We do believe in magic, we do we do we do believe in magic. Yes we’re a university, yes we’re a university in the 21st century not the 12th, but we do believe in magic.

Also we recognize that witches are witches, wizards are wizards, and demons exist.

Sarcasm aside, they sound as if they’re being held captive by angry men with guns. “Recite the formula or we pull the trigger.” There’s no thought in that statement, no explanation, no argument – there’s not even any new wording. It’s a literal formula, as rigid as the catechism, and as meaningless. We “recognize” these claims that are not true. We “recognize” that men are women if they say so. We “recognize” that “non-binary people” exist – but we have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. Also we know we have to use the phrases “trans people’s identities,” “significant harm,” and “an already marginalised community.” We know that if we don’t the bullets will fly.

What is an actual university doing issuing idiotic “statements” of this kind? It’s embarrassing as well as destructive.

It turns out that nobody cares about ethics in government.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Wednesday dismissed accusations that Trump administration officials violated federal law by speaking at the Republican National Convention, arguing that critics have overstretched the bounds of the Hatch Act.

…

“Nobody outside of the Beltway really cares. They expect that Donald Trump is going to promote Republican values and they would expect that Barack Obama, when he was in office, that he would do the same for Democrats,” he continued. “So listen, this is a lot of hoopla that’s being made about things, mainly because the convention has been so unbelievably successful.”

The issue isn’t “promoting political values.” The issue is exploiting a government job to promote a party candidate.

Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Economic Director Larry Kudlow and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, have come under scrutiny for accepting speaking roles at the RNC, positions which critics claim violate federal law banning most executive branch employees from political activity. The White House has largely ignored those concerns.

Because the White House is in the hands of Trump who is an outright criminal as well as a dedicated sleaze.

Pompeo’s speech, delivered from Jerusalem during an official trip to the Middle East by the secretary, has been the subject of particular criticism. Pompeo has insisted that his speech was delivered in his personal capacity and on his own time, away from his official duties as the nation’s top diplomat. But critics have complained that the secretary’s speech came while he was on taxpayer-funded official travel and that it broke with State Department guidance barring employees from publicly backing political candidates.

The claim is ludicrous, insultingly so. He wasn’t there on his own time and away from professional duties. He was there as Secretary of State, on our dime. He can make the “timeout” sign with his hands all he wants, he’s still there as Secretary of State and on our dime.

Meadows echoed Pompeo’s reasoning and also defended the president’s decision to deliver his RNC speech from the White House, a step that breaks with decades of precedent dictating that the trappings of the executive mansion are reserved for official government business, not politics.

Rules and precedents are for the little people, not for Giants of Sleaze.

The ancient redwoods in Big Basin state park are not gone.

…an Associated Press reporter and photographer hiked the renowned Redwood Trail at Big Basin Redwoods State Park on Monday and confirmed most of the ancient redwoods had withstood the blaze. Among the survivors is one dubbed Mother of the Forest.

“That is such good news, I can’t tell you how much that gives me peace of mind,” said Laura McLendon, conservation director for the Sempervirens Fund, an environmental group dedicated to the protection of redwoods and their habitats.

The infrastructure is destroyed.

“But the forest is not gone,” McLendon said. “It will regrow. Every old growth redwood I’ve ever seen, in Big Basin and other parks, has fire scars on them. They’ve been through multiple fires, possibly worse than this.”

When forest fires, windstorms and lightning hit redwood trees, those that don’t topple can resprout. Mother of the Forest, for example, used to be 329 feet tall, the tallest tree in the park. After the top broke off in a storm, a new trunk sprouted where the old growth had been.

Trees that fall feed the forest floor and become nurse trees from which new redwoods grow. Forest critters, from banana slugs to insects, thrive under logs.

They’re called semper virens for a reason.

They have their priorities.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has doubled down on its refusal to let schools serve free meals to all students this fall—despite rising food insecurity and pleas from anti-hunger advocates, school nutrition officials, and lawmakers.

