Another thing global warming does: it cooks salmon to death before they can spawn.

Alaska has been in the throes of an unprecedented heat wave this summer, and the heat stress is killing salmon in large numbers.

Scientists have observed die-offs of several varieties of Alaskan salmon, including sockeye, chum and pink salmon.

Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, director of the Yukon Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, told CNN she took a group of scientists on an expedition along Alaska’s Koyokuk River at the end of July, after locals alerted her to salmon die-offs on the stream.

She and the other scientists counted 850 dead unspawned salmon on that expedition, although they estimated the total was likely four to 10 times larger.

They didn’t find any signs of parasites or infections; most of the salmon had eggs.

The water temperatures have [been] breaking records at the same time as the air temperatures, according to Sue Mauger, the science director for the Cook Inletkeeper.

Scientists have been tracking stream temperatures around the Cook Inlet, located south of Anchorage, since 2002. They’ve never recorded a temperature above 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Until now.

On July 7, a major salmon stream on the west side of the Cook Inlet registered 81.7 degrees.

Mauger and her team did a study three years ago making moderate and pessimistic projections for what climate change would do to temps in Alaska’s streams.

“2019 exceeded the value we expected for the worst-case scenario in 2069,” she said.

So half a century early it’s worse than they thought it could be.

Farther south, overfishing is threatening the salmon, which is why the orcas are dying.

And last week the Environmental Protection Agency told staff scientists it would no longer oppose a mining project in Alaska that had the potential to devastate one of the world’s most valuable wild salmon fisheries, just after President Trump met with Alaska’s Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

That’s ok, we’ll be fine eating copper.

PBS has an interesting show, via the BBC, about elephants migrating to a reserve for a few weeks. One plot line is about a 45-year-old bull and his struggle to find a female in estrus.

Cameraman Bob Poole follows, Matt, one of the largest, oldest tuskers in Kenya to see how a big bull in his prime goes about finding a mate and deals with the challenges from young bulls. Can he find a mate before the elephants begin to disperse in just 3 weeks’ time?

He can, of course, because if he hadn’t been able to, they wouldn’t have chosen him for the episode, but it’s still interesting to watch. When one cow finally does come into estrus seven young bulls follow her around before “Matt” arrives on the scene. Will he get her away from them? Will he triumph over this enterprising younger bull who has just mounted her? He will! He will charge roaring at young bull and shove him off just in time! And the winner is!

So he does mount her and there’s a surprisingly sweet post-coital interlude in which the rest of the herd (cows and calves) crowd around and “Matt” sticks around too and they all seem pleased as punch.

But the voiceover narration is odd at this point, because the male narrator goes on and on about how “Matt” will have his genes carried on in the next generation and what a good thing that is.

There’s not a word about the female’s genes, nor is she given a name.

It’s partly just the storytelling convention: the people who made the show decided to make a narrative out of “Matt” and his quest, while the cow has not been part of the story until the last minute. There’s a second (hideously sad) narrative about a herd of orphans (orphaned by poaching) whose too-young matriarch is the named central figure…as is her male calf. But this is supposed to be a nature program, even with the storytelling conventions for the mass audience. It seems both silly and uneducational to leave viewers with the impression that Matt alone is sending his genes to a new generation. Matt got his share of the job done in about ten seconds; the cow will be doing hers for 22 months and then for many years unless she is killed by poachers, which she probably will be.

How many people were slaughtered at that wedding in Kabul?

63.

Burials are taking place in the Afghan capital, Kabul after a bomb exploded at a wedding hall killing 63 people and wounding more than 180.

The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind for the attack.

That tells you everything you need to know about any prospective “Islamic State,” doesn’t it. Oh, your state will be happy to murder people celebrating weddings to make a point? No thank you then, we’d like a better state than that. Much better. Infinitely better.

The groom who gave his name as Mirwais told local TV: “My family, my bride are in shock, they cannot even speak. My bride keeps fainting.

“I lost my brother, I lost my friends, I lost my relatives. I will never see happiness in my life again.”

“I can’t go to the funerals, I feel very weak … I know that this won’t be the last suffering for Afghans, the suffering will continue,” he said.

The bride’s father told local media that 14 members of his family were killed in the attack.

But it’s ok you see because they were Shia.

The explosion took place in the west of the city, mostly populated by Shia Muslims.

Sunni Muslim militants, including the Taliban and the Islamic State group, have repeatedly targeted Shia Hazara minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Trumpism, Nazism, Islamism – it’s all the same shit. Wrap yourself in the flag of My Group and spew hatred of Their Group at every opportunity and job done: you’ve got hell on earth.

Sigh.

There is a new star in the Kent women’s cricket team — its first transgender player is opening after one season.

Maxine Blythin, who is more than 6ft tall and under England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rules can self-identify as a woman, has a batting average of 124 this season and has hit four centuries already.

Behold “Maxine”:

Fair Play for Women has said the policy is unfair, especially at a time when the game is improving opportunities for female players. A £20m semi-professional competition for women starts next year.

