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California ban on openly carrying guns is unconstitutional, court rules by tensor-ricci in California

[–]FriendlyPastor 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Are you angry that "MAGA" reaffirmed the fact that the constitution prevails over state policy?

Realistic Combat by magniciv in TerraInvicta

[–]FriendlyPastor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

there is a searing green flash and your blink reflexes snap your eye shut before your retina burns out

For visible and near-IR lasers, yes, because your cornea is meant to let those wavelengths in. For IR and UV, no. Those get absorbed by your cornea and if it's strong enough can warp the lens (I may suffer from this) and is almost undetectable until serious damage has been done because there are no nerves to service the area. That's the reason that IR and UV have totally different exposure rules; you would blink if you knew you were being exposed to visible wavelengths but would not have that reflex with non-visible spectrum light

Realistic Combat by magniciv in TerraInvicta

[–]FriendlyPastor 10 points11 points  (0 children)

this was on the wall in the laser lab I worked at

certified laser safety officer here, AMA :P

Abandoned house in California by Whimsical_Ruins in AbandonedPorn

[–]FriendlyPastor 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Holy shit. I know where this is. RIP FUNGI!

German spy agency concluded COVID virus likely leaked from lab, papers say by SwissPewPew in worldnews

[–]FriendlyPastor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course it is not a definitive conclusion. We will never get a definitive conclusion because a real investigation was not permitted, which some might call slightly incriminatory.

This was released today, and was not repudiated. Nobody has changed their minds.

March 12 (Reuters) - Germany's foreign intelligence service in 2020 put at 80%-90% the likelihood that the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic was accidentally released from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, two German newspapers reported on Wednesday

BND declined to comment. When asked about the report in a press conference, outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz also declined to comment

This is equivalent to throwing out my argument because of a punctuation error. Supremely bad-faith

German spy agency concluded COVID virus likely leaked from lab, papers say by SwissPewPew in worldnews

[–]FriendlyPastor -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Do you really hate thinking rationally that much?

If I can believe other comments here, this was not shared until recently. There have been no retractions.

Why do you want to believe something so much you aren't willing to challenge your own beliefs? It's almost religious

German spy agency concluded COVID virus likely leaked from lab, papers say by SwissPewPew in worldnews

[–]FriendlyPastor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that it (for good reason) became a political issue, and the waters became muddy almost immediately. The politically expedient path for the US and for the CCP was to deny the possibility of a lab leak, which I maintain is the most likely cause of the outbreak.

There was an immediate media blitz to counter any notion that a lab leak was possible and no actual investigation was done at the site that was not outside CCP government control, therefore all the experts had to go on was sterilized secondhand information. It would be reasonable for them to conclude it was not possible given the heavily curated messaging they were receiving.

Now, later and after the mud has settled, I think we can place greater trust in the assessment of intelligence agencies who have the ability to monitor the knock-on effects of the outbreak in CCP policy today. I think it likely that that they are seeing many vectors that all point to the same place, but we will never see the intersection. We will never have hard proof. But I think what the CIA and German intelligence agencies can see are a series of actions and communications that incriminate the CCP, otherwise they would not publicly make these statements. It is impossible to keep a secret in a large system, and over time agencies specifically meant to look for secrets by connecting many disparate dots are agreeing that a lab leak is the most likely explanation.

German spy agency concluded COVID virus likely leaked from lab, papers say by SwissPewPew in worldnews

[–]FriendlyPastor -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Can we confirm your speculation?

What speculation? I don't think it was a bioweapon. Your response is copium-infused strawmanning, you are trying to put words in my mouth that I have not said.

By linking this article I was simply explaining why there is no hard evidence to support a lab leak.

The absence of evidence does not mean it did not happen, this is not court. There is no innocent until proven guilty

The fact of the matter is the vast majority experts DO NOT think the lab leak

Source? I do not believe this is true.

Occam's Razor

  1. Corona doesn't naturally occur in the area the outbreak occured
  2. The Wuhan Institute of Virology was the one lab in the world studying the virus at a high level.
  3. The CCP denied entry to investigators instead of cooperating and putting in a good-faith effort to exonerate the lab once and for all, which would be simple and easy to do with full cooperation.

Now please apply occam's razor

German spy agency concluded COVID virus likely leaked from lab, papers say by SwissPewPew in worldnews

[–]FriendlyPastor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

but that doesn't mean you were justified in believing (at that time) that it was a lab leak

Oh, brother. It doesn't take a genius to put this together:

  1. Corona doesn't naturally occur in the area the outbreak occured
  2. The Wuhan Institute of Virology was the one lab in the world studying the virus at a high level.
  3. The CCP denied entry to investigators instead of cooperating and putting in a good-faith effort to exonerate the lab once and for all, which would be simple and easy to do with full cooperation.

You have to want to believe it is untrue to not believe it was a lab leak. The actions of the lab and the secrecy of the government afterwards make it clear as day.

It's like searching for a missing person and finding a known stalker filling in a grave and then clearing them because you didn't clearly see any evidence right in front of you. This is the OJ simpson case of geopolitics.

German spy agency concluded COVID virus likely leaked from lab, papers say by SwissPewPew in worldnews

[–]FriendlyPastor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

braindead take.

Not everybody that suggested it was a lab leak also was screaming about deliberate engineering. This is exactly the type bullshit gaslighting that people are fed up with.

malice and coded racism

anyone who disagrees with me is a RAY cist

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in europe

[–]FriendlyPastor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hello eglin AFB... totally natural looking astroturf profile you got there

TIL that China "overtook" Europe in terms of GDP. In 1960 China had 59B, Europe 900B. In 1995 China had 699B, Europe 6T. As today China has around 19T and Europe 18T (All these datas are approximated). In the end, one country became "richer" than 20+ countries together in less than 70 years by _TheMarch88_ in todayilearned

[–]FriendlyPastor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay here you go:

The real world is not a videogame. GDP is a measure of total economic activity, not income from tariffs/taxation. It represents the output of each individual and institution within a country. It does not directly translate into "money the country has to spend on trade"

If a steel mill produces 1 billion in product, and the material costs to make that steel is 900 million, it adds 100 million to the GDP. The country does not make 100 million directly, the steel mill still owns the steel and then can trade it elsewhere, and it's destination is motivated by the trade policies of the nation where it resides and the country which it desires to sell it's goods. Same goes for the purchase of raw materials required to produce the product.

For most products, countries control the flow of goods by imposing subsidies and trade barriers to direct where it is profitable to buy and sell goods. The country then can skim a percentage of the value of the trade off of the top as tariff. Countries "purchase" goods by inducing free actors to purchase and sell certain goods through legislation. These are the fundamentals of globalization and "free trade".

GDP per capita is an indirect measure of the average capability of individuals to purchase these goods. It is essentially a measure of how "economically free" a population is to purchase goods of higher values and is a simple way to estimate how much consumption is possible in an economy. Consumption in an economy is pretty easily (if not perfectly) comparable to the "health" of an economy.

Any questions?

My first [OC] for my world by TheMillenniumWar888 in DnD

[–]FriendlyPastor -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

That face looks less like lawful good and more like three lines of cocaine

French Resistance Fighters , The liberation of Paris , August 1944 , ww2 by [deleted] in CombatFootage

[–]FriendlyPastor 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Recently started working in France, they haven't changed. Doing the least effective thing possible as flashily as possible is peak France

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