NPR reported on July 25:

A jury has ordered anti-government extremist Ammon Bundy and associates to pay more than $50 million in damages to Idaho’s largest hospital in connection with armed protests last year that led to a security lockdown.

Remember him? The violent lunatic who invaded a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, and violently stayed there for a couple of weeks, and got one of his followers killed, all because he thinks he should be allowed to graze his cattle on federal land for free?

The decision handed down late Monday follows a ten day civil trial in which Bundy was a no show and where attorneys with St. Luke’s Hospital outlined what they called an extensive campaign of bullying, intimidation and disinformation directed at doctors and medical staff that they say continues today.

…

The drama goes back to March of 2022 when Bundy led a series of tense protests against the hospitalization of one of his associate’s infant grand[children] who state social workers said was malnourished. According to court documents, protesters, some armed, tried to force their way into the hospital’s locked exits. Some held “wanted” signs naming individual doctors and nurses and even blocked an ambulance entrance as car horns blared.

…

Ammon Bundy, who ran for governor in Idaho in 2022, receiving some 90,000 votes, routinely attacks the state’s Republican leaders, including its conservative governor, on social media. Bundy and his followers frequently spread Q Anon conspiracy theories that St. Luke’s and its staff who cared for the infant grandson were part of a global child sex trafficking cabal.

Well never mind all that, let’s talk about the real fascists: feminist women who know that men are not women.

Bundy of course has no intention of paying.

Yesterday:

 In a new lawsuit, St. Luke’s Health System has accused Ammon Bundy of fraudulently transferring his assets to other people in order to avoid paying damages owed to the hospital following the anti-government activist’s jury trial.

Bundy and his associate, Diego Rodriguez, were ordered by a jury to pay over $52 million in damages to the hospital and doctors due to a days-long protest over a child protective services case outside the St. Luke’s Boise and Meridian locations in March of 2022. 

Today:

Ammon Bundy, the anti-government provocateur, has been arrested according to the Gem County dispatch service.

Bundy has had an active arrest warrant since mid-April after an Ada County judge found him in contempt of court for refusing to show up to legal proceedings for nearly a year over a civil lawsuit filed by St. Luke’s Health System.

He should run for president.

Is Willoughby immortal?

The BBC “reports”:

A teenage girl arrested on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence will face no further action, police said.

A video uploaded to TikTok by her mother showed the autistic 16-year-old being detained outside her home in Leeds in the early hours of Monday.

The hell it does. The police detained her inside her home, as we’ve all seen from the video. Bare feet on carpeted stairs; the police tromping all over the carpeted floor of the hall; the 16-year-old cowering at the end of a short corridor; inside.

It’s possible that she said the shock-horror thing about the cop looking like a lesbian like her aunty outside the door; we don’t know, because that bit isn’t on tape; but the aggressive excessive furious detaining happened inside.

West Yorkshire Police said it had reviewed the evidence and closed the criminal investigation.

The force’s professional standards department is carrying out a review after it received a complaint.

A complaint? I rather think it was more than one.

Reactions to the West Yorks Police “oops” are not uniformly admiring.

Replies are turned off, as they were on yesterday’s now-memory-holed “there’s more to it than you know” – which at least one person points out is silly because quote tweets can’t be turned off so why admit you want us to shut up without being able to shut us up?

Oh look, West Yorks Police have admitted it was a mistake. They haven’t actually apologized, yet, but they have dropped the charge.

The NZ Herald on the puncher:

A young LGBTQ rights activist who was filmed punching a 71-year-old woman in the head during the heated Posie Parker counter-protest in Auckland this year has pleaded guilty to assault.

A young male activist. They just can’t stop themselves trying to defend the aggressors and accuse the victims when it comes to trans ideology, can they. It’s a young man who punched an elderly woman in the head, and that fact belongs in the lede.

The victim, who did not attend today’s hearing, told the Herald she was pleased to hear about the guilty plea.

