Deliberate control of information & knowledge in Wikipedia's "Origin of Covid" page

 

I use Wikipedia with some regularity, and often include links to it when I leave comments on certain topics. However, I have noticed that the more politically significant and controversial the topic, the less likely it is that entries are fair, accurate and balanced. I first noticed this when reading biographies of contemporary politcians. I rarely edit Wiki, but one of the then-Dem candidates in a local primary had a bio that contained what I knew to be untruths. I was able to start a discussion page on this, and some of the untruths were removed after a I presented evidence. It wasn't as easy as I'd imagined, but far from impossible to edit as the open source model is intended to work. Since then, I've seen other cases like this in pages related not only to politicians, but also contemporary topics of political significance   One clear example of which I became aware recently is the origin of Covid 19. Type "wiki origin of covid" into your google search bar, and immediately you will see the following in enlarged print, with some clauses highlighted:

"Most scientists agree that, as with many other pandemics in human history, the virus is likely derived from a bat-borne virus transmitted to humans in a natural setting. Many other explanations, including several conspiracy theories, have been proposed." (Google search result)

 

Below the authoritative quote is a link to the Wikipedia page, "Origin of Covid-19," from which it comes.  The concluding sentence  of the opening paragraph of that page reads thus:

"Some scientists and politicians have speculated that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a laboratory. This theory is not supported by evidence. [followed by a supposedly corroborating footnote #15]"

A few questions:

1) Which scientists and politicians have "speculated" that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a laboratory?

2) What arguments and evidence did they adduce?

3) Are the arguments and evidence any less well supported than the Wuhan Meat Market/Natural Spillover explanation embraced in the article as *the* "scientific consensus?" 

Perhaps most importantly:

4) WHO are the sources for the conclusion that lab-leaks can be ruled out as "non-scientific" or "conspiracy theory?"

If we start with the last question, the WHO question, we will be led to discover the other answers.  So what is the source corresponding to footnote #15 which states "[lab-leak theory] is not supported by evidence."??

That footnote directs readers to a 2021 Cell article titled The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review. The lead author is Eddie Holmes, whose role in establishing the natural spillover as the "only" valid explanation has been discussed previously on this blog, including in an OP from earlier this week by Germaine which includes interview footage of Holmes interspersed with the contents of his own contradictory leaked Slack messages to the other scientists with whom he co-wrote the decisive article Proximate Origins of Covid 19 (PO)  that has come under fire by a rather large group of international scientists, several of whom have testified in Oversight Hearings on the topic. But it doesn't stop there. Having combed through many of the journal articles referenced by "the authorities" (gov't agencies like the NIH and MSM science journalists) the list of co-authors for A Critical Review (2021) includes a familiar cast of characters in the literature. 

All of the authors of PO are listed as co-authors in A Critical Review with the exception of Ian Lipkin, who stopped claiming that lab leak scenarios were all but impossible in 2021. The PO co-author said in a statement to the Washington Post in 2021:

“If they’ve got hundreds of bat samples that are coming in, and some of them aren’t characterized, how would they know whether this virus was or wasn’t in this lab? They wouldn’t.”

 Statements like that one by Lipkin provide one reason that his name is seldom invoked by his PO co-authors to debunk lab leak scenarios. Another, darker reason, is the fact that at Ian Lipkin failed to disclose the fact that he worked for the NIH-funded company, EcoHealth Alliance,  at the heart of the debate from 2012-2014, and co-authored at least 10 research paper with the group between 2011-2021. As US Right To Know journalist, Emily Kopp documented, at least one of these papers was on novel Coranaviruses that "EcoHealth and its partners sampled around the world." Between his distancing himself from conclusion of PO, and the fact that he failed to disclose conflict of interests, it's small wonder that his old establishment friends seldom bring him up. But, though PO is cited as evidence on the Wiki page, the ethical breach of Dr. Lipkin is not discussed, nor is the conflict of interest of  its lead-author, Kristian Andersen, who was awaiting an $8 mil. grant from the NIH while writing PO. The grant came through a few months after the March PO publication in August, 2020.

At any rate, Lipkin's reservations about the mainstream theory he helped to establish are not mentioned in Wikipedia's page. They are also left out of the paper Wiki cites in para 1which is supposedly fair and balanced, i.e. "A Critical Review." So we have Kristian Andersen (lead author of PO who testified last month that he "changed his mind from lab leak theory to natural spillover" in days based on "the scientific method." We have Robert Garry, another outspoken co-author whose Slack messages also reveal that in private he worried intensely about lab leak scenarios, like his colleague Kristian Andersen,  both before, during and after the Nature Medicine publishied PO.  The 2 scientists appeared together last month testifying before Congress. Both lied.