…

The announcement was prompted by a request from Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Representative Robert Scott of Virginia. On August 14, the lawmakers asked the agency to extend crucial regulatory waivers that would allow schools nationwide to serve meals at no cost to all children, regardless of whether they were enrolled students, and regardless of whether they technically qualified for free lunch.

Before the pandemic, students had to meet specific criteria in order to qualify for USDA’s free and reduced price lunch program. Households whose annual income fell within 130 percent of the federal poverty threshold were eligible for free meals, while those that made between 130 and 185 percent of the federal poverty threshold received discounted ones. In areas where at least half of a school’s student body qualified for free lunch, officials could offer lunch at no cost to all kids. In all these cases, USDA would reimburse schools for the bulk of the costs of providing free meals.

Then in March, as the economy contracted and unemployment soared, USDA issued regulatory waivers permitting all schools to serve free breakfast and lunch to all children, including those not of school-age or enrolled in private institutions. School nutrition officials welcomed the move, which allowed many districts to serve as de facto hunger relief organizations within their communities. USDA said that initial waivers were possible thanks to a boost in funding from the Families First coronavirus relief bill, but that it needed another infusion of cash to extend them.

This means that schools will soon have to begin charging for meals again and tracking meal debt among kids who can’t pay.

Because we can pay for Trump’s endless golf trips and secret service protection for all his kids including when they take business trips abroad, but we can’t pay for universal school lunch.

“This is a basic need for all people,” says Michelle Hammond, food services director of the Roaring Forks School District in Colorado, which will no longer be able to provide free meals to all kids under the age of 18 in the coming school year. “[Money] should not be a hindrance for our kids.”

Let them eat brioche.

Good to know they’re focused on the important stuff.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he is opposed to the BBC’s decision to play instrumental versions of Land of Hope and Glory and Rule, Britannia! at the Last Night of the Proms next month.

“I think it’s time we stopped our cringing embarrassment about our history,” he told reporters.

Which cringing embarrassment? About which history? Does the UK have nothing at all in its history to cringe about? Bragging about “ruling the waves” seems a tad grandiose and pushy to me, seeing as how the oceans don’t belong to any one country.

Media reports have suggested the lyrics are being dropped due to associations with colonialism and slavery.

But the BBC says the decision was prompted by Covid-19 restrictions.

Oh. Well let’s fume about political correctness anyway!

Responding to the news of this year’s changes, Mr Johnson told reporters: “I cannot believe… that the BBC is saying that they will not sing the words of Land Of Hope And Glory or Rule Britannia! as they traditionally do at the end of The Last Night of The Proms.

“I think it’s time we stopped our cringing embarrassment about our history, about our traditions, and about our culture, and we stopped this general fight of self-recrimination and wetness.”

Yas, it’s so much drier to brag about every single element of our traditions and culture and never admit there was a single thing wrong with it. That’s a nice quality in people, too – “I am perfect so there is no need for me ever to apologize for anything or think about my faults or try to be less of an asshole. That would be wet.”

So BoJo shouldn’t do any reflecting at all on this:

Updating to add:

Open all the things!

Or maybe not.

Six days after classes began, the University of Alabama has experienced an “unacceptable rise” in coronavirus cases, the university’s president said.

The University of Alabama’s main campus in Tuscaloosa has recorded 531 total cases. The remaining campuses in Birmingham and Huntsville have recorded 35 cases cumulatively, according to the university’s Covid-19 dashboard.

Yes I’d say 531 is too many.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Notre Dame both halted in-person classes within days of the start of the school year. Each university has recorded over 400 Covid-19 cases since mid-August.

This week, The Ohio State University on Monday suspended over 200 students who violated the school’s Covid-19 regulations around socializing — the school requires students to wear a mask, maintain social distancing and keep group gatherings to no more than 10 people.

This isn’t going to go well, is it.

