Again. Clothes, advertising, children. This time it’s Gap UK.

Thanks, Gap UK.

(Also, note the spelling on the boy’s shirt.)

Hey, did you know that women actually don’t want to climb the ladder, they’d rather be happy? Did you know women have more sense than those silly men with their higher salaries, and prefer to go around in a circle rather than up? It’s true: the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi said so.

The chairman of advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi has been put on leave for saying the debate on gender bias in the industry is “all over”.

British-born Kevin Roberts told Business Insider he did not think the lack of women in leadership roles “is a problem” in the advertising industry.

The reason it’s not a problem is because women like it. They like it, I tell you!

In the interview, published on Friday, Mr Roberts said the “debate is all over” about gender diversity in the advertising industry.

…

He goes on to say that rather than holding ambitions to progress into the higher echelons of management, many women – and men – simply want to be happy and “do great work”.

He adds: “…they are going: ‘Actually guys, you’re missing the point, you don’t understand: I’m way happier than you.’ Their ambition is not a vertical ambition, it’s this intrinsic, circular ambition to be happy.

“So they say: ‘We are not judging ourselves by those standards that you idiotic dinosaur-like men judge yourself by’. I don’t think [the lack of women in leadership roles] is a problem.

“I’m just not worried about it because they are very happy, they’re very successful, and doing great work. I can’t talk about sexual discrimination because we’ve never had that problem, thank goodness.”

Yay, problem solved! In fact problem never even was a problem, at least not at Saatchi and Saatchi.

Meanwhile Boko Haram, as always.

Suspected Islamist Boko Haram militants have ambushed a UN humanitarian aid convoy in north-eastern Nigeria which had a military escort, officials say.

The military said three civilians, including UN staff, and two soldiers were wounded in the attack.

It has prompted the UN to temporarily suspend aid deliveries in Borno state, where more than two million people have been displaced by the insurgency.

The UN says thousands of children are severely malnourished in the region.

Emphasis added. Boko Haram wants thousands of children to starve to death.

Doubtless thousands of adults are also malnourished and in danger of starving to death.

Earlier this month the UN’s children agency warned that tens of thousands of children would die if treatment did not reach them soon.

So Boko Haram’s response is to make the UN suspend aid deliveries. No more food aid for the starving people of Borno.

Nick Cohen calls the Trump-supporting Republicans – which is most of them – collaborators.

Anglo-Saxon democracies, which were never invaded in the 20th century, have produced a rich series of alternative histories of resistance. When the Nazis win the Second World War, audiences can flatter themselves that they would never have collaborated with Robert Harris’s Fatherland or Amazon’s Man in the High Castle.

No one is more prone to imagining how well they would have behaved in conflicts that they never experienced than American conservatives. The cult of Churchill in the US would embarrass even his most devoted British admirers.

Do they? That’s bizarre. I do the opposite – I always suspect I would be cowardly and selfish. I don’t dare imagine myself behaving well, because I’m not the least bit confident I would have. It’s the same with the Milgram experiment – I always imagine myself being cowed by the insistence of the guy in the lab coat and my shame at messing up his nice experiment.

Anyway – Trump is a fascist, or as close to one as we need in order to know he must not be elected president of the US.

I don’t throw the word “fascism” around, but can we at least accept that Trump follows theFührerprinzip? He has no colleagues, only followers. He is a racist. Not a closet racist, or a dog-whistle racist, but a racist so unabashed that the Klan endorses him. Above all, he has the swaggering dictator’s determination to bawl opponents into silence with screams of “loser”, “dummy”, “fraud”, “puppet,” “biased”, “disgusting”, “liar” and “kook”. As with the web trolls Trump so resembles, it is never the point and always the person. Female news presenters have to explain that they are not asking him difficult questions because they have “blood coming out of whatever” or surrender to him, as Megan Kelly of Fox News did to her shame. Latinos have to explain why they are not rapists and murderers or shut up and give up. Muslims have to explain that they are not terrorists or they lose the right to a hearing. At every stage, the argument is shifted on to the troll’s terrain of ethnic and religious loyalty tests. Except here the troll could become the world’s most powerful man.

It’s still hard to believe we’re even arguing about this. The man is a brawler, a street-fighter, that loud drunk at the bar, that out of control asshole on the bus. He’s sexist racist xenophobic and foul-tempered. There is not one good thing you can say about him.

