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.”

In weather/climate news:

A powerful storm has brought destruction to Norway, causing landslides and leaving an entire town stranded, as meteorologists warned of the strongest rainfall in a quarter of a century.

The storm – named Storm Hans – has killed two people, ripped off roofs and caused widespread disruption across northern Europe in a summer that started with wildfires across much of the region.

…

Strong winds and rain continued across the region, also causing disruption, cancelling ferries, delaying flights, uprooting trees, flooding streets and also causing outages across Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden.

…

The Swedish meteorological and hydrological institute issued a red warning for Halland and parts of Småland for Tuesday and Wednesday. The institute said Hans had also brought in warm air across the north, leading to tropical nights in multiple locations in Norrland. On Tuesday, Haparanda recorded a temperature of 30.2C – its highest August temperature since 1969.

Meanwhile, in Estonia, nearly 10,000 people were left without power. In Denmark, waves of up to eight metres were reported and beach houses were washed into the North Sea. In Finland, authorities urged people to reconsider whether they needed to go out to sea.

H/t Harald Hanche-Olsen

Joan Smith has thoughts on the unabashed misogyny of Mhairi Black.

Does the SNP approve of abusing women? Opponents of the party’s extreme views on transgender rights have long highlighted the poor quality of debate in Scotland, but remarks by a leading SNP politician provide dramatic evidence of a hostile climate towards outspoken women. Mhairi Black, Deputy Leader of the party at Westminster, has dismissed women who disagree with her views on transgender rights as “50-year-old Karens”. 

Maybe she thinks women should be terminated at age 40, or perhaps 35. She’s 28…I wonder if it’s ever crossed her mind that she will eventually be 50.

Some observers might think it is a bit rich for a party represented by such confused and incoherent people to pass judgement on the rest of us. But it is much worse than that. The SNP now promotes magical thinking, expecting everyone to go along with its belief that men can become women simply by saying so. It’s telling that Black singled out older women for her vile comments, recycling centuries of prejudice that allowed them to be characterised as witches.

This is pure misogyny, expressed in language designed to silence and shame women who hold perfectly rational views. A feminist organisation, For Women Scotland, has suggested that Black’s comments call into question her fitness for office. But the SNP leadership has bigger questions to answer. Are they going to repudiate Black’s repellent views? Or is misogyny now official party policy?

I’m not going to risk any money on that bet.

Always worse than predicted.

It is “virtually certain” that future extreme events in Antarctica will be worse than the extraordinary changes already observed, according to a new scientific warning that stresses the case for immediate and drastic action to limit global heating.

A new review draws together evidence on the vulnerability of Antarctic systems, highlighting recent extremes such as record low sea ice levels, the collapse of ice shelves, and surface temperatures up to 38.5C above average over East Antarctica in 2022 – the world’s largest ever recorded heatwave.

…

The rate of ice sheet loss from Antarctica “matches the IPCC worst case” for predicted ice loss under high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, Hogg said. “The observations show we’re tracking [along] the most extreme prediction of what might happen.” This is despite global emissions currently tracking closer to an intermediate emissions pathway.

Ice shelves, which fringe three-quarters of the Antarctic coastline, have also retreated in recent decades. Large sections of the Larsen-A, Larsen-B, and Wilkins ice shelves “collapsed catastrophically” in 1995, 2002 and 2008 respectively, the study noted. Ten Antarctic ice shelves have also experienced major ice calving events since 2009.

“We should be deeply concerned about the environment of Antarctica in the years that are coming under continued fossil fuel burning,” said the study’s lead author, Prof Martin Siegert of the University of Exeter.

We will, we’ll be very deeply concerned. We just won’t do anything about it.

If you don’t think men can be women you’re like WHITE SUPREMACISTS. Don’t try to deny it.

Gender-critical campaigners are comparable to white supremacists, the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader has claimed.

Mhairi Black said that “bad actors” and “50-year-old Karens” were responsible for the debate over transgender rights and suggested those who vocally disagreed with her views on such issues could not be “decent” people.

Ah yes those pesky women who are rude and evil and white supremacist enough to stop being 30, they should all be locked up. How dare a woman be 50?! You’ll never see Mhairi Black being 50, because she’s far too enlightened and perfect for that sort of thing.

Progressives today, honestly – going through a box of Kleenex a day crying over men who say they are women, while insulting and belittling actual women every chance they get.

In comments likely to deepen an already bitter divide in Scotland, she said those who made “intellectual” arguments against extending trans rights were akin to past generations who claimed non-white ethnic groups were inferior.

Except that that’s not even slightly true. There are sound reasons for declining to “extend trans rights” so far that they let men invade and destroy and take everything that belongs to women. Men are not the underdogs here. Mhairi Black is thick as ten planks.

For Women Scotland, a prominent gender-critical campaign group, claimed that the MP’s comments called into question her fitness for office.

Well, yes, they do. They’re lies, for a start, and they’re grotesquely insulting. I suspect quite a few of her constituents are women who are 50 and older.

“To me, a decent person is someone who tries to make others comfortable and accept them, particularly when it’s a marginalised, oppressed group.”

I guess she’s unaware that women are a marginalised oppressed group?

