David Cole's got an agenda too, but it's a distraction


Posted On: Tuesday - June 1st 2021 9:50AM MST
In Topics: 
  Pundits  Kung Flu Stupidity



Peak Stupidity does not want to get into full pundit-on-pundit mode here. From that post of ours:
In the article linked to near the top, and hundreds or thousands like it "printed" every day, the people under discussion in the article are often other pundits. "Pundit-A's article last week, was subject to a nasty review by Pundit-B, who received lots of likes, but also was torn to shreds by Pundit-C, who is not always right, so let me set him straight here." This crosses over into the TV-pundit world too. "Pundit-C will be interviewed by TV-Pundit-D on his show come Sunday morning, and I will point out his stupidity on my blog Monday and interview Pundit-E about it"

It's all in their pundit world, and one wonders how important all the discussion is, even though it may be about all the major problems of the day. It could be VERY IMPORTANT stuff for the public to know about (some of the time), but these guys need to think about once in a while that, hey, not 10% of the American public has ever heard the names of any of you people, and maybe 2% read any of you people consistently! What's the point, then?
Exactly! (Well, I wrote it.). So it's not really that important in politics which pundit wrote what about this other pundit's opinion, when an insignificant percentage of Americans read any of it to begin with. However, those who do care can still learn something.

Commenter Adam Smith brought up a David Cole article in Takimag called House of Faucistein that compares theories of the origins of the Kung Flu*. I am in agreement with one of Mr. Cole's main points, which is that all the theories - straight-outta-bats, Chinese shoddy Virology lab safety**, or purposeful bioweapon (American OR Chinese) - have had only circumstantial evidence given by their supporters. I've got two things to say about that part

1) In the middle of the article, the writer makes some fun of "Phrenology Today cover model Ron Unz 's (thanks for the tip, Adam - I had to look it up, before I could LOL) theory of this being an American bioweapon. As I've written to Mr. Unz himself, all the evidence is circumstantial - pretty much guesswork.

2) It doesn't sound like Mr. Cole has read Mr. Nicholas Wade's*** article that we discussed and linked to here. That's not the be-all-to-end-all, but it's based on scientific theory, at least, and NOT circumstantial evidence.

Though this column is so sarcastic that I couldn't really tell what David Cole is getting at for quite a while, besides maintaining that all Kung Flu origins theories are flimsy, it's that Americans will be led to find some theory to use for their politics anyway, but are being patsies for the Chinese. In this he picks on the GOP and even Tucker Carlson, who seems to be a real truth seeker IMO.

After reading this, I remembered a column by David Cole, somewhat coincidentally, seeing as I don't read him all the time, from March 2020. I found it there on Takimag - Speak the Truth, Shame the Chinese. That column was not so sarcastic. It's a big expose of those "wet markets", and he gives a history of past incidents such as the SARS virus in '03, saying:
As the Chinese people fought for their right to spread zoonotic diseases, Chinese activists fought to keep the West from noticing.
And:
So let’s not forget.

Remember that COVID-19, like SARS, began because of specifically Chinese customs, practices, and fetishes.

Remember that during and after the SARS outbreak, the Chinese knew that the wet markets were a danger, yet they were allowed to prosper.

Remember that experts predicted that a bigger, badder SARS would eventually be born from the wet markets. COVID-19 is the most predictable calamity in modern history.

And remember that a ban on Chinese wet markets would have prevented COVID-19. This was the most preventable calamity in modern history.
So, using just as flimsy evidence as the other Kung Flu origin theorists do, and without seeming to have read one piece of readable scientific support for the shoddy-lab-safety, Mr. Cole is sticking with his story that it's the wet markets. As one can read above, he is under the impression that Americans and other Westerners should DO SOMETHING about it, or SHOULD HAVE for years.

