North Carolina news:

Alamance County sheriff’s deputies and Graham police pepper-sprayed people — including a 5-year-old girl and other children — who were participating in the “I Am Change” march to the polls on Saturday afternoon.

A march, that is – not a riot, not an invasion, not a terrorist attack, a march.

A racially diverse group of about 200 people walked with a police escort from Wayman’s Chapel AME Church to Court Square, where they held a rally encouraging people to vote. The event was organized by Rev. Greg Drumwright, a Burlington native who leads the the Citadel Church in Greensboro, according to his website.

Ah well there you go – racially diverse; they must be … Read the rest

More on the “Trump Train”:

According to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s Texas campaign, a Biden-Harris campaign bus was heading north on I-35 Friday afternoon on its way from San Antonio to a drive-by event with supporters at Texas State University in San Marcos, followed by a “closing argument” press conference at the Texas AFL-CIO headquarters in downtown Austin, when vehicles with Trump signs and flags surrounded the bus trying to slow it down in the middle of the highway or run it off the road.

Trump is the Bully candidate.

“Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas instead decided to

From Ex-Muslims of North America:

A beautiful piece by Yemeni artist Boushra Almutawakel from her hijab series.

Jesus god. I want this nightmare to END.

"Did anybody see the picture of that crazy bus driving down the highway, they're surrounded by like, hundreds of cars? They're all Trump flags all over the place." — Trump glorifies an incident in Texas where his supporters tried to drive a Biden/Harris bus off the road pic.twitter.com/ZBSdEcvWHE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 1, 2020

Smirk smirk smirk goes Trump. His fans scream.

See also:

I LOVE TEXAS! pic.twitter.com/EP7P3AvE8L

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2020

Hur hur. Political violence is such a hilarious joke.

CNN has more details on the dangerous and terrifying actions by Trump fans in big trucks on a busy freeway:

The Biden campaign bus was

It seems that Trump vigilantes were out in force in Texas.

Multiple videos posted to social media on Saturday morning apparently show Trump supporters in trucks and cars harassing a Joe Biden and Kamala Harris campaign bus in Texas, causing the campaign to cancel a planned event in Central Texas.

Harassing as in surrounding it on the freeway, tailgating it, and sideswiping a smaller vehicle.

A Biden campaign spokesperson told Forbes that the Trump supporters “attempted to slow the bus down and run it off the road.” And one local Democratic Party leader, Katie Naranjo, tweeted photos and said Trump supporters “followed the Biden bus throughout central Texas” and “ran into a person’s car, yelling curse words and threats.”

Trudeau says “Yes but.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended free speech on Friday, but added that it was “not without limits” and should not “arbitrarily and needlessly hurt” certain communities.

“We will always defend freedom of expression,” Trudeau said in response to a question about the right to show a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed, as France’s Charlie Hebdo magazine did.

But. But but but but but.

“But freedom of expression is not without limits,” he added. “We owe it to ourselves to act with respect for others and to seek not to arbitrarily or unnecessarily injure those with whom we are sharing a society and a planet.”

And what does “respect for others” mean? Does it require … Read the rest

More of this evil:

A Greek Orthodox priest was shot Saturday while he was closing his church in the French city of Lyon, and authorities locked down part of the city to hunt for the assailant, authorities said.

The priest, a Greek citizen, is in a local hospital with life-threatening injuries after being shot twice in the abdomen, a police official told The Associated Press. The attacker was alone and fired from a hunting rifle, said the official, who was not authorized to be publicly named.

…

The reason for the shooting was unclear. It happened two days after an Islamic extremist knife attack at a Catholic church in the French city of Nice that killed three people, and

Emma Kelly in the Independent (Ireland):

LGB (Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual) Alliance Ireland launched a Twitter account, claiming to fight for the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Ireland. For the casual social media user, this may seem pretty great. Of course we need people continuing the fight for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. However, note that the T for transgender has been dropped.

What does that mean, “dropped”? Is there some law that says the T must always be yoked to the L and G? No there is not. Lesbians and gay men are allowed to talk about lesbian and gay issues; they are not required to include trans people whenever they do so. Also: take … Read the rest

Statistically speaking, Trump’s rallies have probably killed about 700 people.

US researchers have suggested that a series of recent Trump rallies probably produced more than 30,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and “likely led to more than 700 deaths”.

The study, released on Friday by scientists at Stanford University, looked at “the effects of large group meetings on the spread of Covid-19 by studying the impact of 18 Trump campaign rallies” over “up to 10 post-rally weeks for each event”.

“Our estimate of the average treatment effect across the 18 events,” they wrote, “implies that they increased subsequent confirmed cases of Covid-19 by more than 250 per 100,000 residents.

“Extrapolating this figure to the entire sample, we conclude that these

Trump decided it would be a clever wheeze to accuse doctors of falsely reporting COVID cases for $$$$$$$$$$.

President Donald Trump on Friday baselessly claimed that doctors are inflating the coronavirus death count for monetary gain while cases, hospitalizations and deaths surge across the country.

“Our doctors get more money if someone dies from Covid. You know that, right? I mean our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say ‘I’m sorry but everybody dies of Covid,’ ” Trump said, without citing any evidence, at a rally in Waterford Township, Michigan.

More money how? How does that work? Where are the stats?

There is no evidence for the President’s claim and the statement represents a

Ah he’s got a Facebook post on the subject too. Glutton for punishment this guy.

