Biological weapons or biological research?

After Wuhan, the distinction between research and weapons development, while important, is effectively moot. Operating on the (reliably & repeatedly proven) assumption that most state actors will break virtually any law/norm/good sense to further secure themselves, I am just going to assume Russia's claim the U.S. was developing biological weapons in Ukraine is basically true. 

As Politifact might say, this unproven claim is 100% false!*

*technically possible--anthrax, small pox, super death virus, and maxplaguespreader2000, etc. could theoretically be used as biological weapons in the wrong hands.

Or the "research" can be leaked from a lab by a moron or spy, all while governments point fingers, raise taxes, and invade other countries.

I believe Russia as far as I can throw it, but I wouldn't put it past our government. There is no effective difference between biological research (for very, very dangerous and communicable diseases) and biological weapons development except on paper, they know this, they rely on it, and they exploit it. How do I know? Because if I were a jealous superpower, I would do the same damn thing. It doesn't excuse it. If not Ukraine, then somewhere else, but probably too many somewhere elses including Ukraine.

I'm pessimistic any country will own up to their wrongs or take a hard turn towards benevolence any time soon.

I'm realistic that questionable, potentially dangerous, and probably dubious "research" is taking place all over the world.

But I'm optimistic we will (if slowly) change things for the better. 

[Postscript: I get that we need research on deadly viruses, if we want to have a chance to understand and protect ourselves against them. I don't think that means we need 1000s of labs across the world operating with alarmingly low levels of transparency and security.]

Lol China

 Via mostly leftwing site HotAir, I saw this:

I am so well-trained by our diversity police that the first thing I noticed is there are no women pictured. I'd be very surprised if a woman even had a significant role in this Chinese propaganda film. Does China have female doctors? (Yes, but good luck finding any statistics, let alone credible statistics).

But more importantly, I began to think about that Chinese doctor, Li Wenliang, who blew the whistle on China, and died shortly after from the virus. Any chance he'll be in the movie? Don't hold your breath.

And lastly, from the HotAir post, Allahpundit raised an excellent point about the NIH removing data upon the request of a Chinese scientist:

Erasing material that’s already been published is considered unethical on a *blog* ... At the federal government’s top public health agency, though, it seems they follow a “memory hole” policy. In the unlikely event that the Chinese researcher who submitted the early Wuhan data was telling the truth about updated genomic sequences being posted to a new database, the original data should have been left up with a note indicating that it was outdated and directing users to that database. Allowing scientists, especially scientists from totalitarian countries, to remove information after the fact is all but inviting them to make NIH complicit in their cover-ups.

Emphasis mine. I see the NIH is competing with the FBI for most incompetent/corrupt bureaucracy. That memory hole policy is looking sharp right now. Now you know why governments across the world are slow-walking their embrace of blockchain, they can't destroy evidence (China however, is leading by example of how to get your totalitarian blockchain on).

Why are we pretending to believe China?

 Stories like this, about the China Bat Lady and her defense of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, imply we are very much open to believe China's story, or at least take their arguments in good faith. Can we just stop acting like idiots? Can we at least stop pretending to be idiots?

“How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?” she said, her voice rising in anger during the brief, unscheduled conversation. “I don’t know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist,” she wrote in a text message.

 In a rare interview over email, she denounced the suspicions as baseless, including the allegations that several of her colleagues may have been ill before the outbreak emerged.

The speculation boils down to one central question: Did Shi’s lab hold any source of the new coronavirus before the pandemic erupted? Shi’s answer is an emphatic no.

But China’s refusal to allow an independent investigation into her lab, or to share data on its research, make it difficult to validate Shi’s claims and has only fueled nagging suspicions about how the pandemic could have taken hold in the same city that hosts an institute known for its work on bat coronaviruses.

Emphasis mine.There are two key questions, one of which is: did the virus originate from the Wuhan lab? The other and perhaps just as important, why is China stonewalling any and all investigation into that question? 

It's like believing North Korea is dismantling their nuclear program on their say-so, while they deny international observers access.

I honestly find it hard to understand why we are still trading with China, despite well-documented wide-spread human rights violations, and I'm not talking about political stuff, but real and horrible ethnic-cleansing-shit for which any other country would be globally excoriated and harshly sanctioned. I know, it's the money. And it's depressing.

Sometimes the blocking of truth-seeking endeavors is complicated and genuinely has to do with factors having nothing to do with hiding guilt. But other times, especially when it's the fucking theme song of their entire modern history, it pretty much means they're hiding guilt. Sanctions are in order.

Also, free Hong Kong, Taiwan is a country, China is asshole.