We NOW know (thanks to massive leaks of private messages discussed in several posts here) that Andersen and Garry (and the others)  bluntly contradict the conclusions of their own paper.Both continue to claim that their beliefs changed rapidly due to "the scientific process," even within a few short days. In the past, both spoke of "new evidence" they had discovered; but the "evidence" falls far short of justifying the conclusion of the article. Robert Garry was interviewed 9 months ago (BEFORE we had all the hundreds of messages he refers to throughout the interview). One email he wrote, though, had already been leaked. Written 2 days prior to the article, the email  bluntly states,  "I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature" (referring to the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 occurring without engineering). In the interview, he dances around questions asked, and among other things cites (dubious) evidence that was (mis)-used in 2020 to make the case. This "evidence" involved the hypothesis that pangolins were the intermediate host of the virus that became SARS2-CoV-2 because they have a particular receptor cite that might have helped to explain the jump from bats to humans. Garry, in 2022, brings that "evidence" up, and correctly, the interviewer states, "that proves nothing." At the time, it would not have been possible to quote Kristian Andersen (Garry's senior colleague) saying in a private message of that time period leaked last month the same exact thing:

"[T]he more sequences we see from Pangolins (and we have been analyzing/discussing these very carefully), the less likely it seems that they're the intermediate hosts. Unfortunately, none of this helps refute a lab leak origin and the possibility must be considered as a serious scientific theory (which is what we do), and not dismissed out of hand as another "conspiracy theory."

If that were not enough to make one skeptical of the claim that "pangolins were definitive evidence," there were biological and zoological reviews of such claims that pangolins concluding they were NOT  intermediate hosts. Here is one example from Oct., 2020-- 2 years prior to the interview with Garry below. Keep these things in mind as you watch Robert Garry talk about what was then a single leaked email in the following video interview. Garry swings  desperately from one rebuttal to another, citing"pangolins" as evidence, and even making the absurd claim (in light of all the other messages we now have) that he was "just playing devil's advocate" in that email. Since he and his colleagues from the PO paper, which was overseen by Fauci and Collins and WHO's Jeremy Ferrar in UK, are all listed as authors for the definitive paper cited in the opening paragraph of Wikipedia's article, it is more than fair to ask HOW these experts defend their own scientific authority on this topic. 

It is worth emphasizing that though Garry (above) says that Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins, and Jeremy Ferrar (all of whom were conferencing with the authors, providing feedback, advising revisions and word-choice substitutions as we now know from released texts) were "agnostic" and encouraged the writers to follow the evidence wherever it led. They were, in his words, completely
"hands off" on the writing of the exceedingly influential article. We now know this is tragically wrong. They are on the record in their own leaked private words,  and speak for themselves in the many transcripts. They also speak through Eddie Holmes who made final revisions to the paper without consulting "lead author" Kristian Andersen-- a major no-no in science. In order to explain such an unusual and anti-scientific maneuver, Holmes apologized in a message to Andersen emphasizing the role of  "pressure from the 'higher-ups.'

 

There is also damning circumstantial evidence of corruption and graft. Lead author, K Andersen, was -- at the time of writing PO-- applying for a grant from the NIH. Not only did he not announce a conflict of interests, but after the paper was published, his laboratory received an $8.9 million NIH grant in August of 2020.When Anthony Fauci cited the paper from  the podium of the White House, he claimed that the it showed that the data were “totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human,” all but completely ruling out lab origins. Kristian Andersen, in a euphoric mood, then tweeted, "We RUUUUUUUULE! That's tenure secured, right there." Remarkably, Andersen has only doubled down since, testifying under oath that his "change of mind" was "just a text book case of the scientific method." Garry was at his side concurring during that congressional hearing last month.

Investigative journalist, Emily Kopp of US Right To Know, and Biosafety Now!'s Dana Parrish both criticized Wikipedia for making the Origins of Covid-19 page all but impossible to edit, even by credentialed scientists who do not agree with the unscientific conclusion. Parrish claims that Wikipedia (it's "arbitration committee for contentious topics")  has given authority to virologist, James Duehr (Mt. Sinai/Icahan ) to control edits on that page.  This is his user page on Wikipedia as "Shibbolethink:" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shibbolethink  and this is his academic page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Duehr  The Wiki editing page is locked for almost all users, regardless of scientific background or affiliation. It is guarded by the strict protocols of "Contentious Topics," preventing changes or revisions (Dana Parish: Twitter, August 2).  No changes can be made without the express approval of the "Wikipedia Arbitration Committee" (see links at end of OP). James  Duehr, according to Parish, has been entrusted with overseeing the page. He has also spent a lot of time on Reddit trying to establish natural spillover as the official account of Covid 19 origins: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95 /covid19_did_not_come_from_the_wuhan_institute_of/    This is not open and transparent science, but evidence of a "mission" to cement into place an "official narrative" despite all the mounting counter-evidence. As Matt Ridley and Alina Chan write in the Wall St. Journal, Eddie Holmes-- who put the finishing touches on the paper without even consulting any other authors-- told the others how "happy" the "higher-ups" were with the results. They write:

"Shortly before their paper went public, evolutionary biologist and virologist Edward Holmes of Sydney University reported to his fellow authors that “Jeremy Farrar and Francis Collins are very happy” with the final draft. Two of the authors wrote in private messages that they had rushed their paper out under pressure from unidentified “higher-ups.” The role of these senior scientists went unacknowledged in the paper."(WSJ: 7/26/23)

In my research of this manufactured consensus, I found a small and recurring list of named authors and co-authors whose papers more often cite their *other papers* than any new laboratory or forensic evidence. The circularity is dizzying. In the Wikipedia page's short section on "Laboratory Incidents," we are told that all such theory is "highly contraversial" and lacks evidence. They make the very strong (but untrue) claim that:

"Available evidence suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was originally harbored by bats, and spread to humans from infected wild animals, functioning as an intermediate host, at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019."

