Bonum Certa Men Certa

When We Don't Have Independent Media COVID-19, Nord Stream Etc. Become the 'Next JFK' (a Mishmash of Theories, No Definitive Answers)

Week 22 deaths
Total deaths in England and Wales, by week. Source: UK government (ONS).



Summary: A lack of proper, independent investigation means that loads of people die needlessly and our governments don't even wish to acknowledge that this is happening (instead they censor doctors in Social Control Media such as YouTube, exercising social control over people and suppressing factual speech, under the guise of protecting us from "racism" or "misinformation")

YESTERDAY we saw "COVID-19's 'Patients Zero' May Have Been Wuhan Lab Scientists, Report Finds" [1] and a BSD geek from Sydney, who got infected with COVID-19 some months ago (he's about my age and took it very hard), wrote about "coffee smells" [2]. It's widely known that COVID-19 impacts the senses of small and taste, which are very closely connected.



COVID-19 is generally not a a subject we approach from a medical point of view (my Ph.D. is in Medical Biophysics, albeit COVID-19 has nothing to do with it), but it seems interesting that 'free' press is too timid to explore the origin and true impact of this virus. Only an hour ago we mention Free Speech (lack of it) in China and minutes ago we said TikTok is effectively a weapon. COVID-19 has had a massive impact on tech workers -- including EPO examiners -- and earlier today some independent media in Hong Kong (China?) said [3] that "the Hong Kong government lifted our Covid-19 state of emergency" (despite COVID-19 still spreading rapidly, especially in China this summer, based on press reports).

My wife and I have managed to avoid this virus so far. We've been COVID-free and hope to stay this way until "it's over" (we exercise great care/precautions), but given the general attitude of people it might not be feasible for another 4 years.

I planned to resign from my job in 2019, but then COVID-19 happened and I stayed until 2022. I now do Techrights from home and I've not attempted to find another job.

We need Free Speech. We need answers. We need a freedom-respecting Internet.

Related/contextual items from the news:
  1. COVID-19's 'Patients Zero' May Have Been Wuhan Lab Scientists, Report Finds
    Plus: Grand jury indicts Jack Teixeira, Congress pursues A.I. regulation, and more...


  2. Coffee smells and lockdowns

    I noticed something when I was making coffee yesterday in our kitchen. I ran the beans through the electric grinder, took the lid off, and the smell transported me back to 2020.

    At the height of Covid, before we had vaccines and we were confined to home for weeks at a time, I substituted my morning coffee shop run with brewing it at home. In a world that was somehow uncertain yet tedious, I liked that I at least had control over this one part of my life. I’d brew the coffee, take it out to the balcony, set up the laptop, and repeat the same day I’d had for weeks.



  3. Improving Hong Kong’s pandemic response and mental healthcare will take independent reviews – and action
    Last month, the Hong Kong government lifted our Covid-19 state of emergency. A few weeks earlier, the World Health Organization had declared the pandemic over as Covid becomes endemic. These developments allow the government to focus on urgent tasks of economic development and reengaging globally.


Recent Techrights' Posts

Behind the Scenes With Richard Stallman
If you support his ideas, even if you dislike him as a person, then you'll welcome his ability to speak about those ideas
 
European Patent Office (EPO) Strikes and Other Industrial Actions Are Working: Patent Application Grants Have Collapsed
Even before the strikes happened any day of the week
SLAPP Censorship - Part 49 Out of 200: Two Americans, One Case, Recycled for Low Budget at Brett Wilson LLP and 5RB Barristers
Change one character, bill the client tens or hundreds of thousands of US dollars
Pension Contribution Increases as Another Attack on Compensation for EPO Staff (Mostly Patent Examiners)
Pension contribution increases!
Almost 1,000 IBM Layoffs Not Newsworthy (Nobody Covers It), Unlike When Snap Does It and Mentions a Celebrated - or Reviled - Buzzword
not a word regarding IBM layoffs
Gemini Links 17/04/2026: "Many Problems and Inequities in the Legal System", "No Place to Hide"
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2026: SRA Breaks Its Own Rules as Solicitor Attempts Suicide, IPv6 Barely Hits 50% After 20+ Years
Links for the day
ActBlue former IT boss disappearance: Decklin Foster & Debian, Harvard suicide lab, Chris Gleason is wife, whistleblower or both?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/04/2026: Getting competent in NixOS and Alhena 5.5.6 Released
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2026: "We Cannot Lose Sight of Ukraine" and "When Leaders Should Resign"
Links for the day
GizChina Appears to Have Become a Slopfarm, I.e. Fake News Site With Fake Text
Don't waste a moment reading LLM slop, as at the very least it rewards plagiarism [...] Deemed to be slop also by two human beings, not just two scanners
Massive, Cross-Site Strike at the EPO Today
There's coordination across sites for maximal pressure
Dr. Andy Farnell Says "AI" is "Only a Marketing Term" for Things That Exist for "Entertainment Purposes Only"
distortion or misuse of the term (now buzzword/s) "AI"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 16, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, April 16, 2026
Strikes at the EPO Carry on, Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) Increases Pressure Ahead of Technical and Operational Support Committee (TOSC) Meeting Next Week
the local section The Hague (or SUEPO TH) wants to rally many staff members
Gemini Links 16/04/2026: LLM Nuisance, Identity Systems (Surveillance), and Why Windows is Failing
Links for the day
'Going Offline' is Not Primitivism
Computers are good at automation, but people are not robots
The Register MS Has Published Article With "AI" 18 Times in it, "Cloud" 9 Times. It Got Paid to Do This.
What happened to journalism?
In Europe, More People Turn to Russia for Answers, Not Microsoft
The future of computing doesn't look pretty
SLAPP Censorship - Part 48 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP and 5RB Copy-Pasting Bogus Claims for Violent Americans (Microsoft) Who Tell Women to Kill Themselves
Microsoft's Graveley telling his partner to kill herself is probably a crime
The EFF Is Hardly Doing Anything Anymore
Our series about the EFF has been brewing for over 2 years already
Microsoft Uses Slop to Bribe (at No Cost) Nations That Otherwise Would Move to GNU/Linux and IBM is Forcing Red Hat Staff to Use Slop
Life it too short to waste "consuming" slop
Links 16/04/2026: Roblox Launching ‘Roblox Kids’ Accounts and "Deepfake Nudes Crisis in Schools"
Links for the day
Red Hat Staff: IBM Red Hat Laid Off About 400 Engineers, the Media Did Not Cover This
The media is not doing its job or doing a really shoddy job
Gemini Links 16/04/2026: Nocturnal Pulse, Unpersoned Outlaws, and Monaspace Lagrange Fontpacks
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Lecture in GDC Auditorium in Austin, Texas
corporate power could not 'cancel' the man
It's Not About the Head, It's About the Masters (and Funding)
Regardless of who the OSI claims to be its leader, its masters are Microsoft, just follow the money
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 15, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Links 15/04/2026: Geelong Corio Refinery Fire, Journalist Sentenced for "Insulting the President"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/04/2026: Organiding .bashrc with Imports, Oddμ as SSG
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 14, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 14, 2026