe that PhDs can be gross idiots lacking basic competence in their nominal field.  I do not have to believe that a company employing PhDs means that the PhDs can even do what they want to do, and say that they can do.

You would need some sort of cells to culture the virii in, and that is almost certainly a paper trail, and a more risky one if the work is being done in the US. 

Furthermore, there are the questions of inference about 'Covid 19'.  We have anecdotes, but the only real conclusive evidence that it even exists would have to be statistical, and the basis for the stats has clearly been boogered by the information war.

Basic detection hypothesis for anythign has a false alarm rate.  Our folks leaped to declaring that the PRC claims were totally unimpeachable, while ignoring that the PRC had also claimed that it could have come from the US Army bio weapons place. 

There's a bunch of stuff that publicly available information cannot rule out after you try to sort for the lying.  a) US bioweapon b) it doesn't exist, there were only ordinary colds c) naturally occurring, but did not have the claimed properties, which were of the holy grail of respiratory viral bioweapons d) naturally occurring, but for the first time in human history with the claimed properties  e) unnaturally occurring, without claimed properties  f) unnaturally occurring, with claimed properties. 

The ordinary situation with respiratory virii should be a lot of strains infecting various populations, with a fair rate of mutations and cross overs from animal populations. 

Unless you had engineered a new type of virus entirely, a coronavirus based bioweapon should mutate like a coronavirus, IE, rapidly.  Because mutation should be somewhat statistical and tied to structure of the genetics. 

If your engineered bioweapon is initially distributed in a very lethal configuration, a general prediction is that further mutation is going to break stuff, and result in less lethal strains.  The major reason to expect it to grow more lethal would be if you knew that the point on the genetic space that you release is very close to several other much more lethal points.  But, if you know that, why not release one of those instead?

Mutating stuff in the lab is probably going to get strains that are less effective, unless you also have a lot of informed and skilled manpower trying to find the rarer mutations that improve effectiveness as a weapon.  Less effective strains would still be effective at selling vaccines, as long that you had media allies to provide information warfare support. 

I tend to figure that the most dangerous strains probably died out prior to the lcokdown, that the post lockdown strains were probably mostly nothing, and I am not sure that the lunatics have the resources to produce a strain worth worrying over. 

We recently had a Speaker election go for four or five days, and fifteen votes. Federal funding now is not necessarily stable.  The guy's federal program could have gotten cut off, and he could have had a psychotic break just prior to the date. 

The expected peaceful path out of the political mess involves a lot of leftists having psychotic breaks.  They were never really sane, but were stable, but current circumstances will be pretty hard when it comes to a lot of them and their mental health.

1 I've been thinking lately that there are at least three theory sets that stories can be designed off of.

One, traditional notions of good and evil rooted in Judeo-Christian values.

Two, English major literary theory.  Which on the positive side of my view, is useful for writing class papers.  There are writers that seem to get some use of it, but I've maybe been over exposed, and am not a fan.  But, it isn't strictly incompatible with good/evil, and it does help some story tellers reduce design complexity of projects, so...

Three, the modern academic theory symbol magic model. 

One can suppose three cohorts.  People who used theory one and two, people who used theory two and three, and a current group that are using theory three.  Last group can see the theory three stuff in the second cohort's work, but does not see the function inherited by imitating previous story designers, and does not care. 

Their work is basically a combination of the 'stop hitting yourself' bullying game, with mockery of 'you' for 'hitting yourself'.  And, they are not effective enough bullies to really force much of anyone to play along with their games. 

I bite my thumb at these media vandals.

However, I think I'm most seriously enraged at the state of academia.  I have become convinced that the university needs to be destroyed in order to salvage much of tertiary education.

2 Appendix:

I dislike critical theory.

I have two related objections, in general.

One is ancient conspiracy theories, that seem to propose that human nature wrt to conspiracies functions in exactly opposite ways to how it actually seems to work.

Two is that the critical theorists magically speak for the oppressed, and can undo the conspiracies.  They don't speak for the disadvantaged, they cheerlead the destruction by fire of poor neighborhoods.  They are propagandists for the powerful political interests who see arson and riot as a politically useful tactic. 

The third more specific objection with  the theory of critical theory is that it matters who makes certain statemetns.  The wrong people basically cannot make true statements.  In mathematics, the truth or falsehood of statements does not depend on who is making them.  Applying critical theory to mathematics seems to break mathematics in weird and unpredictable ways.  A mathematician may conclude that critical theory has been disproven by contradiction.  The critical theorists seem to be pretty clear that they need to conclude that mathematics is a conspiracy.

Forex, the critical race theorists concluding that mathematics is a racist conspiracy. 