This claim is backed by footnotes which direct readers to 2 "landmark origins studies published side by side in Science in July of 2022." The first one [which is discussed below] is  Michael Worobey's "The Huanan Seafoodo Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic"aand the second is The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2. The lead author of the latter is Jonathan Pekar , currently a Ph.D candidate at UCSD. It is striking that both papers list as co-authors all but one author of Proximal Origins, and several from A Critical Review (which also included all but one PO authors). (Ian Lipkin who no longer rules out lab leaks is the odd man out in all 3 articles). Specifically, the paper claiming definitively that the Meat Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the pandemic lists such familiar names as Robert Garry (interviewed in the above video) Eddie Holmes (PO and Critical Review author), Andrew Rambaut (co-author of PO and Critical Review), Kristian Andersen (lead PO author, co-author of Critical Review),  and Jonathan Pekar (the grad student credited as lead author of the other "landmark origins studies" footnoted).

A short list of the VIPs on that appear in the great majority of cited papers Wiki uses to disqualify "lab incidents"  would thus include ALL the  PO authors, Kristian Andersen, Robert Garry, Andrew Rambaut (but not, as mentioned Lipkin who changed his mind). It also includes scientists with whom those authors were closely affiliated including EcoHealth president, Peter Daszak, Jeremy Farrar, Angela Rasmussen, Michael Worobey, Susan Weiss and several others who have written "dispassionately" and served as primary sources for the media since 2020.

 

The Worobey study  claiming the Wuhan Market was definitely the "epicenter" of the outbreak was flawed, and has been criticized both by scientists and in a Washington Post editorial pointing out that there is no evidence provided there. The epidemiological mapping Worobey et al. relied upon drew on only  ~6% of the early Wuhan cases. Unscientifically, Worobey stated, "we assumed that the locations of the others would be the same." The Washington Post issued an editorial which harshly criticized the study . Worobey told WaPo:

 

"There's probably at least 10 times more cases that we haven't sampled because only something like 6 percent end up in the hospital. We fully expect the cases that we don't sample to come from exactly the same geographic distribution as the ones we do sample." (WaPo: 11/27/23)

That is not logical or scientific. Why would one expect that? Further, a geoscientist, Daniel A. Walker  showed that the map had been incorrectly interpreted in the study, and also by those who used it for further extrapolations. Nevertheless, it is still cited as "proof" of something for which no proof exists-- the origins of Covid-19, whether natural or research-related. 

The short list of VIPs who had a had in writing nearly all the 'authoritative' Origins studies in the Wiki article (and MSM) goes on.

Peter Dasziak who is president of the group that did the NIH funded research, and principal investigator, went on to play a major role in the World Health Organization 2022 "investigation of origins in China," along with Jeremy Farrar (a "higher-up" on the conference call over the PO article, and later the WHO 's Chief Scientist  . From government (Fauci, Collins on the conference call) to WHO (Jeremy Ferrar) to NIH-funded Wuhan experiments researcher (Peter Daszak of EcoHealth) to ex-employees of EcoHealth (Ian Lipkin) to scientists like MichaelWorobey, who (after Biden called for a new investigation into origins) provided psuedoscientific "evidence" in favor of natural spillover, to scientists in the same circles as the above,  such as Angela Rasmussen and Susan Weiss, whose names appear on several of the related journal articles in Science, as well as being heavily quoted by MSM articles. In short, what  we have here is a rather small, powerful special interest constellation which has taken advantage of its power to wall itself off from dissenting scientists and public health experts, establishing and (to this day)maintaining  the MSM "orthodox" narrative that consigns lab-based theories to the "fringe/conspiracy" category-- even when the national intelligence of this country is split on the question of origins,  and there are ongoing oversight hearings in Congress investigating the whole matter of the roles of Fauci, Collins and their leaked messages and communications with the authors of PO. 

 

A fair question would be, "Who did the Wikipedia cite in the "Lab Incidents" section of the article, or for that matter ANY section of it? The answer is exactly zero. Although they continue to update the page (I noted the inclusion of a NYT article penned 2 weeks ago by an EcoHealth ally David Quammen-- discussed last week in another post here. But so far, such eminent scientists (epidemiologists, virologists, molecular biologists etc.) as Raina MacIntyre, Richard Ebright, Bryce Nickels, Justin Kinney (featured last week here in a video interview from Australian TV) , Andre Goffinet, David Relman,  Michael Lipsitch and other leading specialists are not quoted or even mentioned at all. The group, Biosafety Now! (which includes some of those scientists)  and their ongoing petition to have PO retracted, and call for a new forensic investigation to restore public faith in science and implement regulations for dangerous Gain of Function research with potential pandemics is not mentioned either. The congressional testimony of Ebright on GoF studies in Wuhan given this past March is not mentioned either. All the evidence is tilted to the side of the virologists who carried out the work in question, and those in government who funded that work. This is scandalous.

