Sorry to beat the same drum over and over, but...
This Youtuber is clearly on the opposite of the political spectrum as me, and he is nasty in his comments about Republicans, but I have independently come to the same conclusions as him regarding the origins of COVID-19, and about Fauci. Although the video is from today, I was privately making all the same points yesterday.
I want to point out that if we have questions about any scientific topic, we can quickly get answers by searching Google for scientific papers regarding the topic. It only takes a minute or two.
Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear some conspiracy theory that isn't supported by scientific research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWxqBaWt5uY&t=368s
There was only so much of the video I was willing to watch, since I had already researched all of this, and the presenter can be a little annoying. I was only interested in the first 32 minutes.
Until recently, I considered the lab leak and lab origin theories plausible, especially since I don't trust the Chinese Communist Party and what they may be up to. However, COVID-19 is the most studied disease in history, and I have recently come across scientific papers that show strong evidence that COVID-19 came from natural origins. It also doesn't match what an engineered virus would look like nor anything being worked on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Reportedly, the Chinese government takes virus research seriously because they know that they are vulnerable. The Wuhan lab is reportedly one of the best in the world.
In a May 2021 Senate hearing, Rand Paul asked Anthony Fauci a single question designed to create a conspiracy theory that has almost become accepted as fact five years later. Trump and certain government departments support this conspiracy theory. He asked Fauci if he still supported Gain of Function research at the Wuhan lab. Fauci responded that Paul didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
I've come to the conclusion that Fauci was right. Rand Paul was trying to create the impression that Fauci was funding dangerous Gain of Function research that created the COVID-19 virus which then leaked from the Wuhan lab. Every single point is wrong...
The Eco Health Alliance is a non-profit environmental organization, formerly run by Peter Daszak, which became concerned about dangerous pandemics. The organization funded research about animal viruses, especially in bats. The NIH, run by Fauci, gave the Eco Health Alliance 16.1 million dollars to do research. They in turn gave the Wuhan Institute of Virology $600,000 over several years to catalog bat viruses. I read the grant, and there is nothing in it about Gain of Function Research.
What the Wuhan lab did was to take the SARS-1 virus, because it is something that they could replicate in the lab and had plenty of experience working with, and attached bat virus spike proteins to it to see how it affected transmissibility. The NIH claims that this is not Gain of Function research because it made the viruses less transmissible. However, this seems like an argument over semantics, because what if they had created a more infectious virus?
The SARS-1 virus used by the lab is not related to the SARS-2 virus that we call COVID-19. The research that we know about would not have created COVID-19. There is no way to know for sure whether China may have been doing other research that we don't know about, possibly in other labs, but the evidence strongly suggests that COVID-19 has a natural origin.
Peter Daszek has received multiple death threats and fake Anthrax in the mail over the perception that he helped create the pandemic.
What Rand Paul is doing is using Fauci as a scapegoat in an election year to persuade people to his side. It is very unlikely that Fauci would be convicted of anything, even Contempt of Congress, because Paul has created a hostile environment by repeatedly threatening to throw Fauci in prison.
Almost daily I hear people say that Fauci lied. About what exactly? I can't find a single statement he made that was a lie at the time he made it. The situation changed a great deal as the virus spread and mutated, and this sometimes caused Fauci to modify his positions.
Sunday, August 9, 2026
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic
Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic and that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from activities associated with the live wildlife trade there. Spatial analyses within the market show that SARS-CoV-2–positive environmental samples, including cages, carts, and freezers, were associated with activities concentrated in the southwest corner of the market. This is the same section where vendors were selling live mammals, including raccoon dogs, hog badgers, and red foxes, immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple positive samples were taken from one stall known to have sold live mammals, and the water drain proximal to this stall, as well as other sewerages and a nearby wildlife stall on the southwest side of the market, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (24).
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715
Does the original constitution make the vice president president if the president dies?
No, the original text of the Constitution was unclear on whether the vice president actually became the new president or just took over the powers and duties as an acting president. This ambiguity was permanently resolved by the 25th Amendment in 1967.
Original text (Article II, Section 1, Clause 6): Stated that the powers and duties of the office would shift to the vice president, leaving it open to debate whether they assumed the actual title and office.
The Tyler Precedent (1841): Established the real-world custom when William Henry Harrison died; John Tyler took the oath of office and claimed the full presidency, setting a standard everyone followed.