“I am feeling very good today,” said the grandmother of six, who suffered a concussion and facial bruising as a result of the attack. “I’m glad he has pleaded guilty. That made me feel a lot better.”

A young man’s fist did that.

“About 11am an unknown person began pulling out pegs placed in the ground to separate the two groups,” police noted in the summary of facts for the case. “The group protesting against the speaker Posie Parker pushed over a metal fence and began approaching the group supporting her.

“The victim put her hands out to stop the group and made contact with a female from the opposing group, the same one that had been removing the pegs.”

The defendant approached the victim after noticing the physical contact, court documents state.

“The victim turned towards the defendant who responded by punching the victim three times in the head area,” police noted.

“In explanation, the defendant stated he believed the victim had assaulted a fellow protester and that the victim was going to assault him next.”

Did he also believe that she would cause him a lot of damage if she did “assault” him? So much damage that he needed to punch her in the eye three times with his youthful male fist?

Assault carries a maximum possible sentence of one year’s imprisonment. The man’s lawyer indicated today that she intends to seek a discharge without conviction. She also requested a referral for restorative justice, in which the defendant and the victim could meet in a controlled setting if the victim agreed.

The victim told the Herald today she is ready for the meeting.

“I want to meet up and have my say with him, but the thing which sticks in my craw is even before we have had that face-to-face restorative meeting his lawyer is making submissions for dismissal without conviction and permanent name suppression,” she said.

“He hasn’t said sorry and I feel the rights of victims are not upheld.

“It’s like the victim has totally been forgotten out of the justice system.”

The victim said she would look her attacker in the eye and ask him why he attacked an old lady who was not causing him any grief.

“I will let him have his say and then go from there,” she said.

Maybe she can persuade him to consider the possibility that women should have some rights too.

Paragraph one sets the scene…with a sudden plot twist at the end.

When she woke up on July 14, Chelsea Wolfe’s life was—in her own words—perfect. Her tickets were booked for Scotland, her registration for Freestyle BMX as part of Team USA was confirmed, her bags were partially packed, her training was going according to plan. She sat down to a bowl of cereal before heading to the bike park for a training session, and opened up Instagram. That’s where she learned that the UCI had just instituted a ban on trans athletes, starting in three days.

It’s not subtle. Eight iterations of “she” or “her” before getting to the trans part. Chelsea Wolfe is a man.

“My world crumbled in that moment,” she recalls, speaking to me on Zoom from her apartment in San Diego three weeks later—at the exact same time that the event she was supposed to compete in, Women’s Freestyle BMX, played out at Worlds. (American BMXer Hannah Roberts took her fifth title as we said goodbye.)

It’s his world that matters, you see. Not the world of the woman he would have displaced.

No matter where you currently stand in the debate over the right of trans women to compete, here’s the thing: It’s tempting to try to keep the debate in the realm of the academic, the esoteric. But it’s not. It’s about humans. When you’re discussing with your friends whether or not trans women should be able to compete in sport, you’re not talking about an abstract concept. You’re talking about a 30-year-old woman who’s currently on suicide watch. There isn’t a big bad wolf out there; there’s a small-boned, frankly adorable Wolfe out there, and she just had her life turned upside down.

No shit, but Wolfe is not the only human affected here, to put it mildly. Of course it’s about humans, and women are the humans who are being harmed by men like Wolfe. How stupid and captured and blinded do you have to be to overlook that? Especially by telling us he’s “frankly adorable”?

“It’s already been a rough life, and then they’re like, ‘Hey you know what’s a good idea? Let’s kick her while she’s down,’” Wolfe says with an ironic smile.

Uh huh. Now think about the women.

Before the UCI’s July 14 announcement that effectively banned trans women from competition starting July 17, Wolfe had been on top of the world. Not only was she part of Team USA, everything else was finally going her way. 

At the expense of the women he would be racing against. Maybe too much was going his way.