His profile has Seattle Pacific University right at the top. SPU is at the bottom of the hill from me (north side, away from downtown) and across the canal from Fremont, which is now Google city. It’s small, and Christian, and a little bit creepy. I always see invisible scare quotes on the “university” bit.

So I found the controversy button on social media. Pretty neat feature. There were some helpful comments at the beginning of the post. After that, Zuckerberg let the monkeys out.

No, Zuckerberg doesn’t assign people to comment on your posts, chum.

Here is what the Bible teaches. Ephesians 5:23 says,

Brothers, a friendly reminder for life: don’t tell women what to do.

A friendly reminder pic.twitter.com/mPVfq8Tpbh

— Jesse Sumpter (@jesse_sumpter) October 28, 2020

“Make sure” how? Issue her express orders? Order her to show you her ballot before putting it in the drop box or the slot at the polling place?

A few reasons:
-They should be united in voting. The husband makes sure this happens.
-If they vote differently, they cancel each other out.
-If they vote differently, the husband leaves his wife unprotected. If the husband won’t vote for a guy, why would he let his wife do it?

— Jesse Sumpter (@jesse_sumpter) October 30, 2020

The husband is not responsible for how his wife votes. Women are … Read the rest

Aaron Rupar also following Trump’s on the road lies:

Trump is mad that Mayor Bowser is taking basic public health precautions to slow the spread of coronavirus in Washington DC, because he wants to have a big party at the Trump International Hotel that he still owns and profits from on election night pic.twitter.com/t2NfPMuVcE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2020

"You're doing good. In other words, you're all doing good, right? It's a pandemic, and you're doing good. You gotta get this governor, you gotta get her to open." — Trump pic.twitter.com/kn3G6tuU6L

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2020

Trump does this at every rally but it's worth reiterating how bonkers his conspiracy theory about TV outlets turning off

Kayleigh McEnany explained about the ballots in a river way back at the beginning of the month.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Meagan Wolfe, director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said during a news conference this week that “no Wisconsin absentee ballots were found” in a mail bag that was discovered last week in a ditch in Greenville, Wisconsin, although she said she didn’t know if any out-of-state ballots were caught up in the mail bag.

McEnany sparred with Fox News Radio reporter Jon Decker on Thursday when he asked her about Trump claiming that his voters’ ballots were being thrown into an unspecified river, and she responded by saying that the president actually meant the ditch in Greenville.

Coulda … Read the rest

Daniel Dale has fact-checky snapshots from Trump in campaigning mode.

Sticking to his pattern from earlier in the year, Trump keeps saying Biden has refused to condemn Philadelphia violence Biden has actually condemned out loud and in writing:https://t.co/sMWQBjFVJW

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 30, 2020

Trump is just going around the country criticizing Democratic-run places for being shut down even though they are not shut down. https://t.co/3lZO0R20Cx

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 30, 2020

Even without a vaccine, Trump says in Michigan, "we're still rounding the corner." pic.twitter.com/ot58WLyqEu

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 30, 2020

Going up is not rounding the corner.

Trump criticizes Whitmer, the crowd chants "lock her up," Trump goes silent for a bit, then says,

The cavalry has arrived! Just in time to be swept into the ditch.

How poignant to see Kent garagiste Nigel Farage interfering in the US election, much in the way a drop interferes in the ocean. Farage is appearing at the odd rally for his emotional support president, Donald Trump, which tells its own story about where the US leader is at, psychologically speaking, for the final days of his campaign. On Wednesday, Trump gibbered to a crowd: “I’m glad I called him up.” So is Nigel’s agent.

Nigel was brought on stage in Arizona by Donald, where the latter introduced him as “the king of Europe”.

Certainly, and Trump is the emperor of Antarctica.

Farage rubed his way

Thought for the Day: Marketing Harry Potter-themed underwear=advocating violence against “trans folx.”

An alert observer asked “So these are officially licensed, correct? Meaning that JK Rowling does profit from me purchasing them? Love the prints, but out of principle I have to pass, unless a portion of proceeds were donated to supporting trans charities.”

You need to take a step back and have a far better answer than “sorry we are putting trans lives at risk, we didn’t know where the money went for our product!”

— elizabeth (@dahanese) October 27, 2020

A Medium article isn't a news article or a scientific paper, so good try with that propaganda. Giving money to people and groups that advocate violence against

It turns out men are stronger than women. Who knew?

Earlier this year, World Rugby caused somewhat of a stir when its draft proposals to ban biological men from playing at the top level of women’s rugby were reported by The Guardian. The proposals were of particular interest because they were in sharp contrast to the rules of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has loosened its requirements to focus on athletes’ testosterone levels. World Rugby was also the first international sporting federation to indicate such a move, which led to immediate criticism from some quarters that the proposals were “harmful” despite the fact the they were aimed at safeguarding players’ health.

Which never made any sense, seeing … Read the rest

Andrew Copson at Humanists UK:

This morning, three civilians were murdered in France – stabbed to death and beheaded – by an Islamic extremist. It was a shocking and despicable act, but not an isolated one.

It comes just a fortnight after state school teacher Samuel Paty was murdered for teaching his class about freedom of expression and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. France responded then in the only way a human rights-loving republic should. It defended the right to free expression, including to publish materials which may cause offence.

Sickeningly, today’s murders have been portrayed as a retaliation for that defence of free speech and secular education and it feels like this is a situation spiralling out of