Formal Clarification (25th Amendment): Stated explicitly that the vice president officially becomes the president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office
Original text (Article II, Section 1, Clause 6): Stated that the powers and duties of the office would shift to the vice president, leaving it open to debate whether they assumed the actual title and office.
The Tyler Precedent (1841): Established the real-world custom when William Henry Harrison died; John Tyler took the oath of office and claimed the full presidency, setting a standard everyone followed.
Formal Clarification (25th Amendment): Stated explicitly that the vice president officially becomes the president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office
Saturday, August 8, 2026
Protestors
While driving home I saw protestors half a mile from my house on National Road in Columbus, Indiana. They were holding up signs facing the opposite direction from me. I thought that maybe it was a labor strike, but I couldn't contain my curiosity so I drove around the block just so I could read their signs.
Their signs said things like...
"No more endless wars"
"Stop the killing"
"Honk for peace."
I heard one vehicle honk their horn.
Friday, August 7, 2026
Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a Midwest victory for the left
“You go to these cities that are taken over by the socialists and the communists, they’re always filthy, dirty. They’re disgusting,” Trump claimed in the interview. He added, “Aside from crime, aside from all of the other problems — no jobs, no anything, no money — they’re always filthy, disgusting, dirty, and that’s what you’ll get.”
El-Sayed has not been endorsed by the DSA, but democratic socialist lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have campaigned for him. El-Sayed has told The Wall Street Journal that he is “not technically or practically DSA.”
Rogers and national Republicans had signaled that they consider El-Sayed an easier opponent than Stevens. The National Republican Senatorial Committee went so far as to produce a digital ad emphasizing El-Sayed’s progressive credentials and endorsement from Sanders
El-Sayed has not been endorsed by the DSA, but democratic socialist lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have campaigned for him. El-Sayed has told The Wall Street Journal that he is “not technically or practically DSA.”
Rogers and national Republicans had signaled that they consider El-Sayed an easier opponent than Stevens. The National Republican Senatorial Committee went so far as to produce a digital ad emphasizing El-Sayed’s progressive credentials and endorsement from Sanders
The Internet Is Dying And No One Seems To Care
Please give this video three minutes:
Youtube recommended to me a bunch of fake Victor Davis Hanson videos. His real page can be found here.
Even worse are all the fake Richard Feynman videos, and there are a ton of them.
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
The Venus Project And The Resource-Based Economy
7 years ago (edited)
The definition of capitalism is that the means of production are privately owned. Since when has it ever worked to have the means of production publicly owned? I'm not talking about services that protect our rights or public works like roads, but 100% of the means of production. How would you like to live in the Soviet Union?
Having a free market means that you are free to make choices; the opposite is tyranny. Suppose you want to start a business. You might not be allowed because your business doesn't fit the official paradigm. Besides, you have no money to invest and no medium of exchange with which to conduct business. You are completely dependent on the state to make decisions for you. Some think it is fairer if the system is "democratic," but tyranny is still tyranny. There is no room for innovators like Steve Jobs in such a society.
Suppose you want to own a yacht or eat steak every day for breakfast. There are never going to be infinite resources that allow everyone to own a yacht and eat steak. Either nobody has these luxuries, or there are those who are arbitrarily rewarded by the political system, making them the privileged class. It would be nearly impossible to earn these things through your own efforts unless those efforts were in service to someone more powerful than you. In a free market, these things are decided by the choices people make about whom they want to give their money to. Voluntary exchanges, as opposed to involuntary ones imposed by the state, reward those who provide the most value to other people.
A society in which you have no ability to improve your lot in life beyond what the state allows is, by definition, a slave state. Impose a one-size-fits-all lifestyle on everyone, and people will immediately begin to rebel against it.
Communism and its variants are not just as corrupt as capitalism, but always more so. People resent that, in a free market, some people end up much better off than others, but disparities in wealth are never eliminated under the various forms of communism. Instead, the poor often end up worse off. Allowing some people to be more successful than others in a free market is an essential motivator for innovation, investment, and hard work.
People respond to incentives in just about everything they do, including whether they work, how much they work, and for whom they work. Incentives also influence what people choose to spend their money on.
Money is essential for managing scarce resources. Prices change according to the laws of supply and demand, and prices send critically important signals about how resources should be managed. Suppose there is a temporary shortage of orange juice and the price goes up. People will switch to something cheaper, like grape juice. When eggs are cheap, more people will eat eggs. When eggs are expensive, more people will eat something else. Eliminate money, and resources will immediately become mismanaged. There is no way that centralized control, automated or otherwise, can properly decide how many resources to allocate and use. State control is never as effective as individuals deciding for themselves how best to serve their own needs. State control will result in shortages like those we have seen in Venezuela. Black markets will form because people prefer to make their own choices.
