It isn't just Sweden and even where you may have some questions about the data, it is no small thing for countries which put fewer restrictions to have rates which are of the same magnitude as those with heavier restrictions, given the huge costs.
(puts on tinfoil hat): the cia could have done it in order to display the over-reliance of supply chains on China causing a correction to more robustness. Plus they get to roll out some new tech and divert a bunch of money to their friends. (takes off tinfoil hat): bats are gross and labs are very leaky. hanlon's razor says something stupid happened.
It is you who brought up that hypothetical of a deliberate leak (when referencing "people youve met), not me. It is veey unlikely it was deliberate. What probably was deliberate is the initial Chinese response, deleting data, not being open, other aspects of their response. For this there should be consequences, but of course they don't have to mean anything like war.
No, I don't think it is remotely likely they did it on purpose. But if it were proved absolutely they did, then I don't think retaliation would be off the table, which is what I responded to. The virus was most likely either natural or an accidental lab leak (I lean slightly towards latter). If anyone released it on purpose, which is unlikely, China's government would not even be my first bet...I am simply saying that if it were found a government entity anywhere did release a massively transmissible bioweapon on purpose, then I think a grave response would be warranted despite possible huge risks.
It doesn't sound like you really know what you are talking about, but are just here to try to flame war. Plenty of credible people in biomedical fields believe it is possible the virus was engineered and have published about why...it isnt really worth responding to that claim, you can just look it up. As for the other claim, yes the binding affinity to ACE2 is lower in original SARS and this probably limited it as well as other attributes of that virus:
"Although the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV S proteins are similar, the binding affinity of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein to the ACE2 receptor is much higher as compared to SARS-CoV, which may account for its increased transmissibility."
It is possible the reorganisation of supply chains post covid will be punishment enough in the long run. But a government that would unleash a biological attack on the world (not claiming they actually did, idk more than anyone else) is an existential threat itself. So an international effort of sanctions and pressure for regime change even at great risk might make sense, yes. A war would probably not risk ending civilisation more than a government which releases deadly bioweapons.
SARS cov 1 never caused a global pandemic. There were less than 10,000 cases and less than 1000 deaths. It wasn't specifically engineered to easily bind to human receptors, so this probably limited its reach.
Not really relevant. A plumber may have the human right to work (granting such a thing makes any sense for arguments sake), but if someone pays him to cut off the water supply to a neighbourhood, he can hardly defend himself by invoking that right. Someone who is paid to agitate---I dont know if they can then invoke the human right to protest. Is that really in the spirit of law?
Joe Biden could do this and get away with it. Arguably Obama did, as stated above---there might be better examples. If Charles tried, no one would probably listen, and even if he did, once word got out it would probably actually be the end of the monarchy. Charles is not a dictator, autocrat or anything else. And in fact the US president, though elected, is much further along the spectrum towards autocrat than the British monarch. Many actual autocrats are in fact elected, so this distinction isn't really important anyway.
Where is the dictator or "autocrat"? It doesn't meet either definition at all. I am not here to defend these laws in general, but I don't think ensuring no disruptions to the coronation has much to do with them (they used them against maybe 6 people and didnt even charge all of them?). And I don't think it is indicative of anything like fascism. It might be indicative of something else bad that is happening in the UK political body.
People use "literally" to mean "figuratively", as well. It doesn't help discussion to allow the blurring of distinctions.
In the context of this thread, there seems to be the implication that the new laws the UN is objecting to have something to do with the arrests of protestors. After some digging, I can't find evidence that more than a few people (6) were arrested under that law (which generally seems rather bad)? And these people weren't even all charged? It seems to centre around the claimed possession of devices to lock themselves to things in public. Arresting a handful of people you think are maybe going to chain themselves to infrastructure to disrupt an internationally important event---maybe the government didnt act the best here but this hardly seems indicative of a great threat to human rights or a rise of fascism in the UK. I would personally worry more about airport security.
Something interesting here is whether your right to protest extends to being paid to protest. If it can be shown an NGO is paying you to engage in a disruptive protest, are you really exercising some kind of human right? IDK, that seems new. It doesn't strike me as being in the spirit of the protected right.
Do you actually think preventing disruptions to the coronation is an indication the British government is becoming Fascist? Fascism has other attributes. Is there a dictatorial power emerging in Britain? Is there an increase in militarism? Is there even a right wing government (no)? Is the government expressing ideas of a natural social hierarchy (no...some of the opposition may be). Whatever is going on, fascism is not the right word.
There is also not a really deep right to protest in British law. The right to protest comes from their signing the European convention on human rights (they have some law called Human Rights Act). It is not enshrined fundamentally as in the United States afaik.
Doing one thing that fascist government's sometimes do does not make you a fascist government. The UK might be tending toward fascism, but not allowing disruptive protests of the coronation is not really an indicator one way or the other. The king is certainly not a dictator, having little power at all.
These laws in general may qualify but specifically is it really fascist not to tolerate protest of the coronation in a monarchy? It isn't fascist just to have rules.
I mean TSMC would likely burn everything to the ground. It seems more like no one would have the chips, until the US onshores the capability, which seems much less than 20 years away.
Re throwing money at a problem and getting no results because of bad administration of funds---this is definitely what we have been doing in education and we should stop. Arguments to give more money to the same people to do the same things are going to go poorly with increasingly large amounts of the broader populace--this may not stop the government from doing it though.
I am not going to pretend to know the details of California school funding. But broadly speaking schools which get less local funding usually get more funding from state and federal sources. And the national average per pupil differences between the poorest and richest school districts are really not that large, but these numbers are very tricky (much more spent in nyc than idaho, etc.). Some anecdotes: recently there was a viral video of a school in Indiana, I think Carmel. Everyone was very impressed by the school facilities and it seemed to confirm the prior that rich kids get more funds. But then it turned out the average spending per pupil at that school is less than half the per pupil spending of DC public schools. Now there may be good reasons DC would spend more (COL etc.), but even adjusting for that the spending wouldn't be that different. Carmel just spends the money better. Anecdote 2: I have taught school in rural areas at schools which are absolutely poor in terms of facilities and everything else. I don't think tripling the spending per student would have done anything at all to change outcomes there...the students could usually not make it through a 40 min lesson without attacking each other or totally disrupting things. No reasonable amount of money would have changed this. It is not that expensive to educate a kid, you just need to feed them and teach them things that have been known for hundreds or thousands of years from old books. What is going wrong, I think, does not have to do with differences in school funding.
I think Obama's legacy is yet to be understood. Something like "the inspirational power of the symbol of a black president" is difficult to measure. The worsening race relations and their societal impacts (and their causes) since he took office is also hard to measure. Im curious what your evidence is to say "it seems very important for inspiring US blacks in general". Inspiring them to do what? And how is this quantified? (I guess by asking people "who is your hero" or something).