Conservatives boasted too that they knew that the old-fashioned virtues of good character mattered as much as a man or woman’s ideology. By this reckoning, Trump’s bragging, vainglory, dark fury and towering vanity should disqualify him from the presidency regardless of his politics.

What I’m saying. He’s terrible. If he were an ardent lefty but had all those qualities I would say he’s terrible. (There certainly are ardent lefties like that, and they are terrible.)

Yet McCain and Ryan, those enemies of appeasement, have folded and endorsed Trump. Rubio, that piercing judge of his character, has decided that, after all, Trump’s finger should be on the button. Presidents Bush père et fils are bravely abstaining. Bobby Jindal, who described Trump as a “narcissist and egomaniacal madman”, wants him in the White House. Nearly all the Republican names you remember follow suit. The Dick Cheneys, Rand Pauls and Condoleezza Rices are backing Trump or refusing to commit. Confronted with a dictatorial menace in their own time and their own country they lack the courage to risk the unpopularity that Churchillian dissent would bring.

Even when Trump followed his years of promoting the interests of a dictator of a hostile foreign power by urging Vladimir Putin to hack Clinton’s emails, they held steady in their cowardice. The Republicans, the party of red-baiters and Cold Warriors, is now in the pocket of a Kremlin “useful idiot” and the best its national security conservatives can manage are embarrassed mutters.

…

My friend and comrade, the American journalist Jamie Kirchick, coined the phrase “Vichy Republicans” to describe its leaders.

They might as well be singing “Maréchal, nous voilà !”

Ari Berman on the North Carolina ruling:

This is a huge victory for voting rights—the most significant in the country since the Shelby County v. Holder decision—that will make it easier for hundreds of thousands of voters to cast a ballot this November. It comes just a week before the 51st anniversary of the VRA on August 6, and is especially welcome because there were widespread voting problems during North Carolina’s presidential primary in March that offered a disturbing preview of what to expect in the general election—students waited in three-hour lines, foreign-born US citizens were asked to spell their names to poll workers for no reason in an apparent literacy test, and elderly voters born during Jim Crow were turned away from the polls.

Most notably, the Fourth Circuit court found that GOP legislators restricted the right to vote to intentionally target African-American voters. North Carolina passed a series of reforms beginning in 2000 that benefited all voters, particularly black voters, wrote Judge Diana Motz, a Clinton appointee, in a unanimous opinion.

During the period in which North Carolina jurisdictions were covered by Section 5, African American electoral participation dramatically improved. In particular, between 2000 and 2012, when the law provided for the voting mechanisms at issue here and did not require photo ID, African American voter registration swelled by 51.1%.

African American turnout similarly surged, from 41.9% in 2000 to 71.5% in 2008 and 68.5% in 2012.

Which is a good thing, right? Well yes except that African Americans don’t tend to vote Republican. What to do, what to do.

The ruling continues:

After years of preclearance and expansion of voting access, by 2013 African American registration and turnout rates had finally reached near-parity with white registration and turnout rates. African Americans were poised to act as a major electoral force. But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an “omnibus” election law. Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.

In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist. Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the State’s true motivation.

Faced with this record, we can only conclude that the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent.

Let me just repeat one sentence, with emphasis: Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices.

Oh did they. What an interesting coincidence.

Berman says this ruling may represent a trend. Good news.

Ari Berman in the Nation on William Barber’s speech at the DNC on Thursday:

Nation readers are well acquainted with Dr. Rev. William Barber II, this magazine’s civil-rights correspondent, but most Americans have never heard of him. Last night was his coming-out party, when he brought down the house with an incredible speech at the DNC just an hour before Hillary Clinton took the stage.

So I watched it. It’s a stem-winder all right.

As the leader of the North Carolina NAACP and the Moral Monday movement, Barber is leading a multi-racial and multi-issue struggle for racial and social justice that the South hasn’t seen since the 1960s. He’s been traveling the nation in recent months calling for a moral revival—similar to the “revolution of values” that Martin Luther King Jr. once preached—and he distilled that message in a barn-burning 10-minute speech last night.

It’s a faithy speech, but it’s the kind of faithy that an atheist can ally with.

DailyKos has the full transcript. Here’s the punchline:

I say to you tonight, there are some issues that are not Left versus Right, Liberal versus Conservative, they are “right versus wrong.” 

We need to embrace our deepest moral values and push for a revival of the heart of our democracy.

