Afternoon Tea 2.9.2021 - Yoke the Ox

Birth rates are down about as much as you’d expect given the pandemic, the UK is gonna keep selling arms to Saudi Arabia, the Indian government is threatening Twitter, and Cuba opens up. It’s Tuesday, February 9th, 2021, and this is the Tea.

UK declines to follow US in suspending Saudi arms sales over Yemen (The Guardian) Biden managed to try to stem the bleeding over Saudi Arabia’s war with Yemen and the world sighed as the UK ignored our lead. Given Saudi Arabia represents 40% of the UK’s arms sales from 2010-2019, I’m not holding my breath for an about face on this any time soon.

Hygiene Theater Is Still a Huge Waste of Time (The Atlantic) So much is being spent to achieve so little, I’m shocked I don’t have to take off my shoes to buy rubbing alcohol yet.

After Wuhan mission on pandemic origins, WHO team dismisses lab leak theory (Washington Post) This isn’t going to convince anyone who thinks Trump is going to spring his secret arrests any minute now, but for the rest of us in reality, it’s a nice coda. No, the pandemic didn’t come from a bioterrorism or weaponized virology lab, this isn’t a Tom Clancy novel.

Number of newborns registered in China drops 15% amid population decline fears (CNN) & The coming COVID-19 baby bust: Update (Brookings) First reported by Sinocism yesterday after we went to print, this 14-15% drop (depending on how you look at the numbers) is startling, especially given the new birth drop in the USA was measured in the hundreds of thousands, not millions. The population differences and rural-urban poverty numbers help explain the gap, but this underscores just how much the crisis has reordered the lives of billions.

Anatomy of a flop: Why Trump's US-China phase one trade deal fell short (Peterson Inst. for Intl. Economics) & Clubhouse is now blocked in China after a brief uncensored period (TechCrunch) Now that Trump’s wild lunacy related to China won’t be interpreted as 12th Dimensional chess, we can start evaluating China’s moves a bit more structurally. I can’t say I’m surprised that the Phase I targets were never met, though the Clubhouse banning did take me by surprise. This is a periodic reminder to all platforms attempting to operate internationally. Expect to be banned in China about 24 hours after your users discover they can talk about Tiananmen Square on it.

China - A Look Ahead to 2021 and Beyond (Sinocism) Bill Bishop’s Sinocism remains the high water mark for topic-based journalism that I recommend every chance I get. This guest post is an intense, adult look at the CCP, its goals, and the challenges it, not the Chinese people, pose to the world in the coming year. If you’re into this stuff, he’s the best in the game.

Twitter Unblocked Accounts That Criticized India’s Government. Now, Its Employees Are Being Threatened With Jail Time Unless It Blocks Them Again. (BuzzFeedNews) Authoritarian governments will increasingly demand the light touch approach Trump got from social media platforms like FB & Twitter. Why should his party stooges get protection when they call for nationalist violence, while Modi’s don’t?

Cuba opens up its private sector in major economic reform (France24) Capitalist markets come to Cuba? We have to wait and see how this rolls out, but Biden was VP last time the USA tried to open up to Cuba. Maybe we can meet them halfway without exploding cigars this time.

Mike Huckabee’s History For Kids Company Accused Of Scamming Parents (Huffington Post) Mike Huckabee’s history education company looks to be engaging in the same disgusting FB ad & impossible-to-cancel tactics that you’d expect from Columbia House in 1997.

WTF is DTCC? The Story of Clearing (Net Interest) After reading about clearinghouses and Robinhood and Citadel all of last week, here’s the long-form article about what the hell those words mean you were waiting for. You’ll learn, but you’ll probably be less pissed at Robinhood by the end, so, act accordingly.

Anatomy of an internet shutdown (RestOfWorld) When the government turns the internet off, and you turn it back on, you become my damn hero. This story of Sudan’s motley crew of revolutionary IT support just might be what you need on this ruin of a day.

Song of the Tea: Sometimes, you just need Orchestral Metalstep from Paris when everything feels cold and gray.

No, of course there wasn’t any Impeachment coverage today. Do you usually expect updates from clown shows? If something happens that matters, we here at Factual Dispatch will jump on it. Until then, the kangaroo court will ride.

Yours,t