FD Afternoon Tea - 9.21.20

Saudi Uranium, Facebook's Climate Center, QAMoms, and Nigeria's Zoom Justice.

September 21, 2020

America’s reputation performs as well as our COVID-19 response, Facebook’s climate info hub is panned, QAMoms are a thing, Saudi Arabia might have enough uranium for a power plant, and someone was sentenced to death over Zoom. It is Monday, September 21st, and this is the Tea.

U.S. Image Plummets Internationally as Most Say Country Has Handled Coronavirus Badly (Pew Research) So, when you let Viceroy Kushner & the Markets handle PPE allocation, a job usually left up to the US Army, it goes…kind of poorly. So poorly in fact, that the libertarians out of the Niskanen Center have a perfect dissection of our response, which I’ll quote here:

Trump was not called to greatness. He wasn’t even called to above-average competence. He was called to implement a game-plan we’d already written with a disease control bureaucracy that was the envy of the world, the administrative infrastructure and personnel of the world’s most dominant and powerful state, and a practically bottomless well of resources….If Trump had merely said, “Tell me what to do!,” had done it, and otherwise had stayed out of the way, I believe it’s almost certain that at least 100,000 dead Americans would now be alive.

But Trump didn’t just fail to do what needed to be done. He didn’t just refuse to do what needed to be done. He actively and aggressively undermined both federal and state efforts to contain the virus. For example, he abruptly ended U.S. cooperation with China on disease surveillance. We could have had a much clearer picture of what was coming, which would have allowed us to gear up and contain community spread before it got out of control, but we didn’t. Trump inexplicably hollowed out our global public health presence before the pandemic, and kept doing it throughout. And he contradicted and undermined his own administration’s pandemic control authorities at every turn, wreaking havoc on the federal government’s immense capacity to respond.

Facebook’s Climate of Denial (Popular Information & Heated) Eventually covered by mainstream outlets like CBS News, this deep dive into how Facebook is both providing climate change information while amplifying misinformation. As John Cook, an assistant professor at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University put it: "It's like poisoning somebody and then giving them a brochure on vegetables."

Chief Justice Roberts’s lifelong crusade against voting rights, explained (Vox) Infuriating read on the supposed nonpartisan of our time.

The Birth of QAmom (Rolling Stone) QAnon continues to mutate, now pulling in over-concerned and under-educated mommy bloggers.

Revealed: Saudi Arabia may have enough uranium ore to produce nuclear fuel (Guardian) Chinese geologists have found enough “inferred deposits” that it might be possible for Saudi Arabia to become a nuclear power without importing fuel.

GOP lawmakers want answers from Disney on Mulan, China (The Hill) Pro-Tip for Disney: Don’t get too chummy with a competing power in the years before you’re hoping the party that hates China gets to decide whether to extend Mouse Copyright for a few more years.

Death decreed over Zoom (RestOfWorld) Nigerian man sentenced to death over Zoom, as 2020 remains on brand.

Palantheil - The Uncola (No Mercy, No Malice) Scott Galloway provides the takedown of Palantir I’ve been waiting for. Fantastic read on an unremarkable company cloaked in a flag.

Women in Tech: “Assume everything is possible and dive in” (JAXenter) Tips, career pathing, and advice for women who want to work in tech from one of the most impressive leaders I’ve had the privilege to know, Lauren Vaccarello.

Could Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy in China Be Poised for a Breakthrough? (China File) Easily the most hope-inducing piece related to China to come out this year. Written by one of my authorities on China, Darius Longarino, the last quote is one I am pleased as punch to leave you with:

“They will only give us something when our voice is loud,” said Peng.

“Always ask for more.”

Song of the Dispatch:

As the chill takes, let’s slow down the use of furnaces for expanding, and recirculate that heat to keep our extremities warm.

Yours,T

P.S. Tommy Siegel is great.