They assert that logic is invalid and that additionally that they are not saying that 'mathematics is not for blacks'. 

I think that a school with a DIE program is /not/ actually attempting to help more blacks learn mathematics.  They may think that they are doing so. 

I find all of this extremely concerning and frustrating.

3 They don't want solved problems. Look at the woke reees about Mr. Beast paying for cataract surgery. Solving mysteries with rational thinking and pooling strengths among friends is not what they want. Mental illness is desired, envied, and evoked.
And it looks like Norville's girlfriend is going to have her brain put into a dog.
Apparently these worst tv series are now produced only to be watched by YT reviewers, because nobody else wants them.

1 Our system is founded on several decades of precedent that was itself based on false premises.  The terrific enlightened masters managing the reputation of the profession of law are making an uncertain situation less predictable by being heavy handed wackaloons.  By that I mean mainly that I think they are in effect working to create the political will to get rid of some of the insanely stupid enabling legislation. 

Twitter and the Twitter files has been an entertaining matter.  Not that I unconditionally trust the current claims there. 

This power substation stuff is concerning.  There are lots of kinds of malicious or apparently malicious acts, and anything that speaks to organized conspiracy looks like a potential serious concern to a lot of people.

One thing you didn't mention was the affair of Kevin McCarthy.  In hindsight, being from California and inserted into the congressional Republicans when he was (IIRC after the 2006 election) is a very suspicious pair of details.  My takeaway is that people are seriously pissed at all the abuse of formal systems for malicious ends, and some of them saw an opportunity to screw some folks over in return.  Very like the Honkening. 

There will be lots more opportunities, for very many people, to get some licks in ways that do not violate the informal unstated norms of American life.  There will be glowies and others encouraging folks to express discontent in ways that are unproductive for your own philosophy.  It is very likely that their political values will not be your own.  Test the ideas presented to you, and feel free to ignore anything that you can not show is sound according to your own understanding.

1 I mentioned the upload issue to Pixy and supposedly it should be fixed by now.

2 Just as a FYI, I'm out of the CCU. I have some massive infections, a surgical procedure on Tursday. Not in any pain, feel pretty good honestly.
According to a doctor, I was close to have serious life-threatening issues, but that's been handled... 6 units of blood  about 12 big bags of saline, and at least a month of antibiotics are in my future.  But I'm alive.
I still can't Pond though.

3 Same same, except that they hired more people at work and some of them have actually managed not to get fired for getting late points. 
(Honestly, most department managers just wipe away all points, because they want to keep people. Our manager apparently can't remember to do this. So we're always hiring, even after we find somebody.)
My boss tried to get me to come into work today, instead of taking my day off.  I declined, partly for logistics reasons, but mostly because I'm freaking tired. 
Right now, it is a balmy 27 degrees F. So much better than Winter Storm BRRRR.

4 Yay! Congrats (on both fronts)!

5 I'm finally (mostly) free of distractions and will start the new year by fixing the aforementioned blog issues.

1 My job isn't physically demanding but the hours and the interruptions and the emergencies at 3AM on a Sunday are all things I could do without.  May your Christmas soon be over!

2 Argh. I feel you.
We were finally full-staffed, and our manager fired one of the new guys for basically BS reasons. It is literally insane.

3 Well, at least the spambots love you.

4 Merry Christmas!

In the meantime, stop by from 5:30PM to 8:30 PM (EST) tonight to witness an act of premeditated Regicide as we deal with GOOD KING MOOGLE-MOG THE 12th! @twitch.tv/brickmuppet

1 I was thinking about getting a Twitch account.
Make sure to use a cute vtuber avatar!

1 Hey, it could be worse.. The Germans could start putting 'SS' labels on their uniforms...

2 The best part was that Polaks were too hasty to publish to evidence of missile chunks and it was obvious to everyone with eyes that it was Ukrainian. And then, get this, Eric S. Raymond came into comments at Instapundit with claims that it likely was Russian, and the most famous armchair expert that is I, told him with confidence that it was Ukrainian. It happened because ESR is an small man who lets his biases to control him, despite being a famous author and inventor of "Open Source Software" (together with Bruce et al). Dang that felt good. I didn't even circle back to rub it.

1 It may be better than my suspicions, if and only if the apparent friends of Democrats were not working for the PRC's MOSS. 

I think the leaks have not been an October surprise.  Does not seem like enough lead time to matter. 

I suspect that they are some sort of attempt at damage control in expectation of certain outcomes Tuesday. 

I have no idea what is going on, or about what will happen. 