Monday, August 3, 2026
Joe Biden confessed to his crimes, and now we have the tapes
Even after the report, Biden was still denying that he had retained classified material, even though he had discussed that classified material with his ghostwriter years earlier and had admitted as much to Hur. But before the public, Biden declared, “I’ve seen headlines since the report was released about my willful retention of documents. This assertion is not only misleading, it’s just plain wrong.”
Sunday, August 2, 2026
Biden on Milton Friedman
For example, as a candidate for president in 2020, Joe Biden told Politico, “I think there’s going to be a willingness to fix some of the institutional inequities that have existed for a long time. Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.”
Instead, Mr. Biden ran the show—and delivered the worst inflation in 40 years.
Vance and Mamdani Both Think Friedman Was Wrong—and Both Are Mistaken - WSJ
Instead, Mr. Biden ran the show—and delivered the worst inflation in 40 years.
Vance and Mamdani Both Think Friedman Was Wrong—and Both Are Mistaken - WSJ
Saturday, August 1, 2026
Bill Gates donated $60 billion — and lost $356 billion.
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/bill-gates-donated-60-billion-143500991.html
I read somewhwere that Bill Gates plans to donate the rest of his fortune by the year 2045.
Gates developed such a bad reputation as a ruthless businessman, I wonder if part of his motivation is to improve his image?
Friday, July 31, 2026
U.S. asylum approvals hit two-decade low under Trump changes
"All of these individuals are trying to open up, share the traumatic events of where they were persecuted or have a future, and have a fair and honest review of their matter. But the rules have changed and very few are going to see approvals," she said.
President Trump's focus on immigration enforcement was clear when he returned to the White House last year: within hours of taking office, he declared a national emergency over what he described as an invasion at the southern border
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/30/nx-s1-5891889/trump-asylum-program-changes-charts
President Trump's focus on immigration enforcement was clear when he returned to the White House last year: within hours of taking office, he declared a national emergency over what he described as an invasion at the southern border
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/30/nx-s1-5891889/trump-asylum-program-changes-charts
Why Fauci's Pardon Won't Protect Him From This
Rand Paul is using Fauci as a punching bag, trying to implicate Fauci for the pandemic, implying that it was created in a lab, to which Fauci provided a modest amount of funding to catalog bat viruses. However, none of this is supported by evidence, so this is just a witch hunt.
Many conservative commentators that I like regularly make statements about the pandemic that aren't supported by research. The truth is that masks and the vaccines slowed the spread of the disease. I have read the studies. The truth is that the vaccines reduced overall mortality at all ages.
Fauci deserves at least some credit for dealing with a major crisis under difficult circumstances. Instead, people want to condemn him over actions they find questionable. It is easy to second-guess people when you are not the one facing tremendous responsibility.
Many conservative commentators that I like regularly make statements about the pandemic that aren't supported by research. The truth is that masks and the vaccines slowed the spread of the disease. I have read the studies. The truth is that the vaccines reduced overall mortality at all ages.
Fauci deserves at least some credit for dealing with a major crisis under difficult circumstances. Instead, people want to condemn him over actions they find questionable. It is easy to second-guess people when you are not the one facing tremendous responsibility.
Thursday, July 30, 2026
The toll of the UK heatwaves has been revealed
@john2001plus
The lesson to learn is not that the temperature is one degree celsius warmer. The lesson to learn is that Europe shuns air conditioning, sometimes because of Climate Alarmism. People need to be responsible for their lives and cool their homes, and if they can't afford it, then their governments have a responsibility to take action.
Cold kills far more people than heat. About a hundred times as many people in Europe die from cold each year.
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
What Happens When All the Baby Boomers Are Gone?
The bottom line is that the video predicts that 95% of the Baby Boomers will die in the next 20 years. Since this is the largest generation by population, with the most wealth by generation, and reportedly the generation with the most real world experience, he argues that this will have a profound effect on society, even in just the next decade.
Maybe we should be concerned about the demand on health care during the next two decades.
I think that the changes will be less sudden than he predicts and more gradual.
I'm more concern about the political upheaval in just the next few years. We have seen the rise of the socialist if not communist left. This support comes almost entirely from the young, who seem to me to not know their ass from a hole in the ground.
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
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