“Letting males who self-ID as women play in women’s competitions is demonstrably unfair,” the campaign group tweeted last week. “The ECB *knows* males have a performance advantage over females. This is [why] it lets women use lighter & smaller cricket balls & why boundaries are set closer.”

So Maxine not only gets to compete against women but also gets to do so using lighter and smaller cricket balls and with boundaries set closer. Win-win.

The ECB is understood to be worried about a backlash against transgender players. “Our position on transgender participation will be reviewed as part of our commitment to regularly review all governance policies,” it said.

But as far as the policy of self-identification with no medical requirement went, it was “unlikely to make any unilateral changes”, the board added.

“We are proud that this model promotes an inclusive environment for all participants in domestic and recreational cricket.”

Except for women.

The chair of the Federal Election Commission tells Trump to put up or shut up.

SAD: Last night, @realDonaldTrump again made unfounded claims about massive voter fraud in NH in 2016. In this letter, I ask him to back up his claims in terms a former casino operator should understand: “There comes a time when you need to lay your cards on the table or fold.”

As predicted, Margie Reckard’s funeral yesterday evening was massive.

“Never had so much love in my life,” Basco said on Friday as he beheld the crowds, many who waited in triple-digit heat, to attend Reckard’s memorial service and support a man they had never met.

When Reckard was killed, she left behind Basco, her partner of 22 years, who considered her his only close family. The couple had moved to El Paso a few years earlier and didn’t have many local relatives and friends.

Powerful images of a solitary Basco crouching and weeping in front of Reckard’s makeshift memorial had spread on social media.

Social media giveth and social media taketh away.

Harrison Johnson, funeral director at Perches Funeral Homes, told NPRthat he quickly learned attendance would exceed its 250-person capacity. So he helped make arrangements to move the service to the larger La Paz Faith Memorial and Spiritual Center in El Paso.

It was there that people from across the country descended on Friday to wrap Basco in a communal embrace.

…

People passed through the chapel, pausing to pay their respects, then moving along to make way for those waiting behind them.

For hours, the line stretched outside for several blocks.

“Since he opened it to the public, I think it was a way of the community to mourn the whole situation,” said Salvador Perches, owner of Perches Funeral Home, which handled Reckard’s burial for free.

Meanwhile a bomb has gone off at a wedding in Kabul.

Updating to add, after a conversation in the comments.

The wokeness of it.

Hey vancouver…… tear these down when you see them. This org lost their funding for refusing to include transwomen in their shelters and education, they are now openly a hive for terf nonsense. Dont let them recruit.

The Times on the trans Cultural Revolution:

More than a dozen academics, including several leading feminist professors, fear their freedom of speech is being silenced by students complaining they are transphobic.

They include Selina Todd, a professor of modern history at Oxford, and Kate Newey, professor of theatre history at Exeter. Rosa Freedman, professor of law conflict and global development, is believed to be under scrutiny at Reading University, and Kathleen Stock, professor of philosophy, has faced several formal complaints organised by students at Sussex. Some of the women, along with other academics, say questioning of transgender policies is being censored on campus.

Policies but also truth claims. It’s forbidden to say women have a right to their own spaces and it’s also forbidden to say that people can’t literally become the opposite sex.

Todd, vice-principal of St Hilda’s College, Oxford, initially faced a complaint backed by a Facebook petition about comments she had made on social media. That grievance was dismissed by the university. Now, however, she has been told by students she will face a campaign in the autumn for her to be sacked.

“It is intimidating and isolating,” Todd said. “The view of these activists is that anyone who feels themselves to be a woman should be allowed to call themselves such. Questioning that desire is seen as hate speech that could be harmful. To me that is censorship.”

It’s censorship, and it’s censorship in aid of forcing people to declare belief in absurd irrational claims. That’s a major turn of the screw. “Swear on the Judith Butler text that men are women if they say they are or be ostracized and demonized and blacklisted. Your choice; no third option exists.”

Trump and his enforcers continue his project to belittle the press.

The Trump administration has fired another shot in its war with the US press, suspending the credentials of Brian Karem, White House correspondent for Playboy and an analyst for CNN.

The 30-day revocation was announced on Friday and echoes hugely controversial action taken against CNN’s Jim Acosta in November 2018.

For Trump and gang it doesn’t really matter whether the revocation sticks or not, the point is to perform hatred of the press for the adoring crowds.

Karem had his pass suspended after an altercation with Breitbart reporter and former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka in the White House Rose Garden in July, around a “social media summit” convened by Trump and attended by some of his most ardent supporters. Both men attracted criticism for their behaviour.

If you’re masochistic enough you can watch the “altercation” here:

The Guardian continues:

In a letter to White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, Karem’s attorney Ted Boutrous, who also represented Acosta, described the decision as “arbitrary and unfair” and claimed the White House had not spoken to a single witness seen on video “taunting and/or threatening Mr Karem”.

Boutrous argued that the White House’s decision “violates the first amendment and due process and is yet another example of this administration’s unconstitutional campaign to punish reporters and press coverage that president Trump doesn’t like”.