I can't conclude from this that all, many or most other articles in Wiki involving large vested interests and political/state interests are also subject to epistemic manipulation. But the manufacture of consensus in this case provides-- at the very least-- a good reason to further research the topic of Wikipedia's treatment of  topics which are both consequential and controversial in such areas as science, politics and biographies, among others. We have learned, through the Covid-related leaks, that MSM and our own gov't cannot necessarily be trusted in the vital area of Public Health and safety. Perhaps it is not shocking, then, to learn that the most widely used encyclopedia in the world has been equally partial in the Origins of Covid area. Though most academics do not use Wiki for citations, I've seen some that do. Certainly it is regarded as some kind of epistemic guardrail to settle disputes online everyday. It is, therefore, important to study the editorial process very carefully now, and with great attention to just who can and cannot open discussions and make substantive changes. How much deliberate knowledge-distortion does or does not occur on this cite? As a user and contributor to Wikipedia, and a concerned citizen, I would like to know the answer to that question.

Here is the Talk/Discussion page for the Origins article which establishes the page as a "Contentious Topic" subject to oversight and control  by the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee

Q.Do any readers here have experience with related issues on Wikipedia? What do you make of all this?

For the science and technology advocates…

 

Here’s an interesting study I found on another blogsite.  

File under: “Keep in the back of my mind for future reference.”

Link here.

"The study highlights the importance of spin in the processes of life. Understanding and controlling spin could have a big impact on how living things work and might also help improve medical imaging and create new ways to treat illnesses."

"This discovery challenges long-held assumptions and opens up exciting possibilities for advancements in biotechnology and quantum biology."

News bits: 4-Dimensional metamaterial discovered; About the indictment - Civil war?; Brain-machine interface advance

Researchers in the Structured Materials and Dynamics Lab at the University of Missouri College of Engineering have made a strange 3-dimensional material that has a "synthetic" fourth dimension property related to the behavior of energy waves on its surface.

Energy wave simulation

This synthetic 4D metamaterial can trap and control energy waves on its solid surface. STD writes:

Everyday life involves the three dimensions or 3D — along an X, Y, and Z axis, or up and down, left and right, and forward and back. But, in recent years scientists like Guoliang Huang, the Huber and Helen Croft Chair in Engineering at the University of Missouri, have explored a “fourth dimension” (4D), or synthetic dimension, as an extension of our current physical reality.

Recently, Huang together with a team of scientists in the Structured Materials and Dynamics Lab at the MU College of Engineering, achieved a significant breakthrough. They successfully created a new synthetic metamaterial with 4D capabilities. This includes the ability to control energy waves on the surface of a solid material. These energy waves, referred to as mechanical surface waves, are fundamental to how vibrations travel along the surface of solid materials.

2D rendering of the 3D metamaterial with the 

energy-trapping synthetic 4D property

While the team’s discovery, at this stage, is simply a building block for other scientists to take and adapt as needed, the material also has the potential to be scaled up for larger applications related to civil engineering, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and national defense uses.

“Conventional materials are limited to only three dimensions with an X, Y, and Z axis,” Huang said. “But now we are building materials in the synthetic dimension, or 4D, which allows us to manipulate the energy wave path to go exactly where we want it to go as it travels from one corner of a material to another.”

This groundbreaking discovery, called ‘topological pumping,’ could potentially lead to advancements in quantum mechanics and quantum computing. This is due to the development of higher dimension quantum-mechanical effects it might allow.

The work builds upon previous research conducted by Huang and his colleagues. Their earlier studies demonstrated how a passive metamaterial could control the path of sound waves as they travel from one corner of a material to another.

[This research] is supported by grants from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Army Research Office.

Notice the US military funding this. We can only speculate what exciting new killing machines they have in mind. I do not have a feel for what civilian or military impacts this could wind up having in the coming years. It feels potentially important to very important. Time will tell.

The published research paper is here.

Personal anecdote: Years ago, I spoke with a weapons designer engineer working as a civilian contractor for the US military. I think he worked for either General Atomics or Cubic Corp. He indicated that his research team really needed to know if space (or space-time, can't remember which) was smooth or chunky for them to further proceed developing a groovy new weapon he could not talk about. From what I understand now, space (space-time?) is both smooth and chunky. I guess that's sort of like light is both a wave and a particle. Anyway, the point is this, do not underestimate the ingenuity and money the US military has at its disposal for finding new ways to kill people, the rationale being: If we don't do it, they will. 

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To me, it is starting to feel like DJT's legal defense will partly rely on publicly trying to incite a civil war. Multiple sources are reporting that DJT's defense attorney, John Lauro, went on Faux news and Newsmax yesterday and made statements that confirm some key the allegations in the indictment against DJT. The affirmed allegations relate to DJT trying to delay the electoral vote count. That is weird to say the least. 

And, Lauro continues to concede damaging facts that are already in the public record. He responded to Newsweek late yesterday or this morning with these comments:

"Unfortunately, some of the legal commentary is not focused on the actual facts of the case. But instead is based on an erroneous understanding of what happened. Sadly, that leads to a lot of public misinformation, which is to be expected in this highly charged political environment. My comments were consistent with the facts that are already in the public record, and by no means constitute any admission."

