*Covid deaths are on the rise again, so what happens? Mask-wearing in hospitals is scrapped.* That abandons people to the risk that a medical system ought to use discipline to protect people from.

Even if your politicians are cowards, we can use courage to make each other safe. A disciplined group can sometimes protect most of its members from threats that individuals can't defend against. Covid-19 is one example. But there is another clearer and more vivid one.

In ancient and medieval times, infantry could protect themselves from charging cavalry if they had pikes and knew how to stand firm with them in a line. An individual infantryman was defenseless against charging cavalry, but a close infantry line with pikes was stronger than cavalry and could stand the horses off. They could save their lives together by being firm and disciplined.

We are not likely ever to be in that situation, but it can teach us how to resist Covid-19 together.

Daniel Bernstein warns that NIST seems to be allowing the NSA to weaken proposed standards for quantum-resistant encryption algorithms, by miscalculating the vulnerability of candidates.

The NIST's reply is, basically, "You can't possibly believe we would do that!" However, it seems to have done this in a previous encryption standard.

The climate crisis (specifically floods, freezes and heatwaves) threatens seed production in the US. The weather no longer follows the normal seasons.

The UN accuses the UAE of permitting Iranian agents to kidnap exiled dissident Jamshid Sharmahd from Dubai airport. Iran has announced plans to execute him.

Human Rights Watch warns dissidents from other countries not to transit through Dubai, because the UAE might jail them or worse.

I have no reason to think I am important enough that the UAE might bother to harass me, but why take the chance? I never even consider such flight itineraries. Not all the victims listed in stay-away-countries.html for the UAE were famous.

If rejection for this reason hurts the business of Emirates airlines, that by itself is a good thing.

Countries that support human rights should reject and denounce all plans to hold important international conferences (for instance, climate conferences) in the UAE or other similar repressive countries.

* Justice department launches inquiry [into thugs of Trenton, NJ] after "numerous reports" that Trenton officers conducted "stops and arrests with no good reason."*