The Guardian summarizes day one of the Republicans’ Rally o’ Fear:

Republicans delivered a dark, Trumpian message centered on the alleged dangers of electing Joe Biden as president. Despite party leaders’ promises to paint an optimistic vision about the future of the country, Republicans instead attempted to scare voters into supporting Trump by pushing baseless claims that Democrats would “disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door”, as the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz said.

I’d be willing to lock Matt Gaetz in his house.

The convention kept factcheckers busy as the RNC peddled falsehoods about the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans praised Trump’s response to the pandemic and accused Democrats and the media of failing to recognize the threat posed by coronavirus, even though the president has said as recently as this month that the virus “will go away”. Speakers also celebrated Trump’s “swift action” to protect American lives, even as the country’s coronavirus death toll stands at 177,000, far outpacing every other nation in the world. Health experts dismissed the presentation as “all propaganda”.

What was Trump’s “swift action” again? Repeatedly telling us it would disappear like a miracle? Was that it?

Kimberly Guilfoyle was mocked by critics for her loud and enthusiastic speech, which was delivered to an empty room. Guilfoyle, who serves as a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, shouted much of her speech, prompting comparisons to a “North Korean propaganda lady” and a SoulCycle instructor. Guilfoyle’s boyfriend, Donald Trump Jr, followed up by claiming his father had “built the greatest economy our country had ever seen”, which is not true. Democrats were also quick to retort that Trump had “inherited” a booming economy from Barack Obama.

That’s what Trump is good at: inheriting stuff.

Time for the Kimberly Guilfoyle jokes.

More on those wacky scamps who brandish guns at people who walk past their house:

When Rabbi Susan Talve heard that Patricia and Mark McCloskey would be among the speakers addressing the Republican National Convention, she decided she could no longer stay quiet.

“It’s so upsetting that they have a national audience,” Talve said. “It’s upsetting we make heroes out of people who hate.”

The McCloskeys are Talve’s neighbors. Their property’s northern wall abuts the property of St. Louis’ Jewish Central Reform Congregation, where Talve is the rabbi.

They’re not good neighbors.

In 2013, the synagogue placed beehives along the wall to produce honey for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. One morning they found the hives destroyed and all the bees dead. Mark McCloskey had taken an ax or sledgehammer to them.

His issue? The fence between them sat six inches inside the McCloskey’s property line. The hives were his to wreck.

He could have told them so, and asked them to remove the hives, but instead he destroyed the hives and the bees.

The synagogue maintains raised bed gardens on its property that supply some 2,000 pounds of fresh produce to a local food pantry, as well as pear, fig and apple trees.

Ah no wonder then. The McCloskeys won’t approve of that kind of thing. It’s SOcialism.

They were known to be assholes long before the gun-brandishing event.

They were locked in litigation to make their neighborhood association enforce a rule against unmarried couples residing there. Talve said they only cared because a gay couple had moved into the exclusive neighborhood.

Gays, Jews, bees – where does it all end???

The first installment of the Republican convention seems to have been exciting. (I didn’t watch it. I don’t watch conventions. I’d rather watch paint dry.) Kimberly Tinfoil gave a psychotic all-caps fascist shouting rant, and the gun-pointing St Louis couple gave a slightly quieter fascist rant.

During their speech Monday, Mark McCloskey described Cori Bush, the activist leading protesters in St. Louis, as a “Marxist revolutionary.”

…

“That Marxist revolutionary is now going to be the congresswoman from the 1st District of Missouri,” Mark McCloskey said on Monday. “These radicals are not content with marching in the streets. They want to walk the hall of Congress, they want to take over, they want power. This is Joe Biden’s party. These are the people who will be in charge of your future and the future of your children.”

Joe Biden is about as “Marxist” as Ivanka Trump.

Patricia McCloskey spoke after her husband, claiming that Democrats “are not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities” and want to “abolish the suburbs all together.”