• When we fight to reinstate the power of the Voting Rights Act and to break interposition and the nullification of the current Congress, we in the South especially know that when we do that, we are reviving the heart of our democracy.
• When we fight for $15 and a union, and universal healthcare, and public education, and immigrant rights, and LGBTQ rights, we are reviving the heart of our democracy.
• When wedevelop tax and trade policies that no longer funnel our prosperity to the wealthy few, we are reviving the heart of our democracy. W
• When we hear the legitimate discontent of Black Lives Matter and we come together to renew justice in our criminal justice system, we are embracing our deepest moral values and reviving the heart of our democracy.
• When we love the Jewish child and the Palestinian child,  the Muslim and the Christian, and the Hindu, and the Buddhist, and those who have no faith— but they love this nation, we are reviving the heart of our democracy.

Back to Ari Berman:

I was surprised to see Barber speak at the DNC. He’s rarely endorsed candidates and been careful not to get too close to the Democratic Party, which he’s also taken on over the years. So it was great to see the Clinton campaign—known for its caution and carefulness—give a huge platform to a leader who is so bold and honest.

“In times like these, we have to make some decisions and I might not normally be here as a preacher as an individual, but when I hear Hillary’s voice and her positions, I hear and I know that she is working to embrace our deepest moral values and we should embrace her,” Barber said. “But let me be clear, let me be clear, she, nor any person can do it alone. The watchword of the democracy and the watchword of faith is we. The heart of our democracy is on the line this November and beyond.”

It is indeed great to see the Clinton campaign feature Barber. That’s the less corporate side of her, which we all need to see. Mazel tov.

An entry in the Nightmare Food Illustrations game that I just can’t not share. Via Jeffrey on Facebook:

Salmon with lemon jello.

SALMON WITH LEMON JELLO.

Not to mention the mouthwatering bowl of whole anchovies, and the side dish of sweet potato balls in raspberry jello with oysters on a bed of arugula.

Speaking of the rage and threats and violence that have become the new normal – Oregon’s governor has extra security these days, thanks to the worked-up rage of the gangsters who tried to steal Malheur.

After a series of hostile threats this year — beginning with the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation and continuing after Brown called for tighter gun rules in Oregon — the governor’s security detail has quietly taken steps to increase protection levels.

Some measures remain unidentified. But others are visible.

They don’t always say where she’s going, for instance.

And while threats against Oregon governors aren’t new, Brown’s staff said it’s taking the increasingly aggressive tone of recent threats seriously enough to keep in regular contact with the FBI.

“Instead of voicing passionate opinions or dissent as part of exercising free speech, they express intent to cause her harm, ugly threats of physical violence and death,” said Kristen Grainger, Brown’s communications director. “Potentially dangerous individuals have attempted to breach security perimeters on more than one occasion.”

Grainger and others say Brown’s role in calling for an end to this winter’s armed occupation near Burns, along with her recent backing of three gun-control bills, appear to have ramped up threats.

Bullies like to bully; it’s what they do.

So you type “angry trump hitler” into Google and pop, Google knows what you mean.

Not what you want. Hot rage is not what you want in a head of state. Chronic hot rage is really not what you want in a head of state. Trump is unmistakably a horrible human being, a bully of the worst kind. His candidacy makes me ashamed to be a Yank.

Helen Pidd and Jon Boone at the Guardian have more details on the apparent murder of Samia Shahid.

Such crimes are often triggered by women defying centuries-old patriarchal codes and daring to make their own choice about who they marry, or how they live their lives. Shahid not only married a man of her choice, she also divorced her first husband, her cousin Shakeel, a man Kazam says she was pressured to marry in a lavish wedding in Pakistan in 2012.

The marriage had been arranged when she was young and it is believed Shahid was expected to apply for a visa for Shakeel so he could join her in the UK. “The nearer [the wedding] day came, the more she didn’t want to do it,” said a friend in Bradford.

She went through with the marriage but was so determined not to become pregnant that she asked a British friend in Pakistan to help her get the contraceptive pill – hard to come by in rural Pakistan.

Shahid eventually returned to the UK, where she sought a divorce via the Sharia courts and couriered the legal papers to Shakeel at his Pandori home. Her rejection of the marriage is said to have gravely insulted her family, who refused to recognise the divorce. They reported her missing to the police in November 2014 when she left the UK to live with her new partner, Kazam, in Dubai.

Her new husband, that is. They got married – willingly and happily on both sides! – in September 2014.

The family was never likely to approve. Kazam was an outsider; a member of the Syed clan rather than their own Choudhry clan and with no links to their ancestral village near the Mangla dam in Punjab.

