PA Media:
The UK proposes legislation to outlaw creating sexually explicit deepfake photos without consent, regardless of whether creators intended to share the images — Offenders could face jail if image is widely shared under proposed amendment to criminal justice bill
A while back, I asked Unreported Truths readers what stories you wanted me to press.
I was somewhat surprised to hear most of you didn’t care about Covid’s origins. You thought the question wasn’t worth our time, because anyone paying attention has known since 2020 that Sars-Cov-2 almost surely escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology following botched Chinese lab work.
As Jon Stewart - hardly a conservative - said in June 2021:
‘Oh, my God, there’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do?’ ‘Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.’ The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird, don’t you think?
“And then they ask those scientists, ‘So wait a minute, you work at the Wuhan respiratory coronavirus lab? How did this happen?' And they’re like, ‘Ooh, a pangolin kissed a turtle?’ ”
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(Help me continue the conversation. For 20 cents a day.)
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You were (half)-right.
The evidence for a lab leak is now overwhelming, thanks to the release of grant proposals and emails from Americans connected with the Wuhan laboratory, as well as technical work that shows how Sars-Cov-2 was likely assembled.
No one talks about trying to find the natural animal host of Sars-Cov-2 anymore. The virologists must have realized they sounded as absurd as O.J. Simpson when he promised to find his ex-wife’s real killer. (Rest in peace, O.J. And by peace, I mean hell.)
So why I have picked up the chase again?
After all, articles like yesterday’s about coronavirus researcher Dr. Ralph Baric and Friday’s focusing on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s denial of knowing Baric are time-consuming to research and write. I try to make them accessible, but the details of Baric’s work have an irreducible scientific complexity that can make them hard to read.
And for all the work they take, they can generate fewer comments or likes than other articles.
So why do I think this line of investigation is more important than ever?
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First, the truth is coming out.
A ragtag group of civilian detectives armed with little more than Freedom of Information Act requests has unlocked the connections between American scientists and the Chinese lab. Their progress comes despite stonewalling (and flat-out lying) by nearly everyone involved and the media’s studied disinterest.
More recently a handful of Congressional investigators with subpoena power have joined the chase. On May 1, a House committee will hear testimony from Peter Daszak, who along with Baric served as the crucial link between American researchers and the Wuhan lab. And on Tuesday, the committee subpoenaed an advisor to Fauci after finding evidence that he had used his personal Gmail account to hide emails about Covid that federal records laws should have covered.
It is safe to assume the Chinese will never be honest about what happened in Wuhan, but that doesn’t mean American investigators cannot keep digging.
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(Bat boy, bat boy, what you gonna do when they come for you?)
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Second, the origins matter going forward.
In the very unlikely event Sars-Cov-2 was natural, the world should redouble its efforts to find and defang similar coronaviruses. Scientists and governments should continue animal research and explore the caves where the bats that harbor so many coronaviruses live. They should even run carefully controlled gain-of-function experiments that will give us insight into how dangerous these viruses may become.
But if, as is far more likely, Sars-Cov-2 is lab-created or manipulated, we will have to consider not just coronavirus research but a broad swath of virology research, particularly on flu. International monitoring similar to that the world uses to manage nuclear programs may be necessary. Perhaps all forms of dangerous private gain-of-function research should be outlawed and respiratory viruses treated akin to chemical and nuclear weapons.
Such rules would be technically complicated to write, much less monitor or enforce. Many virologists will protest any efforts to restrict their research, just as they did a decade ago when this debate first erupted.
Still, if we learn beyond doubt that the deadliest pandemic in more than a century resulted from laboratory work, we will have no choice but to act.
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(Nice to see the world’s most powerful private citizen hasn’t forgotten the truth. Thanks Elon!)
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Finally, even if Chinese malfeasance means the investigation into Covid’s origins cannot reach a definite answer, it is only one of three separate coverups.
The first, which for now appears to be primarily Chinese but may have been aided by Western researchers, is of the actual origins of Sars-Cov-2 in 2019.
The second, which is the primary current focus, is the concerted effort in 2020 to steer investigations away from the possibility that Sars-Cov-2 did not have natural origins by calling such speculation conspiratorial and racist. That investigation clearly aims primarily at American scientists (including Daszak, who is British but lives in the United States) who must answer to American subpoenas. Thus it has a real chance of reaching definite conclusion.
The third - which does not appear criminal but is a massive journalistic scandal - is the elite media’s unwillingness to investigate either of the first two coverups, even as evidence of both pours out.
That offense is ongoing. And it doesn’t look like it will end anytime soon.
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(I need your help. For 20 cents a day.)
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And so I think this is the moment to push hard on the lab leak - and hope that the wall of silence and deceit built by the world’s top coronavirus researchers and the bureaucrats at the National Institutes of Health finally cracks.
I hope you will bear with me.
Благодаря Кате Марголис (!) прочитала интервью режиссера Вернера Херцога, объясняющего корреспонденту почему у каждого россиянина в машине стоит видеорегистратор: «это наследие экономической катастрофы ельцинских времен. Ельцин продал страну организованной преступности, именовавшей себя олигархами. В результате полиция не получала зарплату. Вот едет россиянин на зеленый свет, а полицейский его останавливает и говорит - с тебя 10 баксов, ты проехал на красный. Россиянин отвечает: офицер, пройдемте в суд, у меня есть видеорегистратор. Но Путин эту ситуацию исправил. Теперь всем платят зарплаты - и полиции и учителям. И пенсии тоже платят. Так что не будем демонизировать Путина».
Напомню, что замечательный режиссер Херцог ещё Гитлера видел, ещё Клауса Кински снимал и вообще объехал весь белый свет раз 10. Ему точно можно верить.
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