The NY Times reports:

Dozens of Iranians and Iranian-Americans were held for hours at Washington State’s border with Canada over the weekend as the Department of Homeland Security ramped up security at border ports after Iran threatened to retaliate against the United States for the strike that killed its top military leader.

More than 60 of the travelers, many returning from work trips or vacations, were trying to come home to the United States on Saturday when agents at the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Wash., held them for additional questioning about their political views and allegiances, according to advocacy groups and accounts from travelers.

CBP says it’s not true, it was just a busy time at the border.

While border officers are not permitted to refer someone for what is known as a “secondary screening” of questioning based solely on national origin, it is one of multiple factors they are directed to consider, in addition to travel documents, travel history or suspicious behavior when choosing whom to refer for additional scrutiny. Such referrals for extra scrutiny happen daily. Gil Kerlikowske, a former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said agents would put an added emphasis on a traveler’s country of origin when that nation was singled out as a national security threat.

The Department of Homeland Security did just that on Saturday, when it updated its National Terrorism Advisory System to warn of Iran’s ability to retaliate against the United States through terrorism or cyberattacks or violence by homegrown extremists.

The BBC has more:

Sepehr Ebrahimzadeh, a Seattle-based engineer, told BBC Persian he had waited about six hours to cross the border at Blaine, and was repeatedly questioned during that time.

A Canadian citizen with a US green card, he said he was trying to enter the US by land from British Columbia, Canada.

Mr Ebrahimzadeh said US Border Patrol guards had questioned him about his birthplace, his high school years in Iran, his own military service and his father’s, and about other relatives and his employment history.

He said he saw other Iranians next to him who had to wait hours and were questioned about their social media accounts.

It’s a bit like interrogating and hassling refugees from Hitler because hey, they’re German. Iranians who have gone to the trouble to emigrate seem unlikely to be huge fans of the regime.

US lawmakers expressed concern on Twitter about the reports.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading contender in the Democratic presidential race, called the reports “deeply disturbing”.

“Iranian Americans have the same rights as all other U.S. citizens and should be treated with dignity and respect at our border – not bigoted, xenophobic scrutiny,” Ms Warren said on Twitter.

Washington state congresswoman Pramila Jayapal also said she was “deeply disturbed”.

We’ve been down this road before, and we didn’t cover ourselves with glory.

Morgane Oger doing what he does, again.

Dude trying to get a big city library to suppress some women for him.

It’s not a “thesis” or a “core thesis.” It’s just reality. Men are not women. Men who dislike being men and would rather be women are still men. Men like Morgane Oger have no business trying to force women to stop saying men are not women.

Nobody seems to be buying his claims though.

Hey, it’s a new year, let’s peddle more bullshit “wellness” to the adoring masses.

Let’s hear from Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta:

This has been the decade of misinformation. And, in the context of health, celebrities have led the charge.

It’s an easy buck, you know? You’re famous so people will buy what you market, so why waste the opportunity?

We’ve had the vagina steam (thanks, Gwyneth), jade vagina eggs (ditto), the vampire facial (Kim Kardashian West), bird poop facials (David and Victoria Beckham), facials made with discarded foreskin stem cells (Sandra Bullock), drinking your own urine (Madonna), placenta smoothies (more Kardashians) and too many crazy diets, cleanses and detoxes to mention. I could go on and on and on.

Bird poop facials. Nice.

But does it matter? Yes.

Celebrity health noise has had (and continues to have) a large and measurable impact. There is a growing body of literature that has demonstrated celebrity marketing, musing and news coverage can have an influence on a range of health related behaviors, including dieting, cancer screening, smoking and suicide. Pop culture coverage of a health topic, like Angelina Jolie’s decision to get genetic testing, can affect, for better or worse, the utilization rates of health services. And there seems little doubt that many current evidence-free and potentially harmful health trends — such a IV vitamin therapy, nonceliac gluten-free diets, cryotherapy and detoxification diets and procedures — would not be nearly as popular but for the associated celebrity endorsements.