Vacillating between anger and sadness has become the norm for Wolfe. “Right now, I’m in a crisis and having urges to harm myself that feel uncontrollable. I am mourning the loss of this life that was just stolen from me,” she says. “But then I’m also thinking about how we need to fix this. The rage that I rightly feel having my life stolen from me is huge.”

Stolen from him. What about what he wanted to steal from women? What about their lives?

While Wolfe is working towards a legal resolution to the UCI’s ban—essentially, working on suing the UCI for the right to race—she recognizes that at 30 years old, even if she wins the case, it will likely be too late. The odds of a resolution before the 2024 Olympics are slim, and the average age of Freestyle BMX racers is getting younger and younger. It’s unlikely that if she does win, a return to racing at the level she’s at now will be possible. “They are stealing these years from me,” she says. “Regardless of whether or not we win in the long run, they are harming us now, and that harm can never be undone.”

He says, over and over and over, ignoring everything he is stealing from women.

Regardless of where you stand in the trans athlete debate, the mid-season abrupt shift in rules with a three day warning can only be considered cruel.

No, you’re wrong about that. I don’t consider it cruel to Wolfe, I consider it ending his sustained cruelty to his women rivals.

If it feels like a political move, that’s because it’s almost impossible to reject the idea that it is one. “Every single review of the rules around trans women competing has come immediately after a trans woman reaching any modicum of success within competition. So in 2018, it was Dr. Veronica Ivy winning a Masters World Championship track race.”

That’s because it’s not fair. It’s hard to believe the level of obstinate determined denial in this article.

Stuff New Zealand reports:

A man has admitted assaulting an elderly woman during a protest against an anti-transgender speaker.

That’s a misnomer. It implies that the issue is just “transgender” in general, when it’s the way trans ideology erodes women’s rights. Letting women speak is not inherently “anti-transgender” and it’s certainly not an attack on trans people.

The protester, who has name suppression, appeared at the Auckland District Court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to a charge of assault, his lawyer Emma Priest confirmed to Stuff.

Why does the man who attacked a woman have name suppression?

The man hit the woman during a heated clash between supporters of Keen-Minshull and those who support transgender rights.

The man hit the woman while he and others were violently invading and trying to shut down supporters of women’s rights. It wasn’t a “clash,” it was a one-sided attack. By the way he fractured her eye socket.

Videos of the protest showed heated scenes between the protesters, with a man hitting a woman twice in the face.

Videos of the protest showed people violently attacking the protesters.

H/t Rob

Credit where it’s due – Peter gets it right for a change.

Clarence Thomas has been cashing in even more than we knew.

During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood.

Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include:

At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.

This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount.

And it’s a problem because all this could be, to put it bluntly, bribery.

It doesn’t have to be “We’ll treat you to this luxury vacation on the Riviera if you rule in our favor” to be corrupt. Lavish gifts—>debt. Thomas owes all these people something.

…the pattern exposes consistent violations of judicial norms, experts, including seven current and former federal judges appointed by both parties, told ProPublica. “In my career I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges’ financial disclosures. “I think it’s unprecedented.”

Largesse=obligation.

Don Fox, the former general counsel of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the senior ethics official in the executive branch, said, “It’s just the height of hypocrisy to wear the robes and live the lifestyle of a billionaire.” Taxpayers, he added, have the right to expect that Supreme Court justices are not living on the dime of others.

Fox, who worked under both Democrat and Republican administrations, said he advised every new political appointee the same thing: Your wealthy friends are the ones you had before you were appointed. “You don’t get to acquire any new ones,” he told them.

If you want the big bucks, work for a corporation, not for the people.

West Yorkshire Police have issued a statement.

West Yorkshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Oz Khan said: “We are aware of a video circulating on social media which, as is often the case, only provides a very limited snapshot of the circumstances of this incident.

“Officers had their body-worn video cameras activated during their wider involvement with this young girl which provides additional context to their actions.”