How is it possible that Lauro's comments that appear to confirm that DJT broke the law? Two possibilities come to mind, both of which are possible, probably likely, at the same time. One is that although the alleged facts are actually true, what DJT did was not illegal because he had no intent to break any law and was innocently acting on advice of his (crackpot) attorneys like John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and/or the Kraken (Sidney Powell). The other, scarier, possibility is that DJT is appealing to his cult by signaling to them something like, "Hey! Just look at the little things the Biden-weaponized DoJ is coming after me for. There was no law broken there because I never intended to break any law. If the American people do not rise up and defend democracy and the rule of law, we will be engulfed in socialist tyranny, corruption and moral depravity. Stand with me to protect America!! KAGA!! (keep America great again)"

Lauro said his comments by no means constituted any admission. Well, he undeniably admitted some damaging facts alleged against DJT. What he can say his own words constituted no admission that those facts alone amounted DJT breaking any law because he did not have the requisite criminal intent.

Maybe by conceding and embracing undeniable damaging facts, DJT is using Lauro to position public opinion and the jury pool in DC to make DJT look innocent in his actions because he had no criminal intent. If the evidence does not convince every person on the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that DJT knew what he was doing was illegal, the case against him collapses and he will be acquitted. If that analysis is correct, DJT has decided to rely on threat of public violence up to and including civil war because he believes he is going to lose in court. Maybe inciting civil war is DJT's plan B if he loses in court.

Lauro might be right to say that public opinion is too heated. This video from MSNBC is foaming at the mouth and over the top about how damaging Lauro's admission is. Did Lauro sucker punch MSNBC and the pundits? Lauro is no fool. DJT is a master of manipulation public opinion and creating plausible deniability. At present, plausible deniability seems to be DJT's best defense in court. Fomenting a civil war is just the back-up plan.

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One area of science I try to follow somewhat is BMI (brain-machine interface) research. Due to the complexity of merging machines with living tissue, this is a slow moving area of research. One area of BMI research relates to treating paralyzed people and people who have lost a limb. Medical Express writes about treatment of a paralyzed patient: 

For the first time researchers restore feeling and lasting 

movement in man living with quadriplegia

In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, bioelectronic medicine researchers, engineers and surgeons at Northwell Health's The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research have successfully implanted microchips into the brain of a man living with paralysis, and have developed artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to re-link his brain to his body and spinal cord.

This double neural bypass forms an electronic bridge that allows information to flow once again between the man's paralyzed body and brain to restore movement and sensations in his hand with lasting gains in his arm and wrist outside of the laboratory. The research team unveiled the trial participant's groundbreaking progress four months after a 15-hour open-brain surgery that took place on March 9 at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH).

"This is the first time the brain, body and spinal cord have been linked together electronically in a paralyzed human to restore lasting movement and sensation," said Chad Bouton, professor in the Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine at the Feinstein Institutes, vice president of advanced engineering at Northwell Health, developer of the technology and principal investigator of the clinical trial.  

"When the study participant thinks about moving his arm or hand, we 'supercharge' his spinal cord and stimulate his brain and muscles to help rebuild connections, provide sensory feedback, and promote recovery. This type of thought-driven therapy is a game-changer. Our goal is to use this technology one day to give people living with paralysis the ability to live fuller, more independent lives."

See, microchips are people. It's not a crackpot QAnon conspiracy. 

A legal analysis of the deceit and lies about the latest indictment

As we all know, America's authoritarian radical right, a/k/a/ the radicalized, morally rotted Republican Party, shamelessly lies, slanders and crackpot conspiracies on us all the time nowadays. The tidal wave of lies and deceit about the recent indictment of DJT has begun. The Popehat Report published a nice legal analysis of some lies and deceit that tyrant wannabes are spewing on us. TPR writes: 

People Are Lying To You About The Trump Indictment

National Review Is Lying, For Instance. There Will Be More. Keep An Eye Out.

This Is Complicated, Which Is Not the Same As Unprecedented

Count One, conspiracy to defraud the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 371. Section 371 has two parts. It’s most commonly used to charge a conspiracy to violate some specified federal crime: for instance, conspiracy to violate money laundering statutes. But it has another clause for conspiracies “to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.”

Nobody’s ever been charged with this set of facts because nobody’s ever attempted to overthrow the government by fraud like this before. In that sense, this is “unprecedented.” But in other senses, that term is misleading. Each of these federal criminal laws — which are broad and flexible by design — has been used to charge a wide variety of fraud and misconduct.

Federal courts have upheld convictions under Section 371 for a very broad range of conduct designed to interfere with or obstruct government functions. More than a hundred years ago the Supreme Court said:

The statute is broad enough in its terms to include any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing, or defeating the lawful function of any department of government. Assuming, as we have, for it has not been challenged, that this statistical side of the Department of Agriculture is the exercise of a function within the purview of the Constitution, it must follow that any conspiracy which is calculated to obstruct or impair its efficiency and destroy the value of its operations and reports as fair, impartial, and reasonably accurate would be to defraud the United States by depriving it of its lawful right and duty of promulgating or diffusing the information so officially acquired in the way and at the time required by law or departmental regulation.

Passionate Partisans Are Lying To You And Will Keep Lying To You

Let’s take the editors of National Review. I’m singling them out from many people lying about the law, because they are prominent, we can expect better, and they deserve it.

