I can't for the life of me figure out why people aren't more up in arms about the covid thing.

Because it requires having some insight and understanding into a thing that few people have insight and understanding into. More than that, the "insight and understanding" organization tasked with this is the CDC, and they straight whiffed every decision for like 18 months straight. Science was politicized, everyone could find an expert to point to, and when the truth goes against the consensus everyone shuts the fuck up lest they be given a tinfoil hat.

In a free and open society, "the consensus view" is almost always "the true and accurate view." Thus, going against consensus is a lot of fucking work. And at the time, scuttling China was not seen as the sort of thing the world's economies could handle.

I'm sure there are things that go on behind the scenes we'll never be aware of.

Yeah so funny story.

Once upon a time there were two pariah states. We were big buddies with both of them. Both of them practiced apartheid. Both of them were essential to our military-industrial complex. And both of them got together and tested an atomic bomb.

Now here's the thing. The Carter administration knew dead to rights that it was South African uranium - we'd caught them dead to rights enriching them. Not that they really needed it - Israel had smuggled about 200 lbs of uranium out of Pennsylvania by then. And the Carter administration knew dead to rights it was EG&G krytrons smuggled out of the US by Arnon Milchan. We put someone in prison for it. But we had JUST banned any aid whatsoever from going to any nation engaged in nuclear proliferation just a year previously.

So the nuke wasn't a nuke. Full stop.

Had a cat once. We moved houses and the new house had a lot of trees. Cat was looking out the window and sees a squirrel climb a tree - and he's so excited. Starts making this weird meowing. Definitely wants to be let out. it was snowy and idyllic and picturesque and the squirrel was really cute, up there on the tree and we're all watching it and

- WHOOM -

big black cat comes ripping out of the bushes and totally misses the squirrel.

Squirrel is laughing at the cat from a higher branch. I'm laughing at the cat from the living room not 10 feet away. My sister is laughing. My mother is laughing. Cat's got his ears back. He's not laughing.

He never saw another squirrel. From then until the day he died, that cat never saw another squirrel out that window. You could point his head at them and he'd look away.