She added that Democratic leadership would bring “crime, lawlessness, and low quality apartments into now thriving neighborhoods. These are the policies that are coming in to a neighborhood near you. So make no mistake, no matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America.”

In other words – everybody who isn’t rich enough to buy a huge house in an expensive neighborhood is a murderous criminal, and also [whispers] not white. Be afraid!

Apparently the NY Times doesn’t pay much attention to the California fires.

This “historic” spate of California wildfires have so far displaced hundreds of thousands during a pandemic, killed seven, destroyed at least tens of thousands of structures, burned through the equivalent acreage of a small state and sent plumes of smoke over several regions, forcing millions indoors during a heat wave.

Yet the country’s paper of record – the New York Times – seems unwilling to feature this incredibly newsworthy disaster that has affected millions of Americans prominently on its pages.

It is a big country, a big unwieldy country, but all the same.

… when the Washington Post dedicates its lead, above-the-fold front page image to the wildfires and the New York Times chooses to run an image of a water park party in Wuhan, China? Well, that’s a choice, to say the least.

I guess the Times is a little Caliphobic.

Pompeo is going to address the Republican convention later. Guess what Secretaries of State are not supposed to do.

Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, will address the Republican national convention in pre-taped remarks from Jerusalem this week, violating a longstanding tradition that the country’s top diplomat avoid partisan politics, CNN has confirmed:

Well you see it’s not “improperly,” because he’s doing it and he decides what’s improper. MAGA!

Pompeo’s speech comes one month after he sent a cable to state department employees stating that “presidential and political appointees and career SES (Senior Executive Service) are subject to significant restrictions on their political activity; they may not engage in any partisan political activity in concert with a partisan campaign, political party, or partisan political group, even on personal time and outside of the federal workplace”, CNN noted.

Unless they really want to.

Even more hilariously, they’re saying he’s doing it as himself, not as Secretary of State.

Ohhhh cool that’s fine then. And Trump is speaking from the White House later this week not as president but just as Don from Queens, who just happened to have all this video equipment and access to the White House and odds and ends like that.

Is it men’s turn now?

Awwww look at that poor sweet sad little girl sitting holding her knees and trying not to cry because 98% of straight men are unwilling to date her. (She looks way too little to be dating anyone, at only 6 or 7, but whatever.) How could straight men be so mean that they make her mouth turn down and her eyes close – look at her sitting there all alone instead of “dating” (they really mean fucking) a nice straight man.

(Wait, if the sweet little girl wants a straight man, why aren’t straight men allowed to want whatever it is they want? Straight women, women over the age of 7, women with the usual plumbing? Why is the sweet little girl holding out for a straight man? Isn’t a trans woman good enough for her? Is she a TRANSPHOBE??)

So anyway Trans Rights Campaign says THIS HAS TO CHANGE. Meaning – straight men have to stop having sexual preferences? If that’s what has to change, what are they proposing? Camps? Re-education? Torture? Shock treatment? Persecution? Firings? Prison?

Whatever it is, I don’t suppose straight men will put up with it. I wonder if then they will see what we’ve been getting at.

The New York Attorney General explains what they’re up to with that subpoena:

Maybe Eric will talk about that in his speech to the Republican convention.

Another one summarily fired for crimethink.

By “parted ways with Sasha” they mean “fired Sasha for crimethink.”

What terrible thing did she say?

Does that look like a firing offence to you? To anyone? Really?

It does to this unpleasant inquisitor:

Filth indeed.

Golly.

One wonders what number would be NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Sir, sir, just a moment sir, not so fast sir, we have some questions for you sir, we have a subpoena for your records sir.

New York state’s attorney general has filed a new lawsuit against U.S. President Donald Trump’s company and several other defendants, according to court records.

The complaint against the Trump Organization and the other defendants was filed with a New York state court in Manhattan, the court records show.

Trump is at the Republican convention at this very moment, telling the assembled worshipers how awesome he is. Law-abiding no, but awesome yes.