First, the misleading. They say:

Finally, Smith is charging Trump with a civil-rights violation, on the theory that he sought to counteract the votes of Americans in contested states and based on a post–Civil War statute designed to punish violent intimidation and forcible attacks against blacks attempting to exercise their right to vote. What Trump did, though reprehensible, bears no relation to what the statute covers.

[That] statement is materially and intentionally misleading because it does not reveal to the National Review’s readers that the United States Department of Justice has prosecuted election fraud as a violation of Section 241 for generations and has been repeatedly upheld by the courts in doing so. The National Review describes the charge as “remarkable.” Without adding that the charge is based on a widely accepted interpretation of Section 241 [conspiracy to interfere with the exercise of constitutional or statutory rights] upheld by the courts, this argument is deceitful.

The National Review also flat-out lies. It says:

Here, it is not even clear that Smith has alleged anything that the law forbids. The indictment relates in detail Trump’s deceptions, but that doesn’t mean they constitute criminal fraud. As the Supreme Court reaffirmed just a few weeks ago, fraud in federal criminal law is a scheme to swindle victims out of money or tangible property. Mendacious rhetoric in seeking to retain political office is damnable — and, again, impeachable — but it’s not criminal fraud, although that is what Smith has charged.

But National Review is lying to you about the Supreme Court and about what’s charged here. The Special Counsel charged Trump with defrauding the United States under Section 371. The Supreme Court and lower courts have repeatedly and specifically ruled that Section 371 doesn’t require a scheme to take money or property. National Review is referring to the latest in a line of cases interpreting a completely different statute, the wire fraud statute, that includes a “money or property” requirement in its text ....

The PHR article is long and it lays out some analysis for the other other laws that DJT is accused of violating, (i) conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 1512(k), and (ii) obstructing an official proceeding under 18 U.S.C. section 1512(c) — which applies to someone who “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so”.  

Qs: At this point in time, can "passionate partisans" (as TPR puts it) who knowingly deceive and lie about the indictment and/or the law be fairly called tyrant wannabes? If they are merely ignorant but wrong, does that make any difference, i.e., does the culpability and implications of dark free speech vary depending on the source and its motives?

A popehat

News bits: US restarts virus biowarfare research: Gigantic superconductor breakthrough?; Gigantic supercapacitor breakthrough?

Just when you thought it could not get any worse, it gets worse. Science.org wrote last May: 

Three years after then-President Donald Trump pressured the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to suspend a research grant to a U.S. group studying bat coronaviruses with partners in China, the agency has restarted the award.

Critics, including several Republicans in Congress, argued this work qualified as risky “gain-of-function” (GOF) research that makes potential pandemic viruses more dangerous and should have undergone a special review. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and its director at the time, Anthony Fauci, responded that the work did not fit NIH’s risky GOF definition; the bat viruses weren’t known to infect people and WIV had no intention of making them more dangerous. NIH also pointed out that the WIV chimeras were only distantly related to SARS-CoV-2.

NIH told EcoHealth in August 2022 that because WIV had not responded to requests to turn over lab notebooks and electronic records, it had terminated the subaward to WIV. But the agency also said EcoHealth could renegotiate the grant without WIV. As discussions continued, in January a federal audit found that EcoHealth had misreported nearly $90,000 in expenses, and that NIH had also erred by not justifying the grant’s April 2020 termination.

Refusal to turn over lab books constitutes science fraud on a massive scale, far worse than fabricating data in a research paper or two. In my opinion, Biden and the NIH are arrogant, incompetent, ignorant and out of control. That combination of bad could get tens of millions of Americans killed. The Chinese government will control everything that happens in China, including what real or fabricated data get turned over to the NIH. If  Biden or the NIH think they are in control, they are gullible, shockingly stupid or both. 

Searching for killer viruses in bats and bat 

guano in China!

Not to worry, what could possibly go wrong?

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Could this be for real?: A couple day ago, reports surfaced that South Korean researchers announced they had made and tested a new metallic material (LK-99) that was a superconductor at room temperature and pressure. I ignored it. The announcement was met with a solid wall of skepticism from experts. 

Nonetheless, labs rushed to try to confirm or disconfirm the asserted results. Tom's hardware writes that two separate labs are claiming they have preliminary evidence to support (but not yet confirm) the original finding: 

Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated, Twice, in Preliminary Testing

A tentative but less nebulous step toward superconductor-fueled electronics

Humanity may be in the throes of another breakthrough that's every bit as impactful as the invention of the transistor and the advent (and eventual vindication) of quantum computing. LK-99, as it's been named, is a new compound that researchers believe will enable the fabrication of room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductors. Initially published by a Korean team last Friday, frantic work is underway throughout the research world to validate the paper's claims. For now, two separate sources have already provided preliminary confirmations that this might actually be the real thing — Chinese researchers have even posted video proof. Strap in; this is a maglev-powered, superconducting ride.

Superconductors, a wild category of compounds that can conduct electricity without any losses, have been a metaphorical goose chase for years now, with multiple research teams claiming (and then retracting) papers and announcements of its achievement. The reason is simple: Few things come close to the potential of an actual superconductor discovery in terms of what it can do for humanity's current and future technology. Imagine if your 16-core mainstream CPU (which likely requires a competent watercooling solution to avoid incinerating itself) operated without power losses — no current leakage, no electricity waste in the form of heat. Superconductors mean almost perfectly efficient computing.