They married at Leeds Town Hall, with a legally binding UK marriage certificate as well as a nikkah. Samia converted to Shia Islam.

Shahid had attempted to restore her relationship with the family on a return visit to Bradford in September 2015, the Guardian has learned. She was sufficiently worried that she asked a police chaperone to accompany her to a meeting with her own family.

It didn’t go well. Even with the officer present, the meeting became heated and one of her relatives received an official police harassment warning, West Yorkshire police said. “She was very smart, was Samia,” said a friend in Bradford. “That’s why she took the police officer with her. She thought they’d hurt her or take her passport off her or both.”

But she went to Pakistan anyway when they told her her father was dying. He wasn’t. Her stream of instant messages to Kazam suddenly stopped.

When he phoned her cousin, a man called Mobeen, Kazam said he was told Shahid – who he says was a healthy 28-year-old woman – had died of a heart attack. It was the first in a number of conflicting explanations of her death, including that she had fallen after an asthma attack. The local press carried a story claiming she had killed herself because she was depressed about not having had children, but the family have rejected this.

Aqeel Abbas, the investigating officer on the case, played down the likelihood of foul play, telling the Guardian on Sunday that there had been no signs of external physical injury on Shahid’s body. However, it emerged days later through an autopsy – and pictures of her body seen by this newspaper – that Shahid has visible bruising around her neck. A source involved in the investigation said they suspected Shahid was poisoned.

I’ve seen one of those pictures too. The bruise is very visible. It’s all across the front, and it stands out. There’s also a stream of blood at one corner of her mouth.

[MP Naz] Shah’s complaints dramatically raised the profile of a case that might otherwise have never gone further than the local Urdu language press in Jhelum district. The interior minister has demanded an in-depth investigation while the chief minister of Punjab has ordered a special committee of top provincial policemen to prepare a report into the affair within three days.

All because she divorced a man she never wanted to marry, and married a man she did want to marry.

Originally a comment by Steamshovelmama on An extended discussion with their homeopath.

This is one of the appealing things about most “alternative therapies”. You’re paying through the nose for the “therapist”‘s time so you get a nice comfy sit down with a cup of tea and have a long chat with someone who is basically there to listen to you talk about your problems. There’s no rush, there’s time to talk about all those neurotic little issues – which we all have but which medical doctors don’t want to hear about because theres’s nothing they can do about them. Then you go home with (or having had) the equivalent of a sugar pill which, yes, probably does do you some good because you’ve performed all the necessary steps to activate the placebo effect. You’ve been spoken to by someone you consider to be in a position of authority, you’ve sacrificed (paid a shitload of money), you’ve undergone/will carry out some ritually prescribed actions (been physically manipulated/massaged/had needles stuck in you, been given magic pills to take a set time every day etc) so it’s no wonder some people swear by them. Between the placebo effect – actually very strong – and regression to the mean (most things get better on their own in a few weeks) people do perceive they are getting an effect.

This has led to suggestions it should be offered on the NHS. Not because it does anything more than placebo but because it’s basically harmless. You see, every GP’s surgery has a small hardcore of patients who are quite well but think they’re not. They have a plethora of physical symptoms, all of which are either self-evidently neurotic or have been investigated in every way possible. They aren’t actually mentally ill as such so referral to the psych services (which are very overstretched) is just bouncing the problem elsewhere. Back in the 1940s and 50s it wasn’t uncommon for this group to be appeased by being prescribed something innocuous – a sugar pill. These days we aren’t allowed to lie to patients (and all medication can be easily looked up on line) so this small coterie of patients often ends up having their symptoms treated because the GP is left with no choice. The suggestion was to employ a homoeopathist or an acupuncturist to deal with these people’s problems. They get their sit down and chat about their issues. They get their sugar pills (or magic water), they go home happy and free up a shit-load of appointments at their GP’s surgery. The GP keeps a weather eye on them to make sure the symptoms that have been interpreted as innocuous don’t transform into something treatable. Everyone is happy – except for the folks who make the argument that the NHS should never, under any circumstances, pay for anything that doesn’t work.

I can see both sides. The problem with the current system is that, in order not to lie to this group of patients, we have to poison them, which also costs the NHS money. Overall, a local complementary therapist might well be cheaper – especially if he/she negotiates a lower rate to ensure regular NHS business. It’s not much different to the “exercise prescriptions” that GPs can give out which may include access to local authority gyms.