To the surprise of no one

It is likely that climate change helped drive deadly floods in Pakistan, according to a new scientific analysis. The floods killed nearly 1500 people and displaced more than 30 million, after record-breaking rain in August.

The climate is changing. Climate events that break records are likely due to climate change.

The analysis confirms what Pakistan’s government has been saying for weeks: that the disaster was clearly driven by global warming. Pakistan experienced its wettest August since the country began keeping detailed national weather records in 1961. The provinces that were hardest hit by floods received up to eight times more rain than usual, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department.

Climate change made

More storms? Worse storms?

Canadian troops are being sent to assist the recovery from the devastation of storm Fiona, which swept away houses, stripped off roofs and knocked out power across the country’s Atlantic provinces.

After surging north from the Caribbean as a hurricane, Fiona came ashore before dawn on Saturday as a post-tropical cyclone, battering Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Quebec with hurricane-strength winds, heavy rains and huge waves.

…

The Canadian Hurricane Centre tweeted that Fiona had the lowest pressure ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada. Forecasters had warned it could be the one of the most powerful storms to hit the country.

“We’re getting more severe storms more frequently,” Trudeau said.

More

Thanks but we’ve decided to go in another direction.

Investors are walking away from commitments to invest in a company that planned to merge with Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform.

Was it something he said? Something he did? Everything?

“Blank-check” company Digital World Acquisition said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday that some backers were pulling a total of $139 million they had planned to put into the deal. Digital World had previously announced funding commitments of $1 billion.

The investors who signed up for the deal about a year ago were able to back out if it was not completed by September 20.

But it’s Trump. Everything he touches turns to gold.… Read the rest

For some reason Russian soldiers aren’t all that keen on Putin’s war.

Russia’s Kremlin-controlled lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved legislation that toughens punishment for soldiers breaching their duties, in an apparent effort to boost discipline in the ranks amid the fighting in Ukraine.

…

Under the new legislation, deserting a military unit during a period of mobilization or martial law would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison, compared with five years under the current law.

Those who voluntarily surrender to the enemy will also face a prison term of up to 10 years, and those convicted of looting could be handed a 15-year term.

Another amendment introduces a prison sentence of up to

The suckers are paying Trump’s legal bills.

As Donald Trump’s legal woes mount, donors and the Republican party have paid millions in dollars of his legal fees.

His newest legal headache saw him and three of his children hit with a fraud lawsuit, which alleges they lied about the value of property “by billions”.

Financial data shows that he has already spent more than $1m (£890,000) of donations fighting the case in 2022.

…

Millions of dollars spent combatting these charges have come from Mr Trump’s Save America political action committee (PAC) – which takes donations from Trump supporters across the country – Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show.

Save America has paid more than $1.12m this year alone

Originally a comment by tigger_the_wing on Meet “truthful hyperbole”.

All sorts of advertising slogans from my childhood fell foul of accuracy laws.

The one which changed the most (long past the point, in my opinion, that it should have simply been abandoned) was Whiskas cat food. “Eight out of ten cats prefer Whiskas!” became, eventually “In tests, eight out of ten owners who expressed a preference said that their cats preferred Whiskas!” Not exactly snappy, eh?

EU laws are very protective of consumers. Subway have fallen foul of them quite recently, when they lost their case to continue to call their rolls ‘bread’. They contain too much sugar – they are officially cake.

I wonder if they’ll ever come … Read the rest

Another one.

Iran has been tripped up by the women.

The eruption of nationwide protests in Iran following the death in police custody of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman detained for allegedly failing to adhere to hijab (headscarf) rules is the most serious challenge Iran’s leadership has faced in years.

Oddly enough women don’t like being bullied and oppressed and muffled in yards of cloth.

Civil liberties groups continually spotlight the suppression of women in Iran, an entire part of society who have been the biggest losers of the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Half of society – the half without which there won’t be any more Iranians. (Men are required for that too, but in a pinch you can get by with … Read the rest

No.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi withdrew from a long-planned interview with CNN’s chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, after she declined a last-minute demand to wear a head scarf.

I don’t suppose Amanpour sent Raisi a last-minute demand to wear underpants on his head. Why does he think he gets to tell her what to put on her head? She doesn’t go to his school, she doesn’t have to wear its uniform.

Amanpour, who grew up in the Iranian capital Tehran and is a fluent Farsi speaker, said that she wears a head scarf while reporting in Iran to comply with the local laws and customs, “otherwise

Wales says but we don’t want a prince thank you anyway.

The naming of William as the new Prince of Wales was “divisive”, according to a senior Plaid Cymru politician.

“Divisive” is a stupid word. Everything’s divisive. If you mean “bad” say “bad.”

Senedd member Cefin Campbell also asked whether, in today’s “more inclusive” and “egalitarian” society, whether “we need a monarchy at all”.

That’s the real question. Is there any point to this whole monarchy shtick other than demonstrations of inequality?

King Charles announced William and Catherine were Prince and Princess of Wales in his first address as monarch.

Then he got back to pitching fits at fountain pens and inkstands.… Read the rest

Is it lying or is it just colorful “hyperbole”?

A couple of days ago

Letitia James filed a 220-page lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court accusing Donald Trump and three of his children of using wildly inaccurate evaluations of Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago and multiple other properties to defraud lenders and cheat on taxes. The result, she said, was a “staggering” and “astounding” scheme that yielded an estimated $250 million in ill-gotten gains.