Researcher Sinéad Griffin from the U.S.'s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab pored over the original paper, taking advantage of the supercomputing capabilities within the Department of Energy to simulate the LK-99 material. This complex-yet-simple concoction results from combining the minerals lanarkite (Pb₂SO₅) and copper phosphide (Cu₃P), which are then baked within a 4-day, multi-step, small batch, solid-state synthesis process.

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab results support LK-99 as a room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor. Simulations published 1 hour ago on arxiv support LK-99 as the holy grail of modern material science and applied physics. [Note: this is computer simulated data, not making and testing the material like the Chinese group claims to have done]

As a result of the simulations, the researcher published an analysis letter in pre-print form to Arxiv, where she confirmed that the resulting material should manifest the superconduction pathways for electrons to travel through unimpeded and without any resistance. Interestingly, she noticed that these superconducting pathways only form in very specific areas of the compound, namely the highest-energy areas of the resulting crystal lattice.

Maybe this will turn out to be a true breakthrough of gigantic proportions. I still doubt it, but now that some preliminary supporting evidence is dribbling out, it's worth mentioning. Even if this is confirmed, it will take time (~2 years?) to figure out how to efficiently make LK-99 before it can have a major impact. That assumes it can ever be made efficiently, which is currently unknown. The current method is extremely inefficient. 

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Could this be for real?: Boffins at MIT have published a shocker of a paper describing a low cost supercapacitor that could utterly revolutionize energy storage. Right now, existing battery technology is puny compared to needs for greatly boosting the usefulness of intermittent power from wind and solar. Supercapacitors are akin to batteries but work in a different way. The new capacitor is made out of cement, water and disordered microporous carbon black. I can't find an online price for disordered microporous carbon black per ton or kilogram. The Register writes:

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claim to have found a novel new way to store energy using nothing but cement, a bit of water, and powdered carbon black – a crystalline form of the element.

The materials can be cleverly combined to create supercapacitors, which could in turn be used to build power-storing foundations of houses, roadways that could wirelessly charge vehicles, and serve as the foundation of wind turbines and other renewable energy systems – all while holding a surprising amount of energy, the team claims.

According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 45 cubic meters of the carbon-black-doped cement could have enough capacity to store 10 kilowatt-hours of energy – roughly the amount an average household uses in a day. A block of cement that size would measure about 3.5 meters per side and, depending on the size of the house, the block could theoretically store all the energy an off-grid home using renewables would need.

"You have the most-used man-made material in the world, cement, that is combined with carbon black, that is a well-known historical material – the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it," said MIT Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Admir Masic.

"You have these at least two-millennia-old materials that when you combine them in a specific manner you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that's when things get really interesting," Masic added.

The capacity of a capacitor or supercapacitor is largely determined by the surface area of its plates, and the MIT researchers explained that the material they've explored has an exceptionally high internal surface area thanks to the way the carbon black and water interact.

"The hydration reactions of cement in the presence of carbon generate a fractal-like electron-conducting carbon network that permeates the load-bearing cement-based matrix," the authors note. In essence, a block of this carbon-rich cement has highly-conductive carbon black wires running through it which drastically increase the surface area, and thus storage capacity.

Masic said that as the mixture cures, water is absorbed into the cement. Carbon black, which is highly hydrophobic, can't be dispersed in the same way, thus "the carbon black is self-assembling into a connected conductive wire."

In their paper, the researchers assert that this technology is immediately available, versatile, low cost and scalable to huge structures like concrete highways, bridges, buildings. Structures with high energy storage capacity, high-rate energy charge/discharge capabilities and structural strength can be built right now. This applies to residential and industrial applications including self-sufficient energy buildings and self-charging roads for electric vehicles, to intermittent energy storage for wind turbines and tidal power stations. 

So, if a house is built on a concrete slab that is made as a giant capacitor, it could be used to store excess daytime power from solar panels on the roof and then power the house during the night. Or, a concrete highway could be made as a gigantic miles-long capacitor that stores extra wind or solar power and then uses that power to recharge electric cars or trucks, presumably by radio waves or maybe long-range induction, as they drive down the highway.

Strange as this is, this one feels like it's for real, right now. 

Thoughts on our two-tiered justice system and how a demagogue using dark free speech leverages it

There are compelling reasons why the special, kid-gloves treatment of DJT should never have been accorded to him by Bill Barr, Joe Biden or Merrick Garland. The reasons and why they are central are summarized here:

SNOWFLAKE comments:  More and more Americans feel that justice is not equal in the U.S. And is politically driven. I don't feel that way but I can't speak for those who DO feel that way. For those folks, the thinking is that if a former President can be persecuted and prosecuted this many times then no American citizen is safe for an overzealous FBI and DOJ. To them, this also reeks of "revenge". And there is no convincing them that it isn't revenge. NO ONE here is considering the psychological impact or the human factor in all of this.

Thoughts about America's two-tiered system of justice - personal opinion: All of that is true. It's definitely time to explain what psychology (cognitive biology and social behavior) is going on here and how it is being driven and to what ends.

In my opinion, the overriding common theme here is blind, emotional cult irrationality for roughly 40% of the American people, confusion for ~15%, and ~45% somewhat more rationality and somewhat less emotion.