…

Of course, this decade of celebrity health hogwash should also be considered in the broader context. This is the era of misinformation, a time when trust in public institutions is declining and people feel uncertain about what to believe about, well, everything. Celebrity wellness hype contributes to this “culture of untruth” by both inviting a further erosion of critical thinking and promoting what is popular and aspirational rather than what is true.

Truth matters, dammit.

Simon Jenkins in the Guardian:

Donald Trump’s threat to destroy the sites of ancient Persia should send a shiver down the spine of any civilised person. How can anything justify American bombing of Persepolis or the mosques of Isfahan? Only the demented can see them as “threatening America”. It is on the same ethical plane as the Islamic State vandalism of Palmyra and Mosul.

And the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and other Islamists’ destruction of shrines in Timbuktu.

The destruction of cultural artefacts in war is specifically outlawed under the Hague convention of 1954 and subsequent protocols. It ranks with genocide, chemical weapons and the “strategic” bombing of civilians as beyond the pale of human behaviour. The US does not recognise most of these treaties as it concedes extraterritorial sovereignty, but it normally obeys them.

…

Retaliation against sites termed by Trump as “important to Iran & the Iranian culture” is a new escalation. Few hands are clean in this area of conflict. Britain’s terrorist bombing by the RAF against Germany in the second world war was blatantly aimed at historic towns. Arthur “Bomber” Harris, the head of RAF Bomber Command, held that destroying Germany’s heritage would break the enemy’s spirit and force it to surrender. That he – and Winston Churchill – thought bombing Lubeck, Nuremberg and Dresden would somehow persuade Adolf Hitler of the error of his ways shows only that war drives men insane. Hitler merely retaliated with the Baedeker raids on English cathedral cities.

Harris is born again in Trump. Nothing could be more calculated to bond Iranians to their leaders – and demand revenge – than the destruction of their history. Policy should be aimed at precisely the reverse, creating conditions in which opposition to the military/clerical regime can prosper and strengthen. Bombing Persepolis would not only be grotesque, it would be utterly counterproductive. It is the act of a belligerent personality craving war.

I don’t think he craves war, I think he craves Total Domination. He’s too brain-rotted to grasp that war is what he will get.

Global fascism news, India division:

Students across India have been protesting against an attack on a prestigious Delhi university by masked men wielding sticks on Sunday.

At least 40 students and staff of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were admitted to hospital with injuries.

Why JNU? Because “left-wing.”

The JNU has long been associated with left-wing activism, and some students have blamed Sunday’s violence on a right-wing student body linked to India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). That group denies involvement and says left-wing activists were responsible.

Sounds familiar.

It did not take long for students and activists across the country to mobilise. On Monday, about 1,000 people gathered in Mumbai, with demonstrations in Hyderabad, Chennai (formerly Madras), and Ahmedabad, among others.

Maliga Sirimane, a protester in the southern city of Bangalore, told the BBC: “JNU has been the inspiration for many struggles across the country. This is not only because it is an exemplary university, but also because of the spirit of struggle that it has even though its students have faced many atrocities.”

Keep that spirit alive, comrades.

Women get permanently banned from Twitter for saying men are not women, but Trump can tweet us into a war with Iran and that’s copacetic.

It is who we are though. If “we” and “who” and “are” are meaningful in the context of a whole large heterogeneous country, it is who we are. We (or “we”) have a long history of destroying cultural sites, though more by starvation and attrition than by bombs. We’re not some glorious beacon of idealism that has never touched a hair on the head of any cultural site anywhere. Of course we’re not.

Pompeo is mad because people don’t think Trump is being awesome.

“I spent the last day and a half, two days, talking to partners in the region, sharing with them what we were doing, why we were doing it, seeking their assistance,” Pompeo told Fox News. “They’ve all been fantastic. And then talking to our partners in other places that haven’t been quite as good.

“Frankly, the Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be. The Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did, what the Americans did, saved lives in Europe as well.”

Uh huh.