Ok so it could be that she was verbally abusive as the police were taking her home along with her older sister. But we know she wasn’t arrest-level abusive on the way home because the police didn’t arrest her, they took her home. They presumably didn’t take her home in order to show her to her mother before they dragged her off to the cells.

But anyway they say themselves that she didn’t say anything to annoy them until the lesbian remark.

“We have received a complaint in relation to this incident which is currently being assessed by West Yorkshire Professional Standards Directorate. While that ongoing process and the active criminal investigation limit our ability to fully discuss the incident in detail, we feel it is important for people to have some context about the circumstances.

“From 12.12am on Monday, August 7, police received calls from a family member of a 16-year-old girl who was reportedly intoxicated and putting herself at risk in Leeds city centre. Officers attended at about 1am and drove the teenager to her home so she could be appropriately looked after. Upon returning her to the address, comments were made which resulted in the girl being arrested on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence. The nature of the comments made was fully captured on body-worn video.”

The office staffer who wrote this flubbed the most important item. “Comments were made.” BY WHOM? Staffer doesn’t even have the brains to remember that the issue is this particular girl making these alleged comments. It could be the Angel Gabriel suddenly popping in to make comments, which resulted in the girl being arrested, which makes no sense. What the staffer needed to type was “the girl made comments, and the police arrested her because of the comments.”

But anyway. The girl made comments. So what??? These are grown-ass adult non-autistic adults who are trained to deal with disruptive people because that’s much of what their job is. A teenage autistic girl, even a rude or sweary one, is not the equivalent of a massive drunk man threatening violence.

Anyway what is a “homophobic public order offence” when it’s in her own house? (And she’s a minor, and autistic?) They were inside her front door; it wasn’t public.

“When the girl was eventually fit to be interviewed, that interview took place with an appropriate adult. She was later released on bail pending further enquiries and advice from the Crown Prosecution Service.

“West Yorkshire Police takes its responsibilities around the welfare of young people taken into custody and around neurodiversity very seriously. We also maintain that our officers and staff should not have to face abuse while working to keep our communities safe.”

Nope, I just can’t see it. Of course officers shouldn’t have to face abuse, but they also shouldn’t over-react to one autistic 16-year-old girl. Even if she had shouted “That’s one fugly bull-dyke right there!” they should have risen above. They could urge the mother to teach her better manners, but I cannot see the need to assault and arrest the daughter.

Horror story out of Leeds:

A mother in Leeds, UK, has revealed that her 16-year-old autistic daughter was arrested by West Yorkshire police after one of the officers accused her of “homophobia.” The incident occurred after police had been called to provide a safe escort home for the vulnerable girl.

The girl (“Amanda” – not her real name) had tagged along after her older (non-autistic) sister who was out with friends.

After the two met up, Amanda’s sister began to experience concerns about her younger sibling acting in “unsafe ways,” and attempted to contact her mother but was unable to reach her.

Without another mode of communication, the older girl called their local West Yorkshire Police dispatch for help, explaining to them that her sister was autistic and needed a safe escort back home.

“They said they would come assist in getting her home as she is vulnerable, with her being diagnosed with autism,” Snow says. “When they arrived where my two daughters were, Amanda refused to travel alone with them and wanted her sister to come with her, so she agreed.”

The police took her home. The mother continues:

“They said they were just bringing her home safely… [But] one of the officers had hold of Amanda and was squeezing her arm very tightly. She asked me to get [the officer] off her arm as it was hurting so I guided my daughter inside.”

But just as she brought her daughter in, the girl made a would-be innocent remark about the female officer who had been amongst the West Yorkshire police escorting her.

“She said ‘I think she’s a lesbian like nanna Julie,’” Snow recounts, noting that the female officer had short blonde hair. “I just felt a jolt on my back… the officer had launcher herself in my home at me and Amanda. She was grabbing her.”