Recent poll data

So, considering how the human mind works there absolutely is something to this. You're freaking right, but there's two levels of messy here. Eventually, the two messes wind up contradicting themselves. The roots of this are in sophisticated authoritarian radical right propaganda (ARRP). Never, ever loose sight of the power of dark free speech.

Here's the first mess:
More and more Americans feel that justice is not equal in the U.S. They are right about that and that it is politically driven, but not for the reasons the cult and the confused believe. They have been bamboozled. Where the most of the cult and the confused get it catastrophically wrong is they fall for the ARRP. Yes justice is unequal, but in a way that is essentially the opposite of how the AARP posits it.

In actuality, we have a two-tiered justice system. It favors the rich, powerful and elite, especially for people on the radical right. Most of the rest of us get more or less 2nd tier justice which is generally less forgiving and less restrained, especially for out-groups that local justice discriminates against. The 2nd tier varies by location and local culture and politics.

Trump is the perfect example of a defendant who gets the luxury of 1st tier justice. He has been pampered and treated with far more deference than the average 2nd tier defendant. If Trump was one of those average traitors in the coup attempt, his ass would have been in jail long ago. But because he was an elite, I doubt that Garland and the DoJ would have ever indicted him but for all the freaking evidence of treason that gushed out of the 1/6 Committee.

Garland and Biden were both clear that they did not want to appear political. By acting that way and doling nothing, they heavily politicized justice in favor of Trump. The scales were and still are tipped heavily in his favor. Biden, Garland and the DoJ never even indicted Trump for the four or 5 obstruction of justice felonies that the Mueller Report laid out in great detail. Hundreds of former federal prosecutors publicly said that they would not hesitate to prosecute Trump for those felonies based on the evidence that Mueller laid out in his report.[1] All of those Trump felonies have gone unpunished and Trump never will be punished because the statute of limitations has run.

If it was you or me who committed the same acts of obstruction that Mueller documented, our sorry asses would be in the slammer by now. The law can't get much more political than that.

That's the 1st mess.

Here's the amazing 2nd mess, and this is where ARRP takes mass deceit to a deep cognitive biology and social behavior level:
ARRP tells people that if multiple politically corrupted prosecutions can happen to Trump, it can happen to them. The prosecutions of Trump have been political because they have been for a 1st tier criminal and traitor who has got and still gets vast advantages in the justice system. So yes, how the justice system treated Trump has been undeniably political, but just political in his favor.

With one major caveat, people worried about multiple politically corrupted prosecutions are exactly right, but for a reason that is the opposite of what ARRP has led them to falsely believe. The caveat is this: If and only if the radical right authoritarians take power and overthrow democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties, then everyone including the cult and the confused will bed subject to multiple politically corrupted prosecutions.

Almost the whole point of authoritarianism is to establish the rule of the thug, not the rule of law. Once the thug (plutocrat, theocrat, tyrant, kleptocrat) is in power, the thug rules as he/she/they want. If anyone, including anyone in the cult or among the confused, steps too far out of line, they will be subjected to as many politically corrupted prosecutions as the thug feels like inflicting on the miscreants.

I know, I know. This all sounds like crackpot QAnon-level conspiracy theory. The thing is however, essentially all the evidence points to exactly this narrative. Just listen to the special interests (including the GOP), dogmas (Christian nationalism, brass knuckles capitalism, single party GOP rule), rhetoric that are driving the radical right and ARRP. ARRP is intentionally designed to make power flow from the government and its commitment to the rule of law and civil liberties to radical elites and their interests.

Just look at the power flow. Ignore everything and everyone else. Strip it all away, and then ask yourself, where will power flow if the radical right authoritarians get their way? That is the core question here in my firm opinion.

 

SNOWFLAKE Comments: People lack focus. If you have ONE trial - people's minds will be focused on that ONE trial and all of the evidence that stems from that ONE trial. If you have multiple trials, especially "silly" ones like the hush money charge, people start to lose interest, become unfocused, start thinking this is all just too much and start thinking this really does look like a witch hunt. If you have too many trials it diffuses them all instead of focusing the public on the evidence of ONE trial. Human nature and all that.

Response to comments: All of that is true. Human nature and all that. One can call it psychology. I call it cognitive biology and social behavior.

Where does the concept of silly trial for hush money prosecution come from? ARRP. Why do people become unfocused and start thinking this is all just too much? ARRP.

I repeat, one cannot deny or understate the power of dark free speech in getting American politics and society to where it is now.

As far as the appearance of a witch hunt goes, what else can be done other than multiple prosecutions for multiple crimes that occur at different times? Trump is a serial criminal. In my opinion, because Trump is a 1st tier elite, his prosecutions were delayed and that is what makes this look like it is politicized. Hell yes, it is politicized because Trump is a 1st tier elite criminal defendant. Biden, Garland and the DoJ treated him like a 1st tier elite because that is what he is. How can that not be seen as political?

Where does the appearance of witch hunt come from? Not wanting to flog a dead horse unnecessarily, but it's ARRP again.

Footnote: 

1. Here's part of that open letter, which was signed by over former 400 federal prosecutors:

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming.

That is solid evidence of (i) a two-tiered system, and (ii) it has heavily favored Trump.