He added: “The president and his administration are fostering an atmosphere of hostility and violence towards journalists that cannot be tolerated and they are illegally using the credential process to stifle freedom of the press and to disrupt the flow of vital information to the American people.”

The press, immigrants, brown people, Hispanics, women, lefties, refugees, asylum seekers – Trump is fostering an atmosphere of hostility and violence toward all of them. It’s what he does.

Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter seven hours ago:

This is what the women attending our support group for women who have been raped or battered found when they arrived at the location of their last session. Shame on the misogynist bullies who did it.

It’s a dead rat.

I posted about Antonio Basco Wednesday so here’s the latest.

At first, it seemed like Margie Reckard’s funeral would be a small affair.

The 63-year-old, who was killed when a gunman opened fire in an El Paso Walmart this month, left behind few relatives, and none live in El Paso. Her husband, Antonio Basco, had no other family and invited anyone to show up.

Elodia Perches, co-owner of La Paz Faith–Perches Funeral Home, said the funeral home has received more than 400 flower arrangements so far.

One local florist said her business delivered more than 50 arrangements, with orders coming in from New York and Michigan. One of those arrangements came from the family of a victim of the Sandy Hook shooting.

“I’ve been in business over 30 years,” Sandy Blanco, owner of Debbie’s Bloomers, told CNN. “I’ve never seen any outpouring so beautiful, and an outpouring as large as this.”

Basco has Parkinson’s.

The Borowitz Report:

After rebuffing Donald J. Trump’s hypothetical proposal to purchase Greenland, the government of Denmark has announced that it would be interested in buying the United States instead.

I say we take the offer.

“Denmark would be interested in purchasing the United States in its entirety, with the exception of its government,” the spokesperson added.

But but but we have checks and balances.

If Denmark’s bid for the United States is accepted, the Scandinavian nation has ambitious plans for its new acquisition. “We believe that by giving the U.S. an educational system and national health care, it could be transformed from a vast land mass into a great nation,” the spokesperson said.

The only condition is that Trump has to move his ass to another country.

Seriously, let’s close the deal.

Incident in Trump’s USofA:

The wife of an Arkansas jail administrator was arrested and charged with assault several days after police say she pulled a gun on four black teenagers who were going door to door to raise money for their high school football team.

Police in the eastern Arkansas city of Wynne, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock, said the incident happened Aug. 7. Police responding to reports of “suspicious persons” found the four children on the ground, with Jerri Kelly, who is white, standing over them holding a gun, Memphis TV station WMC reported.

The officer let the children stand up, and they told him they had been selling discount cards to raise money for a school athletic program. The Wynne School District said two of the four children were wearing football jerseys.

Kelly was charged with aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a minor. Her husband is a jail administrator.

Bill Winkler, who said he has lived in the neighborhood where the incident took place for four decades, said children are typically out this time of year selling discount cards for the football team.

“Usually it’s right before football season, late summer or early fall,” Winkler said.

Wynne School District Superintendent Carl Easley said the district is considering stopping door-to-door fundraisers.

It’s not worth being shot.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on As if women are completely invisible.

I wish more people in the press would stop framing these laws as adding to the rights of trans males, and instead talk about what they really are: laws that take the right away from women to decide for themselves when and how much they’re willing to accommodate trans-identified males in their spaces. The trans lobby pushes the idea that all trans-identified males are genuinely as harmless as women — analogous to gentle, effeminate homosexuals. (I’m picturing that naive cosmologist from yesterday and her “keep being fabulous!” comment and how inappropriate it is to apply the word “fabulous” to the likes of Karen White or Jonathan Yaniv — men who couldn’t possibly be further from the fun-loving “fabulous” purse-collecting, sassy-heels-strutting pseudo-gay stereotype she seems to imagine all transwomen are.) I wish I could talk to people like that cosmologist face-to-face and show them that the majority of trans-identified males maintain behavioural characteristics in line with other males: a higher propensity for violence; a sense of entitlement; etc, etc. I wish I could remind her that in a social context, she already has the right to welcome trans-identified males into her social circles and affirm them as women as she sees fit, and that she should also have the right to not welcome certain trans-identified males if she perceives them as a possible threat, if they make her uncomfortable, or for any other reason.

My favourite example of male-pattern trans behaviour is from last fall: the WSJ undertook a massive exit poll during the US mid-term elections in order to better understand who the hell is still supporting Trump two years into his term. Unsurprisingly, lesbians and gays voted overwhelmingly Democratic. But people who identified as “trans” were far more likely to vote Republican: possibly as many as 40% did, given the margin of error. That’s pretty much in line with non-trans males when you consider that the poll didn’t distinguish between male and female trans-identifiers, and that the female ones are erstwhile-lesbians and thus very unlikely to vote Republican.

I’d like to ask that cosmologist: are you sure you think it’s “fabulous” to legally force women to accommodate everyone in a cohort of middle-aged straight males who tend to be sexually attracted to women, tend to support Donald Trump, are just as likely to commit assault as their non-dress-wearing male counterparts, have no concept of patriarchy and couldn’t care less about feminism?