“Qassem Suleimani led and his IRGC [Revolutionary Guard] led assassination campaigns in Europe. This was a good thing for the entire world, and we are urging everyone in the world to get behind what the United States is trying to do to get the Islamic Republic of Iran to simply behave like a normal nation.”

Oddly enough though, blowing up Suleimani isn’t the way to get Iran to act normal. It’s not that the allies think Suleimani was awesome, it’s that they think making Iran act normal isn’t quite as simple as blowing up one of its top guys.

Well, yes.

Adam Schiff makes an important point here. It may seem obvious to thinking adults, but sadly it’s not thinking adults who are running this shit show. Pompeo claims the hit will save lives, Jake Tapper says, and Schiff points out that that’s Pompeo’s personal opinion but the intelligence information doesn’t support it. He continues to cite intel as opposed to opinion. Opinions are easy, but they can be based on anything or nothing at all. Opinions can be the product of desire as opposed to intelligence (in all senses).

Trump yesterday:

He’s promising to commit war crimes. He’s doing it on Twitter. The US president is saying on Twitter that he plans to commit war crimes.

The AP reports:

President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday evening that if Iran attacks any American assets to avenge the killing of a top Iranian general, the U.S. has 52 targets across the Islamic Republic that “WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

Some are “important to Iran & Iranian culture,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

That’s a war crime.

Iran’s earliest traces of human history reach as far back as 100,000 BC. Its historic monuments preserve the legacy of a civilization that has kept its Persian identity throughout the tides of foreign conquests, weaving in influences from Turkic, South Asian and Arab cultures, and the footprints of Alexander the Great and later Islam.

“Through MILLENNIA of history, barbarians have come and ravaged our cities, razed our monuments and burnt our libraries,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif tweeted in response Sunday. “Where are they now? We’re still here, & standing tall.”

Up to a point. The Islamic part of the ravaging and razing and burning is still there, as the Foreign Minister’s name reminds us. Islam involves a lot of ceremonial prostration, which is the official opposite of standing tall. That’s not relevant to Trump’s criminal threats, but it is part of the bigger picture. Trump is threatening war crimes but that doesn’t make the government of Iran the good guys. There are no good guys in this brawl.

But, that said, Trump’s carrying on is disgusting and contemptible.

Targeting cultural sites is a war crime under the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural sites. The United Nations Security Council also passed unanimously a resolution in 2017 condemning the destruction of heritage sites. Attacks by the Islamic State group and other armed factions in Syria and Iraq prompted that vote.

Trump and Islamic State deserve each other.

Trump’s tweet also caused concern in Washington. One U.S. national security official said Trump’s threat to target Iranian cultural sites had caught many in his administration off-guard and prompted calls for others in his government, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to clarify the matter. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly to the issue, called such a clarification necessary to affirm that the U.S. military would not intentionally commit war crimes.

Oh what is this “caught many in his administration off-guard” shit? What, because they thought he was adult and cautious and reasonable? Because they didn’t realize he’s a reckless destructive mindless bully? Are they all drugged?

Iran is home to two dozen UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including Persepolis with its ancient ruins that date back to 518 BC, the 17th century grand mosque of Isfahan located in a teeming bazaar, and the Golestan Palace in the heart of Tehran, where the last shah to rule Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was crowned in 1967.

The country’s cultural sites reflect the expanse of Iran’s history: Geological and archaeological sites date back several thousand years, while 1,000-year-old sites reflect Iran’s contributions to the Golden Age of Islam. In Qom, the Feizeh Religious Science School and a shrine of a Shiite saint, Masoumeh, attract Muslim pilgrims from around the world, reinforcing Iran’s preeminent place among Shiite clerics, theologians and scholars.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service:

It is too late to leave, it is too late to leave, it is too late to leave.

That last is the most recent, 16 minutes ago.

The news from Australia:

Strong winds that have changed direction are hampering efforts by firefighters to contain bushfires in Australia’s south-east.

A southerly change with powerful gusts up to 80mph (128km/h) threatened to spread huge fires raging in New South Wales (NSW), officials said.

…

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the fires had created a “very volatile situation” and “we are yet to hit the worst of it”.