Susan Smith, a director at For Women Scotland, said Ms Black’s comments were a “damning indictment of her intellectual capacity and her fitness to act as a legislator”.

She added: “Her inability to grasp why highly vulnerable women in prison, fleeing domestic violence, or being cared for in hospital might not want to share intimate spaces with someone of the male sex suggests that it is long past time she got out of her highly cosseted, gilded bubble.

“Women who disagree with her should not be forced to be silent like some latter-day scold, nor are they the racist or religious fundamentalist bogeywomen.”

Or even Karens.

Well now that’s just silly. Why would God build a cathedral upside-down and buried in the ground?

(Not knocking the protecting public and indigenous lands part. Just saying a big hole in the ground doesn’t have to be “God”‘s doing. Shout out to the Colorado River here; peace be upon it, or what’s left of it.)

Originally a comment by What a Maroon on Intern runs amok.

This does sound like fun! Let’s dog the Mary Rose collection.

Dogging the Mary Rose collection:

Octagonal mirror: an octagon has eight sides, twice the number of paws of a dog. As social beings, dogs like to be around at least another dog, so the number 8 has special significance. (And did you know that if you turn the 8 sideways, you get the symbol for infinity?! How cool is that! We love our dogs to infinity!) As for the mirror itself, dogs don’t recognize their own reflection, so they may see the dog in the mirror as a rival, perhaps causing anxiety. On the other hand, they may see their human in the mirror, bringing them great joy!

Comb: Dogs love to be combed, as long as you don’t tug any knots in their fur too hard!

Ring: dogs often suffer from ringworms, leading to a loss of hair (c.f. combs). On the other hand, a ring is circular in shape, just like a collar. And put two together, and you have the number 8! (or infinity)

Paternoster: all dogs are good boys or girls (or enbies!) and they all go to heaven!

Oh look, hours of fun for the whole family: Queering the Mary Rose’s Collection.

How can we understand The Mary Rose’s collection of personal objects through a Queer lens?

This blog does not attempt to identify the sexuality or gender identity of crew members, which would be an impossible task. Instead, we will use ‘Queerness as an interpretative tool’ to represent LGBTQ+ stories.

Who’s “we”?

Turns out it’s Hannah.

Queering The Mary Rose’s Collection by Hannah (Collections & Curatorial Intern)

I wonder if the non-intern staff are regretting having an intern, especially one with no last name.

How can we understand The Mary Rose’s collection of personal objects through a Queer lens?

This interpretation of historical objects is inspired by ‘Queering the Collections’, a collective movement that occurs in museums around the world. From the Tate Britain and the Wellcome Collection, to the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, museums are reinterpreting and Queering their objects. 

Ready? No one needs to go potty first? Ok let’s begin.

Octagonal mirror

There a photo of an octagonal wooden frame.

A circular, reflective surface would have sat within this beech frame. This mirror would have been considered a luxury item on the Mary Rose. Looking at your own reflection in a mirror can bring up lots of emotions for both straight and LGBTQ+ people. For Queer people, we may experience a strong feeling of gender dysphoria when we look into a mirror, a feeling of distress caused by our reflection conflicting with our own gender identities. On the other hand, we may experience gender euphoria when looking in a mirror, when how we feel on the inside matches our reflection.  

Well! There’s the Mary Rose queered for you!

Hannah goes on to queer nit combs, a ring, and paternosters in the same inventive way. The nit combs were for getting rid of lice but combs are for hair and for queer people hair is a central part of their idenniny. The ring could be a wedding band and queer people can marry each other you know. Paternosters are a churchy thing, and Henry VIII made churchy law state law, and some queer men people were executed for having sex with men queer people.

It’s profound stuff!

The Times offers detail on the protective order:

The first miniskirmish in the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election involves a step that is taken in the early phases of many prominent criminal cases: a proposal to impose rules on how the voluminous discovery evidence in the matter should be handled.

The disagreement started on Friday, when prosecutors in the office of the special counsel asked the judge who is overseeing the case for what is known as a protective order governing the disclosure of discovery material to Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The entreaty was routine, although in making their request, the prosecutors took what could be considered an extra step.

The extra step was citing Trump’s I WILL COME AFTER YOU tweet.

The prosecutors did not ask Judge Chutkan to issue a gag order against Mr. Trump because of the post. But they did use the message to suggest there should be clear rules in place to keep the former president from posting online any evidence that his legal team would get through the discovery process, an apparent acknowledgment that for Mr. Trump, few things are ever routine.

Aka an apparent acknowledgement that Trump is a raging psychopath who will do whatever pops into his head in his efforts to save his ass.

On Monday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers responded to the government’s request by arguing in court papers that prosecutors, by asking Judge Chutkan to limit the former president from publicly discussing the evidence in his case, [were] infringing on Mr. Trump’s First Amendment rights and [were] having “the court assume the role of censor.”

Which to an outsider seems just silly. If he goes to prison that will infringe on his rights to freedom of motion and yadda yadda, too, because that’s how that works. You lose some rights when you are convicted of serious crimes.

On Monday night, in what has become a typical tit for tat, prosecutors fired back, accusing Mr. Trump’s legal team of proposing its own version of the order “designed to allow him to try this case in the media rather than in the courtroom.”

Might as well make ourselves even more of a laughingstock than we already are, right?