Snow says her daughter scampered into a cupboard under the stairs and began crying and apologizing, unsure of what was going on. Amanda also began self-harming out of stress.

“She was crying and saying sorry to the police woman. That’s when I grabbed my phone and started recording.”

In terrifying footage twice removed by TikTok, Amanda is heard screaming and crying as multiple West Yorkshire Police officers surround the cupboard she had backed herself into for safety.

I’ve watched the footage; it is indeed unnerving.

This is the police we’re talking about. They often have to arrest actual criminals, sometimes violent ones. They likely have to deal with abusive drunks a lot, including male abusive drunks who throw punches. Wouldn’t you think they could take a drunk autistic girl age 16 using the word “lesbian”? Even if, contrary to the mother’s account, she used it as a taunt or insult? (Unlikely, since she’s autistic.) Wouldn’t you think they could just ignore it, say good night, and leave?

“She’s getting arrested,” the female officer says firmly. “Another unit’s coming, don’t worry … I’m telling you another unit is coming, she is going to get arrested tonight.”

Arrested????

In the clip, Snow is heard pleading with the female officer to be more understanding of her daughter’s autism.

“She’s got autism, can you just stand there please? She’s in a cupboard, she can’t go anywhere,” Snow is saying, voice strained. “You’re going to remove her for what? Because she said the word lesbian? Her nana is a lesbian, she’s married to a woman. She’s not homophobic!”

Snow then points out that the female officer’s hands keep clenching.

“Look at you, clenching your fists. Please go away from my teenage daughter! There’s something wrong with you, mate.”

The clip ends with Amanda being led out of the house in tears by a group of six police officers. As she is walked outside, she appears to fall to the ground, at which point the officers begin twisting her arms behind her back in an effort to force her to stand.

Snow attempted to explain that her daughter has severe scoliosis and that her joints should not be manipulated in such a way. In the video, the girl is seen trying to grab at her shoulder with her free hand and screaming in what appears to be obvious pain.

Six police officers!

“Amanda was never read her rights, was not cautioned, and the police woman did not have a warrant and was not invited inside [my home],” Snow says.

Amanda was ultimately in police custody for 20 hours, according to her mother, and was released on “unconditional bail” despite not having any formal documentation of any charges that were filed against her.

The police have issued a statement saying There’s More To It, but I can’t honestly say I believe them.

I probably disagree with LBC on most things, but not on this one. She’s good.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on We left “normal” behind years ago.

We left “normal” behind years ago, and the worst we have ever seen so far may soon be as good as it ever gets.

To quote a Bruce Cockburn song, “the trouble with normal is it always gets worse.”*

I’m no climatologist, but my understanding is that one of the effects of anthropogenic climate change is instability. So things won’t just change or shift, they’ll keep changing and shifting. So long as we keep pumping out more CO2, there is no “normal” to stabilize to. After Titanic struck the iceberg, it did not reach its “new normal” until it hit the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Right now, we’re just starting to go down by the bow, the decks are no longer quite level. This is the point where the analogy breaks down**, because there are no lifeboats, there is nowhere else to go and nobody else to save us. We’re committed to the planet we’re on, and we don’t know how things will end up (though we know it’s unlikely to be anywhere good), because we have yet to stop breaking it. It would be great if we could do that before we reach the bottom. Not choosing to act is itself an action. The longer we delay, the less freedom to act we have, the less of a difference our choices can make, and the less say we will have in where we end up. Earth will do what it’s going to do; we’re along for the ride, wherever that takes us.

[Updated to add]

If there’s one thing that agriculture absolutely depends upon, it’s reliable growing conditions, with the required, just right, mama-bear conditions for whatever crops farmers are growing. Without some degree of predictability, how would they even know what to plant? What worked last year may not work this year. How many growers can survive more than a few failed seasons in a row? There’s not a lot of margin for error when you’re trying to keep eight billion humans alive. It won’t be long before there will be a lot of people who won’t know where their next meal is coming from because there’s not as much being succesfully grown.