James termed these financial manipulations “the art of the steal,” a play on the title of Trump’s 1987 bestselling memoir The Art of the Deal. In that book, Trump (or, more likely, his co-author, journalist Tony Schwartz) called his aggressive salesmanship “truthful hyperbole,” which was explained

Maybe, maybe, all this criminality will end up being an obstacle to Trump’s dream of returning to the White House dining room so that he can throw more catsup at it.

Donald Trump’s legal perils have become insurmountable and could snuff out the former US president’s hopes of an election-winning comeback, according to political analysts and legal experts.

Meanwhile Politico is arguing that the legal perils just make the base love him more, but even if they’re right about that it won’t do him much good if he’s being held without bail.

On Wednesday, Trump and three of his adult children were accused of lying to tax collectors, lenders and insurers in a “staggering” fraud scheme that routinely

The Telegraph:

Scottish rugby chiefs have been accused of putting women and girls in danger after the country became the only part of the UK to allow male-bodied transgender players to compete against females in full-contact matches.

Scotland really hates women, doesn’t it. I guess because they won’t wheesht?

Rugby’s governing bodies in England, Wales and Ireland have recently changed their transgender policies to state that only people born as women can play in women’s matches, after peer-reviewed evidence showed male-born athletes retained significant physical advantages.

Next up: governing bodies will say only adults can play in adult matches, after peer-reviewed evidence showed adult athletes have significant physical advantages over children.

Existing rules state that female players must not

Lily Maynard has a brilliant long piece about the Brighton meetup and issues that flow from it:

Standing for Women holds various public meetings around the country, most famously at the Reformers Tree in London on the last Sunday of each month but increasingly in other cities. Recent meets have taken place in Nottingham, Manchester and Bristol as well as London, and in Washington DC and New York City in the States. At most of these meetings, held in public spaces, any woman who wishes to can speak to the group about issues that concern her and her sex. Sometimes, when the women are done, male allies get to speak too.

Let’s be clear, we were not meeting in

Developments.

She’s locked her account AND she’s blocked me (and I assume a great many other critics of her venomous bullying). Belt AND braces.

She may be feeling unnerved because Allison Bailey, whom she casually called a lot of harsh names yesterday, has demanded a retraction.

Cllr Power you've popped up in my mentions. Would you please confirm that you are not suggesting that's unacceptable to follow me on Twitter. If you are, please say why. I note that @RobertBohan, who I do not know, has blocked me on Twitter. Look forward to hearing from you.

— Allison Bailey (@BluskyeAllison) September 21, 2022

Cllr Power & Mr Bohan, you have called me transphobic. You have also labelled me hateful

Sometimes the alibi just makes the crime worse. Trump on his “declassifying” prowess:

In his first TV appearance since a court-authorized search of his Florida home last month, Donald Trump reasserted Wednesday that any documents taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago were declassified while he was in office, adding that a president can carry that out “even by thinking about it.”

“There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Well, as he understands things isn’t a very good measure of the things. Also it’s the kind of thing he should have been very sure about, not the kind of thing he qualifies with a “could be wrong” disclaimer.… Read the rest

The 11th Circuit ruled:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday freed the Justice Department to resume using documents marked as classified that were seized from former President Donald J. Trump, blocking for now a lower court’s order that had strictly limited the investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of government materials.

In a strongly worded 29-page decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit set aside key parts of an order by a Florida federal judge that has kept the department from using about 100 files with classification markings in its inquiry into whether Mr. Trump illegally retained national defense documents and obstructed repeated efforts to recover them.

By a Florida federal judge who was made … Read the rest

Oh puhleeze.

Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr has blasted New York State Attorney General Letitia James for involving the children of former President Donald Trump in a lawsuit.

They were involved in the business. Why wouldn’t they be involved in the lawsuit?

Also they’re bent, and corrupt, and evil, and they have profited hugely from their father’s many crimes. Of course they’re involved.

Barr, who resigned from the Trump administration amid attempts to overturn the 2020 election and has been at odds with the former president since, denounced James’ lawsuit as a “political hit job” and an example of “abuse of office.”

But he’s a crook. Should he be left alone simply because he won an election … Read the rest

Crimebusters in Ireland

Majorly concerned with the accounts the @Fingalcoco @fingallibraries is following, will raise it immediately with Council officials

— Cllr. Karen Power (@CllrKarenPower) September 21, 2022

Oh no, a county council and a county library system are following…what, WrongThinkers? And a councillor is going to…what, try to get other council officials to punish them or defund them or report them to the police?

At least she’s proud of her work.

Another banning is in progress.

Lost for words that, once again, a tiny number of transphobes within @NEUnion have humiliated the union and undone so much hard work by supporting a resource from a transphobic organisation that has no place in education. I have emailed @MaryBoustedNEU

— Kacey Dee NEU Exec LGBT+ (@dee_exec) September 20, 2022

What resource? What organization?

Same process as with JKR's essay. No one can tell what's wrong with it but it is politically necessary for it to be evil. https://t.co/dIUQT77qpo

— Victoria Smith (@glosswitch) September 21, 2022

@MaryBoustedNEU As a former teacher & writer, can you please explain your decision to remove the glowing review of Sex & Gender by @phoebe_draws? The book