Terror Island: a 1920 Thriller Starring Harry Houdini

The Haunted House: A short "Thrillomedy" from 1908

The Phantom of the Opera : The Lon Chaney Classic From 1925

The Portrait: A short horror film from 1916

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde The Classic John Barrymore version from 1920

A Page of Madness: A 1926 Japanese Horror Film that is oh so very much a JAPANESE horror film. 

We'll also be doing a bit of video gaming for our intro and intermission. 

Grab a drink and a snack and come by and visit us tonight for the spoopy festivities at twitch.tv/brickmuppet.

1 Some of the most hilarious replies are lefties insisting she's talking about Republicans.

2 I wouldn't care if she thought she was talking about Republicans.

Truth is truth.

And some tactics are bad no matter who it is you fear might use them, and no matter who you might wish to have use them on your behalf.

I could stand to be more diligent in remembering that. 

What the evil men would offer us is never of value that surpasses what they cost us.  Not even the evil of our own hearts.

3 Red-pilled or stopped clock?

Google

Google Chrome

G-Mail

Maps

YouTube

Drive

Google Duo

Google Photos

Microsoft Office

One Drive

Outlook

AR Zone

Wear

Samsung My Files

Samsung Health

Samsung TV Plus

Smart Things

Smart Switch

Call Filter

Verizon Cloud

Digital Secure

Message+

My Verizon

Calculator

Calendar

Camera

Clock

Contacts

Disney+

Galaxy Store

Gallery

Game Launcher

Internet

Messages

Netflix

Phone 

Play Store

Samsung Free

Samsung Global Goals

Samsung Notes

Samsung Wallet

Spotify

Voicemail

YT Music

Apple Music

Candy Crush Saga

Candy Crush Soda

Capture

Facebook

Genshin Impact 

Google TV

Meet

Moment

News Break

Pintrest

Pluto TV

Royal Match

Slotomania

Smart Family

SnapChat

Solitaire

Solitaire (again)

TikTok

Toon Blast

Wallet

Woodoku

Word Trip

Coin Master

Blocks

Note that this was an insurance replacement through Verizon via Asurion, note too, that the process was painless.

Now, this is just scrolling through the menu. Phone and Clock I guess aren't really apps in the usual sense and it's nice to have Microsoft Office on the phone. I might have installed Genshin Impact at some point since it won't play on my iMac, but LORD...I wonder what this Samsung would be capable of if I could get most of those apps removed. 

Thus far, I'm happy with the phone, though it looks and feel...fragile. It certainly does not give the impression of being nearly as robust a piece of kit as Greya, my heroically departed Kyocera Duraforce Pro. That was a full fledged rugged phone that had survived immersion in seawater, being dropped off a roof onto pavement and day to day use It, sadly, has been discontinued. I'll not be carrying it outside the car until my shield, Otterbox and holster arrive.

1 I play Woodoku a lot. Although it's kind of wearing too, to have a game that inevitably ends in failure.

2 Your phone's named Narmaya? I didn't know you played GBF.

3 A lot of those apps can be disabled in Settings, so they don't run.  Usually, even a lot of the ones you can't get rid of from Settings, you can disable via adb, if you're willing to do command-line stuff from your computer.

4 Disney now counts you as subscribed to Disney+, in their subscription numbers. Because the app is on there.

Now I've given Netflix $19.95 US of my monies...but I got to watch the whole series.

I do not regret this purchase. 

Cyberpunk Edgerunners is excellent. Studio Trigger stood by their guns and took no nonsense from Netflix and provided Unadulterated Cuberpunkery. For fans of the recent CD Project Red video game, or Mike Pondsmith's old pencil and Paper RPG from 30 years ago, this is a breath of fresh air. This show is extremely respectful of and faithful to its source materials canon. As such, it is a pretty good representative of the genre.

That is to say, it is Dystopic as hell. It's also an astonishingly bloody show that does not flinch away from the genre's more gruesome implications. Edgerunners is also quite possibly the most non-PC thing made in the last few years, at times straddling the line between an "R" rating and "NC17" with regards to both gore and nudity and is a passionate middle finger at the censorious scolds of all stripes.

It's also, in its perverse way, a Shounen show, but one that is really well done.

This is not an upbeat or happy show, but it follows desperate, broken people who maintain a sense of dignity and honor in spite of being in the most Hobbesian of environments. It also features excellent writing and top notch voice work in the English dub.

Studio Trigger has a remarkable reputation as is, but they have outdone themselves with this one.

1 "However, my cellphone recently saved my live, preventing me from being impaled with an 80 pound steel bar."
Way to bury the lede.  Glad you're still kicking.

2 Glad to hear you're okay!
If the company is still around, I bet they would appreciate a thank you note/recommendation. That kind of thing makes an engineer's day.
And maybe they'd re-continue that product line.