Source: The Future of Freedom Foundation.

This story intrigues me because of the proposition that the CIA’s charter could be greatly simplified, and that restricting the CIA’s mission to intelligence only was actually considered at one time.

Theoretically, at least, we would all be better served by a CIA that operated under a Star Trek-like “prime directive” of non-interference in shaping world events. One can readily imagine the moral hazard that arises from covert operations, particularly those that seek to bring about regime change in other countries. For example, if the CIA can topple governments of other nations, what’s to stop it from toppling our own?

Source: LifeSite.

Allegations that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, was created in a lab popped up almost as soon as the pandemic began. Many have been easy to dismiss, but not this one, as the source explains.

Whether SARS-CoV-2 is natural or man-made may seem to be merely an academic question. The simple fact of the virus’s existence probably matters far more to most of us. Still, as they say, the truth shall set you free.

The possibility that SARS-CoV-2 is man-made appears to be firming up as time goes by. The question bears watching.

Source (behind paywall): Wall Street Journal.

That the Trump administration did little or nothing to prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic is a recurring and false criticism. Commentary in today’s Wall Street Journal describes proactive measures the administration took to prepare for vaccine development months before the Wuhan virus became known.

Continue reading “The White House Prepared for a Pandemic” →

Source: ResearchGate.

ABSTRACT
It has been claimed that left-wingers or liberals (US sense) tend to more often suffer from mental illness than right-wingers or conservatives. This potential link was investigated using the General Social Survey cumulative cross-sectional dataset (1972-2018). A search of the available variables resulted in 5 items measuring one’s own mental illness (e.g., ”Do you have any emotional or mental disability?”). All of these items were weakly associated with left-wing political ideology as measured by self-report, with especially high rates seen for the “extremely liberal” group. These results mostly held up in regressions that adjusted for age, sex, and race. For the variable with the most data (n = 11,338), the difference in the mental illness measure between “extremely liberal” and “extremely conservative” was 0.39 d. Temporal analysis showed that the relationship between mental illness, happiness, and political ideology has existed in the GSS data since the 1970s and still existed in the 2010s. Within-study meta-analysis of all the results found that extreme liberals had a 150% increased rate of mental illness compared to moderates. The finding of increased mental illness among left-wingers is congruent with numerous findings based on related constructs, such as positive relationships between conservatism, religiousness and health in general.

Continue reading “Mental Illness and the Left” →

Source: American Thinker.

Since first hearing this story last night, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Media in general have become so unreliable, so duplicitous, that it is now standard procedure to wait for the headline in one news cycle to be disproved in the next.

Source: American Thinker.

You’d think the Hippocratic Oath would have prevented the medical mistreatment of patients with body dysphoria, or that science — true to it’s own analytical nature — would have proceeded more cautiously. But ours already is a dystopian world.

Continue reading “A psychiatric journal made a big mistake about transgender surgery” →

Source: GlobalResearch.

I haven’t paid much attention to anti-vaxxers, so some of the things RFK Jr. had to say were news to me:

Continue reading “Kennedy Jr. Warns Parents About Danger of Using Largely Untested COVID Vaccines on Kids” →

Source: Frontpage Mag.

The inimitable Daniel Greenfield points out the obvious, but I doubt the mob-minded are capable of grasping it.

Source: The Market Ticker.

I know nothing about the writer and the venue in which his comments appear. Also, I’m not qualified to evaluate the quality of his argument. Still, I find the hypothesis intriguing: Covid-19 is “being spread in the medical environment — specifically, in the hospitals — not, in the main, on the beach or in the bar.”

Continue reading “Hypothesis: Hospitals ARE The Vector @RealDonaldTrump” →

Source: The Unz Review.

I remain shy about claiming Sweden’s Covid-19 response has been a success. Maybe we’ll know for sure a year from now, or a year or two after that.

Nevertheless, it is hard to argue with Sweden’s death chart that tops the article. As a bonus, the piece reveals New York Times failures in reporting the Swedish experience. The juxtaposition is between Nature and artifice.