Sure, cut off the travel to/from China when these new strains come out. Give out travel advice. Bring immigrations levels WAY down, permanently. Send infected Chinese visitors home. It's not the business of America and anyone else to tell these Chinese people what they can sell out in the streets of Wuhan, though. It's not our business. Maybe we should tell people in Africa, Thailand, or San Francisco, Provincetown, Mass, and Key West, Florida to stop screwing each other in the ass? That would stop a lot of virus spread too, wouldn't it?

I believe Mr. Cole was frantic about his guess of the cause of the Kung Flu, wanting ACTION YESTERDAY! was because he is a Panicker. From just above that last excerpt from his March '20 article:
And now we have COVID-19, which has disrupted the entire world. One-third of the earth’s population is under some sort of lockdown. Livelihoods are ruined, economies destroyed, hundreds of thousands are ill and tens of thousands are dead. And the Chinese government, the Chinese diaspora, the political left, and the media want you to forget how COVID grew from the willful failure of China to learn the lessons of SARS.
There's a Panicker if I've ever seen one.

Mr. Cole hasn't thought deeply enough. Maybe the (mostly southern) Chinese taste for weird-ass creatures to eat has caused these viruses. However, the Chinese didn't force American State Governors to close down small business, then even beaches and swimming pools. They didn't make the face diapering laws (though they probably did make a hell of a lot of money off of the sales of 'em). No, the PanicFest is on the American governments and the American people who fell for this. The PanicFest is a much more important issue than the origins of the Kung Flu. The PanicFest was used in China to add more layers of Orwellian control and in the US to add another layer of the Police State, supplementing that born out of 9/11 20 years back.

People like David Cole and Ron Unz are on the wrong side of the PanicFest and, in their small ways, have helped enable governments to not let this "crisis" go to waste. Each can stick to his different pet theory till Kingdom Come. Nobody's gonna change either of their minds, I'm sure. Yet they are both greatly distracted by the real problem.



* Gonna have to stick with this one for the most part, as it's one of the topic keys.

** The 1st two are not mutually exclusive though, as some say the virus came from the lab to the "wet market" where Chinamen buy strange animals to eat, some of which could transfer this virus. I guess the fundamental cause there is still shoddy safety at the lab.

*** Not a scientist either, but just a science wiiter.

Comments:
Dieter Kief
Thursday - June 3rd 2021 10:04AM MST
PS - 10 % for the total eclipse of the sun of reason Mod via a US CO-19 bio-weapon attack- you're right of course. I couldn't find the Cole part in his written blog article on UNZ and then listened to Radio Derb and that did sedate me quite a bit (it will never happen again though - the way Mr. Derbyshire talks is indeed a bio-weapon of sorts, hehe! - He could break records selling sleep-inducing soundbites... - just remembering it lets me yawn - it's true! - here I go, one more time: It works - even via recollection! Very strong, impressive -ahhh...
Adam Smith
Thursday - June 3rd 2021 9:18AM MST
PS: Good afternoon everyone...

Mr. Moderator, thank you for the Derbyshire piece. It's interesting to read his take on this. His guesstimate of 30/60/10 seems pretty reasonable to me. I also agree with Mr. Alarmists opinion that, just like other viruses and bugs, this could indeed be spread by bugs. Seems most likely. It's what mosquitoes do.

I really don't know where it came from, but I could believe almost anything at this point. The collusion and lockstep speed at which the economic zones of the empire moved is quite astonishing.

Problem, reaction, solution?

That all these supposedly different “countries” had the same totalitarian/police state style response is rather ominous. That so many of the villagers on the global plantation are on board with such measures is not encouraging.

“Madame Chong's Yummy Best Bat Soup Emporium” - lol

“I don't know, I'm only here because of autocorrect.” - also lol

Thanks everyone for the interesting discussion.

I hope you all have a great day.