A copy of the complaint was not immediately available, and its subject matter could not immediately be determined. A letter filed with the court indicates that Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, is among the defendants.

You know what else Eric Trump is among? Speakers at Daddy’s convention.

Also! In other news! Other but related – Kellyanne Conway is quitting.

In a statement on Sunday, she cited a need to “devote more time to family matters.”

…

Her time in the White House was not without controversy. Two days after the inauguration, Conway coined the term “alternative facts” during an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press. She was also cited for violating the law against political activity by government employees multiple times, and the government office investigating those activities recommended her dismissal in 2019.

Her time in the White House was not without controversy i.e. she showed herself to be a sleazy lying hack who defended everything Trump did and said no matter what. Good riddance. Whoever replaces her will be just as bad but good riddance anyway.

Eastern Airlines 1967:

Sure, we want her to be pretty…don’t you?

Oh yes, definitely, I want her to look like a Barbie doll, thank you sir.

That’s why we look at her face, her makeup, her complexion, her figure, her weight, her legs, her grooming, her nails and her hair.

What about her breasts? What about her bum? Do you check her between the legs? Best to be safe about these things. Do you check her teeth, including the back ones? Her tongue? Her armpits?

Anyway at least they’re all very white.

Jeez. Be careful out there, mind how you go, soyez sage. Don’t forget (let alone refuse) to wear a mask.

The number of COVID-19 cases connected to a wedding reception in Millinocket continues to climb, with state health officials saying on Saturday that they could trace 53 confirmed cases of coronavirus to the reception. That’s up from 32 confirmed cases on Friday.

53! From one wedding! Some were secondary or tertiary.

Millinocket Regional Hospital has reported that it tested 366 people who attended the reception or came in contact with those who did. Of the 53 cases linked to the reception on Saturday, 13 were secondary and 10 were tertiary, Maine CDC spokesman Robert Long said Saturday evening.

One woman has died. She didn’t attend the reception.

Big Moose Inn, which hosted the event, was cited for an “imminent health hazard,” which carries no fine but can bring harsher penalties if state officials determine the venue violated health rules again. The wedding reception had 65 people, more than the state maximum of 50 for indoor gatherings.

…

“Social gatherings such as weddings and receptions pose an elevated risk for virus transmission,” the Maine CDC said in a statement. “The possibility of COVID-19 transmission increases as the number of attendees increases, even when some attendees are indoors and others are outdoors. This is because outdoor attendees may reasonably be expected to come indoors and interact with others, increasing the possibility of COVID-19 transmission.”

Err on the side of caution.

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on All our fault.

Fun things here:

1) Wokeness/CRT views people as “racialized” rather than being of a particular race. This is neither typo nor poor word choice on her part. Rather, it is exactly the way the woke understand the world: as interacting systems of discourse that impose “race” (among other things) on groups of (not individual) people. It is the discursive systems that racialize. There is nothing, literally nothing, outside of the discourse.

2) White women’s fears drive policing, the economy, and politics. White women are apparently the most powerful force in the nation. Why did the DJIA jump? White women. Why did Trump win? White women. Why did Obama win twice before him? White women. Why did the Civil Rights movement succeed? White women. Why are our taxes what they are? White women. Damn. Being a white woman is fucking awesome!

3) White women’s fears are society’s fears. But if S is one of a society’s fears, then we should expect S to be a fear of most, if not all, people in the society. So S is reasonably a black woman’s fear, a brown woman’s fear, and a white man’s fear.

4) White women’s fears are not real issues. It’s clear that white women are either very stupid or very evil. If they’re afraid of things that aren’t real, then they’re stupid. If they’re not actually afraid of those things but pretend to be while wielding the power mentioned in (2) and (3), then they’re evil.

5) White women’s fears are not the fears we should have. If a white woman is afraid of something, that’s a dead certain indicator that it’s not something to fear. So the next time a white woman expresses fear, know that you’ve just learned something about the world: whatever it is she’s afraid of is perfectly safe.