So many of the impacts of what we’ve done are bad. Sea level rise? Bad; millions of people displaced. Floods? Droughts? Also bad. Scorching heatwaves that stop being waves and just stay? Hellish. All of these things have direct, immediate impacts on the populations that are subjected to them. But climate instability that results in decreases in food production has an impact that can reach even those who don’t live on a coastline, who escape too much or too little rain, and record temperatures. Wherever we are, we have to eat. Most urban areas rely on outside sources of food. If food becomes precarious for the people growing the food that cities depend upon, they might not be willing to sell it if they need it themselves. Cities, being more populous and wealthier, might just decide to take it. That might work. Once. Then who will grow their food?

* It’s been a while since I’ve listened to it, but this song was written forty years ago! It could have been written yesterday.

**A better analogy would have been a ship being holed by those onboard rather than hitting an iceberg, but apart from scuttling in wartime, most ships are not deliberately destroyed by those sailing in them.

The first thing I wonder is why on earth the CBC published this:

I shouldn’t have to ‘look’ non-binary for my identity to be respected

I’m serious about the wondering. The piece is bad – it’s stupid, trivial, self-absorbed, entitled, badly written, extremely badly reasoned, childish, fatuous, did I mention self-obsessed? There’s literally nothing of value in it. Why would a grownup national broadcaster publish such a thing?

I never know which is worse about the trans craze, the narcissism or the stupidity. I guess I don’t have to make a choice, but it kind of nags at me sometimes.

So anyway, I’ll show you what I mean.

Last year, I attended a conference where everyone wore name tags. I had proudly and visibly written “they/them” below my name.

Sigh. First sentence and already…Why proudly? What’s to be proud of?

When I helped a special guest presenter set up, they asked to see my tag. But while remembering my name, the presenter repeatedly referred to me as “she.”

Because that’s how English works. Female people are referred to as “she.”

My head started spinning and I had an overwhelming urge to run to the washroom and throw up. I wanted to interrupt them and tell them to stop misgendering me. But I had no idea what their views on non-binary people were and I worried about seeming rude.

Jesus christ grow up a little. And news flash: you would have not only seemed rude but been rude if you’d told someone “to stop misgendering” you. You don’t tell people to “stop ___” unless the ___ is serious. You tell people to stop pushing you or staring at you or shouting at you. You don’t tell them to stop using perfectly ordinary neutral non-insulting words to refer to you.

So I sat through the presenter’s instructions as my stomach turned. Once the workshop was underway, I ran to the washroom where I reassured myself that my feelings were valid, even if the presenter didn’t misgender me on purpose.

Well thank god you ran to the washroom to do that instead of doing it in public. What a giant baby. Get a grip on yourself.

At that point, I had been thinking about my pronouns daily for over two years. And I still am.

Well that explains a lot. Try thinking about things that aren’t about you. It does wonders, I promise.

But most people I meet still assume I am a woman and use she/her pronouns — oftentimes even after I’ve corrected them.

Because that’s what you are. Move on. Develop interests external to yourself. It’s urgent. Bonus: it’s more interesting than you are. You might even learn to like it.

Mentioning my pronouns again can be scary. If they don’t respect my pronouns, does that mean they think being non-binary isn’t valid? Will they not want to be friends with me anymore? Will they treat me differently at work? These feelings double when the person is in a position of power.

…

These types of interactions with co-workers, professors and fellow students run through my head at night before I fall asleep. What can I do to get people to understand? 

Wrong question. You’re the one who needs to understand. Your luxury pronouns don’t matter.

I hope that as we continue to talk about how to better support the queer community, people stop assuming anyone’s pronouns and gender, no matter how they perceive them. 

I hope people like you grow up.

When I’m introduced to someone new, I ask about their pronouns and will tell them mine if it feels safe to do so. That is my way of helping create more understanding and helping others by challenging their assumptions.

Why why why did the CBC publish this?

