[This new review of the lab leak hypothesis was excellent and comprehensive]( https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/)

I don't agree that on a global basis (not just the USA) the majority of Muslims are not any worse than the majority of Christians in terms of certain retrograde beliefs. [This research from Pew](http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/) is a comprehensive country by country breakdown of what Muslims believe. A couple of things that struck me about the data is how "radical" Egypt is compared to a lot of other places. In general the data in this report suggests that Muslims appear to believe in a soft touch when dealing with non Muslims but police themselves in extremely harsh ways. So, for example, in Egypt 74% of Muslims believe that Sharia should be the law of the land, and of those people, 81% believe in stoning as a punishment for adultery and 86% believe in the death penalty for apostates. But at the same time, only 29% of Muslims in Egypt believe that suicide bombing is sometimes/often justified (still a shockingly high number). There are significant differences from country to country with the Muslim nations of SE Europe being the most moderate--which is not too surprising. I don't believe that any Christian nation today would hold similar views. Finally, I don't believe that the data shows that Islamic terrorists are mostly desperate young men from shitty countries. The 9/11 terrorists, for example, were mostly very well off, many from positions of privilege, and were highly educated. Some had PhD's. But I do agree that these Islamic terrorists, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds, are motivated by American adventurism in the Middle East. I believe Osama bin Laden stated this many times.