“China eats weird animals disease”

My wife is a wonderful woman, but she has horrible taste in television. She, at times, will acknowledge this shortcoming as “guilty pleasures.”

One of her favorite streaming “programs” is the hospital drama “New Amsterdam.” It’s god-awful. More unreal than reality TV. This woke piece of soap opera pabulum is utterly unwatchable. Every once in a while, perhaps to punish me for crimes I am not aware I have committed, she will turn “New Amsterdam” on the bedroom TV before we go to sleep. When the latest overwrought episode mercifully comes to an end, I ask the love of my life the same two questions: Why do you hate me, and where do I go to get the last hour of my life back?

COVID-19, which killed 1.1 million Americans and destroyed the lives and livelihoods of millions more, is a manmade virus that escaped from a Chinese lab partly funded by the US government.

Even today, you’re not supposed to say that — even though it’s the only plausible scenario.

No, “fact checkers” will rush in to claim that eminent scientists deny this. Which is because those scientists have too much invested — in money, in time, in their own beliefs — to admit the truth.

A Chinese journalist who was due to be released from prison has disappeared after serving a sentence for reporting on the initial outbreak of coronavirus, campaigners say.

Zhang Zhan, 40, travelled to Wuhan, the pandemic’s presumed origin, as the virus began to spread in early 2020.

She was due to be freed from Shanghai women’s prison on Monday after a four-year sentence, but she has not responded to attempts to contact her. Her family said it was “not convenient” to reply to requests for information, often a sign that people have been put under pressure by the police.

Two of the key figures in the story of Covid’s origins gave away vital new information last week before the US Congress.

One of these figures is Ralph Baric, the University of North Carolina professor who invented ingenious techniques for genetically altering coronaviruses. He effectively taught scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China how to do ‘gain of function’ experiments with bat-derived sarbecoviruses to make them more infectious or lethal in humanised mice. The other figure is Peter Daszak, the highly paid president of the non-profit, EcoHealth Alliance. Over many years, EcoHealth Alliance has channelled large sums of US taxpayer money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for ‘gain of function’ experimentation, and for finding new sarbecoviruses in bats.

h/t XC

The Landgericht Koblenz court in western Germany announced on Friday that it had accepted the charges against the trio.

They are accused of forming a group they called “Paladin” that allegedly planned to offer armed resistance to COVID-related “lockdowns” and other restrictions in Germany.

Prosecutors allege that the three men took part in paramilitary-style training exercises between February and May of 2021 and also that they used 3D printing to generate makeshift weapon parts and ammunition.

How can a vaccine that was once actively promoted by the Government and celebrated with knighthoods, standing ovations and even Barbie dolls rapidly lose its credibility? Although the company claims it’s due to commercial reasons, early indications of potentially harmful side-effects were overlooked, resulting in significant costs to patients and its ultimate downfall.