More news on Storm Hans:

A dam in Norway has partly collapsed as the country battles record high river levels, flooding and landslides after a fatal storm.

…

All main roads between Oslo and Trondheim were closed on Wednesday.

Pål Erik Teigen, chief of staff at Innlandet police district, said his force had been monitoring the Braskereidfoss dam and working with power plant owner, Hafslund Eco. “On the south-west side the water is starting to go through … it’s going slowly. This is the best thing now,” he told the Guardian.

They had been considering staging a controlled explosion but once the water started coming through the side, they decided the best solution was to leave it.

“It’s a very heavy situation we have in this part of Norway in the last days because of the rain. If I made a training exercise for the police I wouldn’t in my wildest dreams think of this problem in our district, he said.

“We have many landslides all over, we have homes being taken, evacuated a lot of people, all the roads are closed and all the rivers are overflowing.”

…

The government hydrology institute, NVE, said parts of eastern and central Norway were still on red alert, with many rivers at record levels. “In a lot of rivers and lakes the level is still increasing,” said hydrologist Tuomo Saloranta.

The Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, who visited affected areas, said a huge challenge lay ahead. “When the rain stops, another challenge begins: the water needs to get out,” he said.

Here we go.

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Storm Hans.

I’m still here even though it’s been a while. About a year ago I commented on how last summer was the driest on record in South-Eastern Norway. To hydropower companies, such as the one I work for, the drought made it a serious challenge to keep our powerplants running. To the end consumers the consequence was economy-breaking energy prices and a real danger of energy rationing during the winter. In the end what saved us (for the time being..) was heavy rainfall in late September/early October and lots of snow in January.

Well, this year is the polar opposite. In (what used to be) a “normal” year, the reservoirs would rise rapidly and the water flow in the rivers would increase something like 5-fold around the 2nd half of May due to snowmelt in the mountains (often we would get a second peak in the autumn due to heavy rainfall). It was this “spring flood” that was completely absent last year. By comparison this year has been closer to “normal”. Until the last couple of weeks, that is. A little over two weeks ago now the weather forecasts predicted heavy rain, but no one was prepared for just how much. I was working when the downpour began and spent the next two days monitoring one of Norway’s largest lakes as it kept rising faster than anything anyone had ever seen. I must have received something like 6-7 phone calls in a single day telling me to open the floodgates even more than I already had (I barely had time to make one adjustment before they called back and asked for the next) because the situation was even worse than previously expected.

Still, this was nothing compared to what was about to hit us. We hadn’t even recovered from the last downpour when “Hans” arrived. As late as last Friday the models seemed to suggest that the impact in our area would be relatively mild. Then during the weekend the forecasts got a lot more dire and emergency level red was declared on Sunday evening. All our reservoirs have already surpassed the highest levels seen during the last spring flood (usually by far the highest levels during the course of a year), and continue rising so rapidly the graphs look almost vertical (despite all the floodgates being open wide). It takes a lot of water to raise the level in one of these lakes by one centimeter: 34-137 centimeters in 24 hours is insane! There are already reports of closed roads, flooded basements etc. And yet the peak isn’t expected to pass before Thursday or Friday this week. And the summer has always (in the past) been the driest season of the year!

Most of the people I talk to still seem to think of each new extreme weather event as a freak anomaly that will pass, and then everything will go back to “normal”. But it won’t. We left “normal” behind years ago, and the worst we have ever seen so far may soon be as good as it ever gets.

Question of the day: is Mhairi Black a Karen?

Speaking with journalist Graham Spiers this week, Black suggested that gender-critical commentators were “bad actors” and “50-year-old Karens”. She also compared the gender-critical school of thought to historic white supremacy and intellectuals “who made these big prolific statements about how race was a key factor”. 

[God only knows what she meant by “prolific” there.]

