Marina Hyde on Andrew Windsor’s claim to be shocked, shocked by the news about Jeffrey Epstein:

Or as Buckingham Palace finally put it in a statement denying any impropriety on behalf of the prince: “The Duke of York has been appalled by the recent reports of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes.”

I’m slightly sorry for the royal flunkies who had to issue this line, given that most of us are suffering eyeball strain from all the rolling we’re doing. Even so, I do feel we need further clarification on what precisely the Duke is appalled by. Is it just the “recent reports”? Because if we’re meant to believe that Prince Andrew is appalled by ALL of the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein

Back in June I did a post about a lawsuit by a trans woman against the Times.

The hearing at the Edinburgh Employment Tribunal, which began on Wednesday, could have far-reaching implications for UK’s news outlets. In addition to the standard employment law charges such as discrimination and victimisation, the case also rests on an argument that has never before been tested.

O’Donnell and her lawyer — Robin White of Old Square Chambers — allege that it wasn’t just what happened in the newsroom but also what those inside it published in the newspaper about trans people that constituted a hostile, anti-transgender place to work.

Sly. Very very sly. Bring one case and (if you win) make it so

The evil David Koch is dead but his evil will live on until planet death snuffs it out too.

While he certainly enjoyed the fruits of his labors to deregulate U.S. industry and reduce taxes on the super-wealthy like himself, he will never have to experience the consequences of his biggest achievement: putting the entire planet on the brink of crisis in the service of enriching himself and a few other fossil fuel billionaires. And we, the people and future generations who are going to live with the fallout, will never see him or the small cadre of wealthy conservatives who funded decades of climate denial face any form of justice.

Koch’s death was first reported by the New Yorker’s

The smoke from wildfires was bad here last summer but it didn’t actually get dark in the afternoon. Stinky and unhealthy, yes, but dark, no. São Paulo on the other hand…

In the middle of the afternoon on August 19th South America’s largest city went dark. Under a thick, black cloud at 3pm, the lights flickered on in São Paulo’s skyscrapers; on the motorways brake lights started to glow in the city’s bumper-to-bumper traffic, and many Paulistanos were worried. Social-media users posted pictures of the gloom, juxtaposing the dystopian afternoon sky with fictional apocalyptic places such as Gotham City from “Batman”, Mordor from “Lord of the Rings” and “the upside down” from “Stranger Things”.

Meteorologists scrambled to explain what

And there’s another one.

Meanwhile in the US, middle distance runner Jonathan Eastwood will be running as ‘June’ in the women’s races. Jonathan can run 800m faster than @damekellyholmes at her peak. Looks like we have another ‘exceptional woman’ about to hit the track. Sorry women, time to move over.

More joy of sport for you.… Read the rest

It all makes a sick kind of sense.

Jeffrey Epstein reportedly told women and young girls that he was a modeling scout for Victoria’s Secret. The financier never worked for the lingerie retailer, or even, technically, for its parent company, L Brands. But he had a close relationship with the head of L Brands, Leslie Wexner, assuming an unusual degree of control over Wexner’s assets and personal life, according to reporting by The New York Times. Epstein seems to have exploited his proximity to Victoria’s Secret to facilitate his alleged crimes. According to Alicia Arden, a model and actress, this was Epstein’s ruse when he lured her to a Santa Monica hotel room and assaulted her in 1997.

The BBC celebrates a male rugby player who has moved to a women’s team:

Kelly Morgan is a trailblazer.

Born Nicholas Gareth Morgan, she played representative rugby for east Wales as a teenager.

Then he spent ten years “wrestling with gender identity” and now is playing with (and against) the wims.

Transgender women participating in female sport is a divisive subject, and one not confined to Welsh rugby.

Brushing it off with “divisive” is lazy and cowardly. The BBC might as well say it’s “divisive” for men to punch women in the face whenever they get annoyed.

Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) guidelines – which are “fully committed to the principles of equality” – state Kelly can play providing her

I thought this was just some random (albeit blue-checked) person on Twitter responding to a Fox News tweet about Ocasio-Cortez’s saying the Electoral College is a scam.

Actually @AOC, eliminating the Electoral College would silence our voices here in Iowa and in many other states across the country.

This is just more evidence of how out of touch the Democrats have become.

So I pointed out that an equal vote doesn’t silence anyone and it’s the outsize vote for less populated states that’s the real silencing, and then I looked to see who she is.

She’s a senator! A US senator!

And it’s the Democrats who are out of touch. Oy.… Read the rest

About that Amazon rain forest…

Fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest are proliferating at an alarming rate.

That’s the gist of an announcement this week by the country’s National Institute for Space Research, or INPE. According to the agency, there have been 74,155 fires in the Brazil so far this year — most of which erupted in the Amazon. That represents an astonishing leap of more than 80% over last year, and by far the most that the agency has recorded since it began compiling this data in 2013.

Over half of those fires, or nearly 36,000 of them, have ignited in just the past month. That’s nearly as many as all of 2018 combined. Smoke from the fires has