Preparing for War with China | Cost of Undoing the Travel Ban | Terrifying Climate Warning, and more

our lives.

Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is (Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic)
America’s distribution plan is no more fair or logical than a Soviet-style queue for cabbage.

The Terrifying Warning Lurking in the Earth’s Ancient Rock Record(Peter Brannen, The Atlantic)
Our climate models could be missing something big. We live on a wild planet, a wobbly, erupting, ocean-sloshed orb that careens around a giant thermonuclear explosion in the void. Big rocks whiz by overhead, and here on the Earth’s surface, whole continents crash together, rip apart, and occasionally turn inside out, killing nearly everything. Our planet is fickle. When the unseen tug of celestial bodies points Earth toward a new North Star, for instance, the shift in sunlight can dry up the Sahara, or fill it with hippopotamuses. Of more immediate interest today, a variation in the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere of as little as 0.1 percent has meant the difference between sweltering Arctic rainforests and a half mile of ice atop Boston. That negligible wisp of the air is carbon dioxide.

Here’s What a Ton of Capitol Rioters Had in Common  (Kelly Weill, Daily Beast)
OK, so a lot of them were white men. But there are other traits, too, new research shows.
When Trump supporters flooded D.C. on Jan. 6, many had traveled from hometowns where they felt like political outcasts—and where hate groups like the Proud Boys acted like a beacon for the far right, new research suggests.
Nearly 200 people are facing federal charges for their alleged attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Prominent among them are members of the Proud Boys, a far-right paramilitary group that Canada designated as a terrorist organization on Wednesday. Even though most of the rioters were not Proud Boys, researchers from the University of Chicago and University of Michigan found that people who lived near Proud Boys chapters were more likely to have attended the riot or the rally that preceded it.
It’s not because Proud Boys only set up shop in solidly red areas, either. Rather, the researchers concluded, rally attendees were likely to have traveled from Republican-voting “islands,” where they felt—however unreasonably—besieged by nearby liberals, and where some Proud Boys chapters have gone recruiting.

The Legal Aspects of Banning Chinese Drone Technology  (Gary Corn, Lawfare)
In 2020, Chinese drone manufacturer and market-dominant Dajiang Innovations (DJI) donated at least 100 of its small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)