When challenged by a member of the audience, who asked if someone could be perfectly decent and simply disagree with her on gender ideology, Black replied “If you keep it to yourself, aye.” So her message to those of us concerned about our hard-won sex-based rights might be summed up as: shut up woman. 

It’s not exactly the kind of statement you would expect from someone who has made their name preaching about the problems facing women in politics. Indeed, not so long ago Black announced that she would step down from Parliament because of Westminster’s “sexist and toxic” environment. 

Yet it is hard to imagine any other group being maligned so casually by a sitting MP.

It’s true you know. Imagine Mhairi Black referring contemptuously to “Abduls” or “Aishas” or “Arjuns” or “Parvatis”. Wouldn’t happen. But women? Pfffffff, who cares.

Anything an SNP politician says about gender-critical women should, at this point, be taken with a truck load of salt. But what Black might not realise is that, in her tut-tutting at women who dare to speak out, she herself is demonstrating everything that is perceived to be wrong with “Karens”. By telling women to keep their political views “to yourself” if they don’t fit in with gender ideology, she exemplifies a bossy, self-righteous know-it-all. 

But sadly, this is an issue which goes far beyond one politician and her attention-seeking ways. Increasingly it is deemed OK for those in the mainstream to call middle-aged women (quite often lesbians) slurs like “Karen” or “Terf” – particularly when their views are shared by the multitude, such as that sex is real, giving hormones to kids is questionable, and women should be able to pee in peace. 

Why did Oxfam deem it acceptable to use a haggard woman’s face in their “terf” section of their Pride campaign? The answer is that there is a right kind of woman and a wrong kind. The right kind “keep to themselves” their concerns and questions about the erasure of sex difference and women’s freedoms. The wrong kind are the ones who won’t shut up. Well Mhairi Black, call me a Karen.

It could become a saying expressing surprise. Well knock me down and call me a Karen.

The NY Times broke the secret memo story and has the details.

The memo had been a missing piece in the public record of how Mr. Trump’s allies developed their strategy to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. In mid-December, the false Trump electors could go through the motions of voting as if they had the authority to do so. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally count those slates of votes, rather than the official and certified ones for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Step one, create some fake electoral votes. Step two, put Mike Pence alone in a room so that he can count the fake ones. Success!

While that basic plan itself was already known, the document, described by prosecutors as the “fraudulent elector memo,” provides new details about how it originated and was discussed behind the scenes. Among those details is Mr. Chesebro’s proposed “messaging” strategy to explain why pro-Trump electors were meeting in states where Mr. Biden was declared the winner. The campaign would present that step as “a routine measure that is necessary to ensure” that the correct electoral slate could be counted by Congress if courts or legislatures later concluded that Mr. Trump had actually won the states.

But present it that way to whom? Presenting it that way to the public is one thing, but surely there are people in charge who would tell Chesebro and Trump and all of them that no it is not a routine measure, get out of here, if you try it again we’ll Lock You Up. In other words I don’t quite get how that would work in practice. But then it didn’t work in practice, so maybe that’s the answer.

There’s a secret memo.

An internal Trump campaign memo by Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer allied with Donald Trump, reveals new details about how the former president and his team initiated the plan to interfere with the electoral college process and install fake GOP electors in multiple states after losing the 2020 presidential election.

The 6 December 2020 memo, made public on Tuesday by the New York Times, shows how Chesebro laid out the plan to put forth slates of Republican electors in seven key swing states that Trump had lost.

The document, which federal prosecutors described as a “fraudulent elector memo”, revealed that Chesebro proposed the appointment of fake electors, and detailed a “messaging” strategy to portray them as evidence if legislatures later concluded Trump as the victor in those states.

In the memo, Chesebro acknowledges that he is suggesting a “bold, controversial strategy” that the supreme court would “likely” ultimately reject. He argues that the plan would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column”.

I think “bold, controversial” is lawyerese for “illegal.” You try to avoid saying in writing that you’re proposing an illegal “strategy” so you veil it in words like “bold” and “controversial.”