Moderator
Thursday - June 3rd 2021 8:36AM MST
PS: Dieter, Mr. Derbyshire just pulled out 3 percentages out of his rear end based on his probably pretty-good common sense. I don't at all fault him for not caring that much. He has stated such, and I was glad to read that.. The Unz American bioweapon theory got 10% from him though, Dieter.
Dieter Kief
Thursday - June 3rd 2021 6:51AM MST
PS John Derbyshire himself says that he thinks, there is a thirty percent chance, that the wet-market hypothesis might be true. That strikes me as being not too bad an outcome for Cole, who is no science writer at all.
Now comes my secret super-trooper weapon: You can combine the wet-market and the lab-theory. Since Derbyshire gives zero percent to Unz' biowarfare-thesis, it could turn out that my idea would score quite high: That lab animals were sold at the wet market. - A commenter over at UNZ brought this idea up. Could be, couldn't it? - Ahh - haven't you mentioned his idea too. Mod? - All the better for David Dole, hehe! Derb admires this literary vitriolist.
Dieter Kief
Thursday - June 3rd 2021 6:21AM MST
PS still with ya, Mod! - will switch to derb's peice immeddiately. nice captatio benevolentiaae here, hehe -I meaan the part in which talk about Mr. Derb's writing abilities ....
Moderator
Thursday - June 3rd 2021 5:07AM MST
PS: For Dieter Kief, if you are still reading:

Hey, after I wrote my comment below about reading the David Cole column you linked me to (it was Part 1, while the one I comment on here is apparently Part 2 of that), I read Mr. Derbyshire's podcast transcript (just 2 minutes ago, I mean). I don't bother to listen, as that take easily 5 x, maybe 8 x longer than reading, and nothing is really urgent on there.

Here:

https://vdare.com/radio-derb/harry-and-st-george-the-origins-of-covid-diversity-hell-ufos-and-blm-in-the-state-department-etc

Read his section comparing the writing of David Cole with Nick Wade's. It's very close to what I wrote below, except John Derbyshire is a better writer, and he brings up an argument about Mr. Cole's thing about the virus in the markets in China.

Someone wrote on an unz thread yesterday that David Cole just wants to win an argument, not necessarily be right on this thing.
Moderator
Wednesday - June 2nd 2021 6:03PM MST
PS: Robert, haha, I didn't get it for a bit. Not since 9:36 PM MST when you posted, I mean, but just a few seconds. I'm gonna reuse that one for sure!
Moderator
Wednesday - June 2nd 2021 6:10AM MST
PS: Dieter, thank you for that link. First of all, since it's 2 weeks old rather than over a year, I see that David Cole realizes that the panic is the problem NOW, at least. Better late than never:

"Hey, Ash-man, that “devastation” was due not to the disease but rather certain governments’ overreaction to it.

Covid sure as hell didn’t “devastate” Florida’s economy."

OK, good on him for that. Regarding his correspondence with Nickolas Wade, it's kind of funny to watch 2 writers talking past each other. As Mr. Cole went on about (to paraphrase) - Mr. Wade could have put those 11,000 words into 168, because he gives no evidence beyond _____ - I could see he didn't Wade through (get it, I like that pun) the whole 11,000 words, or even 60% of the way. Mr. Cole didn't mention the 4 scientific points, all bolstering his argument. He never read that apparently.

I know that Wade is not a scientist, but a science writer. However, his writing is pretty plain, and if he is flat out wrong about one or more of those 4 points of scientific EVIDENCE (you reading, Cole?) I believe he'd have been corrected by now.

Then going the other way, Mr. Wade was said to have not given much thought beyond "I hadn't looked into that" about Mr. Cole's points in his emails in support of this wet market theory. I'm guessing that Mr. Wade does know more science. Regarding the samples of COVID in the poo in those markets, was it the same strain? I'd have like to read a better explanation from Mr. Wade too.

