January 30, 2017

In 2015, the state of Texas tried to buy execution drugs from a “company” run by teenagers in India whose main business was selling party pills online. / BuzzFeed

On the Bay Area’s O.G. rapper, E-40: / thefader.com

Next week, goalies in the NHL will show off a new look: clothes that actually fit properly. / The Boston Globe

“You have your ‘America first,’ we have our ‘community of common destiny for mankind.’” Xi Jinping picks up the global influence slack being left by America’s international decline under Trump. / Reuters

In rude interruption of Trudeau’s push to frame Canada as the United States’ gentler northern neighbor, yesterday’s Quebec City mosque attack was a “terrorist attack against Muslims.” / PBS, Reuters

If the view looks too good to be true, that’s because it is. Instead of nabbing the perfect Instagram, the four men who illegally trampled on Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring were fined and two will go to jail. / petapixel.com

Ineffectiveness from academic statisticians paved the way for privatized and opaque Big Data to claim the floor. Instead of emphasizing the absolute truth of statistics, we should make clear the field’s historical purpose. As a public platform for shared knowledge, they offer a flawed but fundamentally more democratic worldview than do proprietary digital analytics. / The Guardian

By mapping the Amazon from above, one scientist convinced his peers that there are 36–not three–distinct ecologies involved. Also, his sensor is literally golden. / The Atlantic

Bannon’s appointment to the National Security Council is possibly just the beginning of four years of Soviet-style politicking. / Quartz

Trump’s reorganization of the NSC not only put political hack Bannon at the same level as cabinet secretaries (and above them, in some cases), but it also removed the two people most important to its workings (and required to attend by law), the Director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates points out. Sean Spicer responded to criticisms that Bannon had been elevated over Joseph Dunford, a four-star general who now serves as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by pointing out that Bannon served in the Navy in the ’70s and ’80s. / The New York Times

“The regime’s main organizational goal right now is to transfer all effective power to a tight inner circle, eliminating any possible checks from either the Federal bureaucracy, Congress, or the Courts. Departments are being reorganized or purged to effect this.” This past weekend—Muslim ban and NSC reorganization, among other things—was a trial balloon for a coup, writes a Google privacy engineer. / Yonatan Zunger

“In a well-run administration, the most important role of the NSC and the national security adviser is to engage the key responsible officials and repositories of expertise, and assure that the president understands their views prior to making his decisions.… To date the president seems to have little interest in it.” If you could not guess already, this assessment of Trump’s National Security Council revamp by public policy scholar I.M. Destler does not believe that this is going to be a “well-run administration” or NSC. / Politico Magazine

As Goldman Sachs banker-turned-Hollywood producer-turned-Breitbart neo-Nazi-in-chief Stephen Bannon ascends to the National Security Council—previously an extremely apolitical body meant to advise the President on national security, as well as approve drone strikes—it’s worth looking back at how Republicans acted when President Obama did nothing more than… not reform it quickly enough. / The Intercept, The Atlantic

“A policy which closes our doors to over 200 million legitimate travelers in the hopes of preventing a small number of travelers who intend to harm Americans from using the visa system to enter the United States will not achieve its aim of making our country safer.” Dozens of diplomats and foreign service officers are considering signing a formal letter of dissent against Trump’s Muslim ban. / Lawfare