…

Skies reddened and darkened in areas of south-eastern Australia as wind gusts exacerbated the fires.

Temperatures surpassed 40C (104F) in some areas. In Penrith, west of Sydney, temperatures reached 48.9C. Some reports suggest it was for a time the hottest place on Earth.

Smoky and lethally hot – it sounds unbearable.

The fires can generate their own weather, complete with lightning – which starts new fires.

Terry Gilliam doesn’t like this strange new fad for saying men shouldn’t rape women.

The Time Bandits director and Monty Python cast member, who first described himself as a black lesbian in interviews last year, made his latest comments to the Independent while promoting his film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, released later this month.

Gilliam said he was “tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world”.

But he’s not, is he. He’s not blamed for everything that is wrong with the world. The fact that some men – far too many men – rape women does not mean or imply that Terry Gilliam does so, nor that Terry Gilliam is the source of everything that is wrong with the world.

On to the #MeToo movement, he said: “I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’”

That’s just fucking stupid, or lazy. Pointing out structural problems is taking responsibility. What exactly does he expect women to do, just ignore the occasional rape and keep smiling for the cameras?

He continued: “#MeToo is a witch-hunt. I really feel there were a lot of people, decent people, or mildly irritating people, who were getting hammered. That’s wrong. I don’t like mob mentality.”

So…the systematic abuse and coercion of women in Hollywood and elsewhere is just trivia, but the effort to put a stop to it is a witch hunt?

Easy to say, I guess, if it’s never been your problem.

Of [Harvey] Weinstein’s alleged victims, he said: “These were ambitious adults … There are many victims in Harvey’s life, and I feel sympathy for them, but then, Hollywood is full of very ambitious people who are adults and they make choices.”

Uh huh. It’s really the women who should be facing trial for raping Harvey Weinstein, amirite?

Fires? Are there fires?

The Australian, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship newspaper, has defended itself against criticism it downplayed unprecedented bushfires by failing to put a picture of the disaster on the front page of an edition, even as newspapers across the world featured the harrowing scenes.

Many of the world’s leading mastheads featured pictures of the devastation of the Australian bushfires on page one on Thursday. But the Australian’s first edition ran an upbeat picture story about the New Year’s Day picnic races at Hanging Rock.

Um…Fake News? It may have looked like an upbeat picture story about the New Year’s Day picnic races at Hanging Rock, but actually it was in-depth coverage of the fires.

The national broadsheet’s lead story on Thursday was about a secret proposal by police to ban alcohol in Indigenous communities in Western Australia – a story deemed more important than the bushfire report, which said eight people were dead and mass evacuations were underway.

Maybe Murdoch just doesn’t like sensationalism.

The Australian has been consistent on one front. Throughout the bushfire season it has kept up its coverage of climate denialism.

Before Christmas, the Australian attempted to smear Greg Mullins and his Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group as “largely a vehicle for Tim Flannery”. Flannery is a leading environmentalist and chief counsellor at the Climate Council.

The former fire and emergency chiefs from multiple states and territories say Australia is unprepared for worsening natural disasters from climate change and governments are putting lives at risk.

The Australian says they are a front for Flannery who is an “alarmist” for urging that coal-fired power stations be shut down.

Indeed; what on earth is there to be alarmed about? The fact that the planet is becoming hostile to life is no big deal – people can just stay inside for a few hundred years until things go back to normal.

People in south-east Australia are being told to evacuate.

Authorities in Australia have urged tens of thousands of people to move to safety amid concerns that bushfires will burn out of control this weekend.

“If you don’t need to be in the area, you need to leave,” warned New South Wales (NSW) Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

Temperatures are expected to soar above 40C (104F) in parts of south-east Australia on Saturday, with strong winds increasing the fire danger.

…

NSW Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers warned that fires could move “frighteningly” quickly on Saturday because of the extreme weather conditions.

…

Meteorologists have forecast extreme heat and strong winds in fire-affected areas in south-east Australia on Saturday.

Some of the fires could merge.