Lastly, Mr. Cole's making fun of Tucker Carlson all the time is pissing me off. Tucker may be snarky often, but Mr. Cole is just nasty-sounding with his. (That could be simply the age difference, and that I saw the 1st picture I've seen of him, and he was wearing his cap backwards and a goatee, like some hipster dufus.)
Dieter Kief
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 11:54PM MST
PS - 
Mod here is the second Cole article

https://www.takimag.com/article/son-of-frankencovid/

I'm not quite awake yet, but - uhh - it did not come up with google and the TM-search didn't show it either. - I went to Duck Duck go - and there it was: First hit...But as I said: I'm not quite awake yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqRzW24RgOM

David Cole's phrenology joke was a kinda - uhh- funny way to point at the old suspicion that the genius and the idiot are closer to each other than the genius might want to think at times (this is no problem for the idiot, of course, especially if his head is a bit bigger than usual, you know (they oftentimes don't care for the word hydrocephalus...they are "beyond good  and bad"...enlightened somehow...).
Robert
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 9:36PM MST
PS: Mr. Moderator: "Out in the open, scientific-world-wise, these people were doing this dangerous research, and for what gain?"

A priest, a rabbit, and a minister walk into a bar.

The bartender asks the rabbit, "what'll you have?"

The Rabbit answers, "I don't know, I'm only here because of autocorrect."

But I will add, that Mr. Ike's theory fits within mine; and, more fundamentally, that I agree with Mr. Alarmist about distractions.
Moderator
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 7:01PM MST
PS: Robert: "An international conspiracy in manufacturing the Damned thing, but stupidity and evil in its release." Again, I don't know what to call it. Out in the open, scientific-world-wise, these people were doing this dangerous research, and for what gain? "Oh, in case we DO get a virus like this." "Well, how? And maybe you could use the money to find ways to prevent it from happening instead?"

Yes, stupidity or evil, that's always the question.

Alarmist, wrt "Virus biomass outweighs human biomass...", that's amazing. At least that doesn't sicken me nearly as much as that about the insects. WTH are the mosquitos, fleas, ticks, and gnats on this earth for anyway? That's the tradeoff about California - you're missing most of these (maybe not the ticks), you've got great weather, but then there are the people ...
Moderator
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 6:54PM MST
PS: Peter, that's exactly what I meant between overlap between the lab escape and the wet market theory. Your last paragraph states exactly my picture of what could likely have happened.

Compared to these researchers and technicians in the US, their Chinese counterparts can't be making near as much money (partly the reason for doing this research there). I can imagine that it's quite a bit easier to sneak out what you want to sneak out. "Why not? This one isn't one of the bad ones. We haven't even gotten this gain-of-function all the way yet... far as I remember from the last meeting ..."
Moderator
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 6:51PM MST
PS: Dieter, I agree with your take on Trump regarding this issue. He's let lots of terrible people continue working for him - never should have hired most of them in the first place. On the other hand, with the Lyin' Press out to get him at every step, he couldn't get his travel ban done for a month due to their calling him a xenophone (in whatever words), and even when it didn't get done, nobody would publish and "I told you so"s from him. He had a tough time, but he brought some of this on by not having a strategy to deal with this all from the beginning.

Regarding the other David Cole article. Can you send me a link to where you read that, if you find it again?

For you and PeterIke on phrenology: I think Mr. Cole, who can be pretty humorous, was simply making a joke about Ron Unz's boasts about his IQ along with his large forehead.
Moderator
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 6:44PM MST
PS: Mr. Blanc, that's what I think. I am no expert in any of this but common sense last year told me it was either the Chinese markets or that lab in Wuhan. That Nick Wade paper was pretty good, but not the last word, but it made me lean toward the lab side.

Another silver lining in this, after (hopefully) many more Americans' realization that they are getting screwed by Big Ed, is that Federalism looks like it's not completely dead. I was glad to see Gov. DeSantis of Florida, especially, stand up to the Feds a bit.
The Alarmist
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 3:07PM MST
PS

Where the WuFlu originated is a distraction from the real story, which is how it quickly became a global conspiracy to deprive citizens first of their human rights and to dehumanize them through masking and lockdowns; and second, to deprive hundreds of millions of their lives through deployment of dangerous experimental gene therapies with no serious safety testing despite all sorts of science that shows thecritical piece, the spike protein, is itself pathological.

