Outlook India reports:

Senior journalist Gauri Lankesh has been shot dead at her residence in Bengaluru.

NDTV reports that unidentified men shot at her seven times from close range and that three bullets hit her on the neck and chest, following which she collapsed on the spot.

“There has been a shootout at  Gauri Lankesh’s house this evening; she is no more. Her body was found in her veranda,” said M.N. Anucheth, DCP, West Bengaluru according to ANI.

…

Lankesh was the editor of the weekly ‘Gauri Lankesh Patrike’ and had been under attack for her views on communalism. She had been convicted in two defamation cases for articles critical of the Bharatiya Janata Party written in January 2008.

Shermer is trolling again.

Which is worse, Alt-Right or Alt-Left, Neo-Nazis or Antifa? Wrong question. Is violence a practical or moral means of social change? No.

Wrong question according to whom, bub? In what conversation? In order to discuss what issue?

Of course it’s not the wrong question. It’s a goddam urgent question right now, with Mr “on many sides, on many sides” in the White House. Racism is worse than anti-racism, even when some anti-racists get violent. Resistance to racism and fascism is better than racism and fascism even though many of the resisters are bullies and egotists. You can’t have a large political movement with no assholes in it, that’s just not an option, but … Read the rest

… Read the rest

The EPA press release attacking the AP reporters is also, in addition to the authoritarian aspect and the lying aspect, strikingly amateurish. It does not read like something you would expect to see from a federal agency staffed by grownups.

I mean really –

Good afternoon –

Yesterday, the Associated Press’ Michael Biesecker wrote an incredibly misleading story about toxic land sites that are under water.

That sounds like a couple of teenagers gossiping, not a civil servant informing the public about emergency pollution management.

Despite reporting from the comfort of Washington, Biesecker had the audacity to imply that agencies aren’t being responsive to the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey. Not only is this inaccurate, but it creates panic and

More authoritarian excess:

President Donald Trump’s habit of singling out reporters for attacks is being adopted by his federal agencies, with the Environmental Protection Agency excoriating an Associated Press reporter in unusually personal terms on Sunday after the reporter wrote a story that cast the agency in an unfavorable light.

“Yesterday, the Associated Press’ Michael Biesecker wrote an incredibly misleading story about toxic land sites that are under water,” the statement began. “Despite reporting from the comfort of Washington, Biesecker had the audacity to imply that agencies aren’t being responsive to the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey. Not only is this inaccurate, but it creates panic and politicizes the hard work of first responders who are actually in the

Houston’s always been soggy. It probably wasn’t a very good place to build an enormous city, when you get right down to it.

No city could have withstood Harvey without serious harm, but Houston made itself more vulnerable than necessary. Paving over the saw-grass prairie reduced the ground’s capacity to absorb rainfall. Flood-control reservoirs were too small. Building codes were inadequate. Roads became rivers, so while hospitals were open, it was almost impossible to reach them by car.

…

Harvey is a humanitarian disaster. Ordinary Texans were defenseless against rising waters contaminated by sewage and dotted with floating colonies of fire ants. The confirmed death toll, 20 as of Aug. 30, is expected to rise as rescuers

Hey if you’re going to write a piece attacking feminism in a major newspaper, at least get the author details right.

Serbia’s [well known] daily newspaper, Politika, has been accused of using made-up commentators to promote misogyny after publishing an anti-feminist article allegedly written by a scientist, but illustrated with the photograph of a German actor.

The commentary accused feminists of using the recent murders of two women at the hands of their ex-husbands to spread “propaganda”.

“Agressive feminists came to the fore in order to abuse the tragedies for their political agenda,” the article said, also reminding the readers that “almost all infanticides in the world are committed by women”.

The women in question were murdered at social

Stewart reports an item that’s not available in English yet:

[A] brief report on how Israeli/German satirical artist Shahak Shapira (whose work we’ve featured in the past) was involved in the takeover of 31 secret AfD Facebook groups.

Working with “Die Partei”, this was the culmination of an 11-month infiltration operation. After the infiltrators (using fake profiles) had gained the trust of the admins over many months, and had received admin privileges themselves, they staged a simultaneous coup, got rid of the “real” admins, exposed the groups’ content, including hate speech and fake news, to public view and posted a video by Shapira explaining to those members who were real the precise inner workings of the bot-driven political scam

Alt National Park Service on Facebook is reporting Trump’s destruction of the National Park Service as it happens.

Yesterday:

An unfolding crisis at a flooded chemical plant outside Houston on Thursday led to the prompt announcement of an investigation by a federal body that Trump would eliminate. The administration’s proposed budget would wind down funding(-100%) for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, a small, independent federal agency tasked with investigating chemical accidents. The board, which has a budget of $11 million and 40 staff, played a major part in investigating the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and has conducted more than 130 investigations since its began operations in 1998. It originated as part of a set of 1990 amendments

The AP reports that many Superfund sites in Houston are flooded, thus at risk of spreading contamination. It also reports that while its reporters have been able to take a look at the sites, the EPA has not.

The Associated Press surveyed seven Superfund sites in and around Houston during the flooding. All had been inundated with water, in some cases many feet deep.

On Saturday, hours after the AP published its first report, the EPA said it had reviewed aerial imagery confirming that 13 of the 41 Superfund sites in Texas were flooded by Harvey and were “experiencing possible damage” due to the storm.

The statement confirmed the AP’s reporting that the EPA had not yet been able

Taslima on the floods in India and Bangladesh:

Flood in Bangladesh, India, Nepal. Hundreds died. Millions suffering. pic.twitter.com/MlsWEdgCvo

— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) August 19, 2017

Flood in Bangladesh. pic.twitter.com/ouwkINnMNG

— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) August 17, 2017

… Read the rest