As for how it really spreads, I’m sticking with the story that the ‘bug’ is being spread by bugs....

——————

Abstract
Virus biomass outweighs human biomass, and insects biomass outweighs human biomass. Insects are regularly habited by viruses as well as humans, humans are further inhabited via insects. A model of viral flow is described and specified to explain influenza virus seasonality, which, in temperate climate, usually evolves when insects have mostly disappeared. With this hypothesis a coherent description of regular seasonal influenza and other seasonal respiratory virus infections in temperate climates is possible. The incidence of influenza under different circumstances e.g. temperature, humidity, or tropical conditions and different aspects like synchronicity of infections or in respect to evolutionary conditions do sustain this hypothesis if the behaviour of insects is considered.

—————

source: https://biologydirect.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13062-020-00272-5
Dieter Kief
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 2:48PM MST
PS PeterIke - Phrenology is not entirely wrong. So far I can agree easily. Faces do tell stories. It might just be that there is no shortcut (=no precise method, really) to detect the meaning of these stories other than - taste, curiosity and experience.
Cole did pick less on phrenology than on poor Mr. Unz via phrenology (he did attack him much (much) harder before) - and this little hit here isn't but a small reminder that there are still tensions left from that earlier controversy between the two men, I think.
PeterIke
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 2:42PM MST
PS
Somewhere I don't remember, back in the early days of Rona, someone suggested that possibly a researcher in the Wuhan sold was selling dead monkeys or bats or whatever basically "out the back door" of the lab. You know, to make a few extra bucks in that classic Chinese entrepreneurial way ("screw the consequences as long as I make a buck"). And where would you sell dead soup bats? At the wet market, which happens to be a short walk from where you work.

This so perfectly fits the Chinese character that it made sense to me then, and it makes sense to me know. So yes, they were ginning up viruses at the lab. So no, they didn't release anything on purpose. But in a textbook example of Chinese sneaky perfidy, some dude (could be the freakin' maintenance guy making ten cents a day) figured "why waste all these dead bats? They's good eatin'. I can sell these to Madame Chong's Yummy Best Bat Soup Emporium at the wet market. She doesn't care if they're a few days old."

Done and done.
PeterIke
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 2:35PM MST
PS
Why does everyone pick on phrenology? They were on the right track, but were limited in the tools of the day. Yes, what we are can be entirely determined by examining sections of the brain. AKA, phrenology.
Robert
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 12:55PM MST
PS: My guess (and very much a guess) is that it did come from the Wuhan Lab --- largely aided by Fauci and friends (Prediction: That will NOT be part of the supposed investigation) --- but that the actual release was by some lone nut ala Twelve Monkeys (if I understood the ending correctly). An international conspiracy in manufacturing the Damned thing, but stupidity and evil in its release.
Dieter Kief
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 12:24PM MST
PS Montblanc - "President Trump did try to show some leadership, but, as all that he’s really good at is self-promotion, he let himself be steamrollered." - As Hail to You has pointed out, Trump succumbed to the panickers and did even find pleasure in being verry harssh on Sewden. - And - most likely his biggest mistake in this context: He hored Anthony Fauci and let him walk at a very long leash. - - Very bad for the American people (and for the (western mainly) panic-world in general). Terrible mistake...

Mod - the best part in David Cole's t.w.o very interesting CO-19 articles you have lost out methinks: He did send an email to Wade about the early wet market-spread and Wade answered, that he had - no idea. - That astonished me a lot.
MBlanc46
Tuesday - June 1st 2021 11:04AM MST
PS I don’t have a strong opinion on the subject, although, if someone stuck a gun to my head and told me that I had to pick one, it would be the Wuhan Virology lab, with funding from the US NIH. However, the source of the virus isn’t the main thing. The main thing is the monumental cock-up that Those Who Rule Us made of it. Not a single one of them was any good in a crisis. The guys in Texas and Florida did rather better than most of the others. President Trump did try to show some leadership, but, as all that he’s really good at is self-promotion, he let himself be steamrollered.
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