CNN on the current situation in Puerto Rico:

Nearly a week after Hurricane Maria slammed Puerto Rico, the US commonwealth looks something like this: Most are without power and phone service, with little hope of having it restored soon. Food and medicine are dwindling, especially for those isolated by impassable roads. And rescuers still are finding and removing desperate people from their demolished communities.

It is, in short, a humanitarian crisis, San Juan’s mayor told CNN on Tuesday.

You put all those together – roads impassable, power out, communications down, food and medicine running out – and you can’t help but have a humanitarian disaster. Emergency services are finding dialysis patients near death, people running out of oxygen.

Residents

Let’s start with something funny for a change.

Kate Smurthwaite did a tv chat thing this morning along with “Celebrity Big Brother star” Kim Woodburn where they discussed whether or not it’s annoying to be called “darling” in shops.

It wouldn’t be all that funny/interesting perhaps were it not for the fact that Kate reports that Kim Woodburn pitched a fit at her in the corridor afterwards.

I’m not even joking. Kim Woodburn (from How Clean Is Your House who I was just on This Morning with) completely flipped out at me in the corridor as we left the studio. Got right in my face. Called me “crazy”, “a nutter” and all sorts of other not-very-PC terms. I was like

Gaby Hinsliff on the abuse aimed at BBC reporter Laura Kuenssberg.

SNOWFLAKE. Pathetic. Fake news. “Not exactly Kate Adie in a war zone.”

And that’s just a flavour of the way some people on social media greeted the news that the BBC’s political editor has been assigned a bodyguard to protect her at Labour party conference: by blaming the victim, not those who threaten violence against her. She’s making it up for attention! She was asking for it, what with her wilful refusal to report the news in a manner more to people’s liking! She should have known it was provocative even to set foot there!

Evidently many Labour supporters will be as horrified as any other sane

I’m sure this will work out well.

North Korea’s foreign minister has accused US President Donald Trump of declaring war on his country.

Ri Yong-ho told reporters in New York that North Korea reserved the right to shoot down US bombers.

This applied even when they were not in North Korean airspace, the minister added.

This is not the first time that North Korea has used the phrase “a declaration of war” in relation to the United States.

But Mr Ri’s comments are a response to the US president’s tweet that Mr Ri and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would not “be around much longer” if they continued their rhetoric.

Trump needs to be removed from office because he’s … Read the rest

Recently a student at Edinburgh, Robbie Travers, made a lot of headlines over his claim that EU was investigating him for mocking ISIS. I saw several friends of mine pressing him on this claim on Facebook, and I saw him blowing smoke rather than answering.

Now Nick Cohen has found out what really happened.

On 12 May, Robbie Travers sent Esme Allman, a fellow student at Edinburgh University, a Facebook message.

“Hey Esme, just to let you know multiple news agencies have been delivered [sic] your comments on calling black men trash. You might want to think about saying that in future, some have been linked it [sic] to neo-Nazism.”

The ill-crafted words were at best half-truths and at

David Remnick is lucidly disgusted at Trump’s racist demagoguery.

In the midst of an eighty-minute speech intended to heighten the reëlection prospects of Senator Luther Johnson Strange III, Trump turned his attention to N.F.L. players, including the former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and asked a mainly white crowd if “people like yourselves” agreed with his anger at “those people,” players who take a knee during the national anthem to protest racism.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired!’ ” Trump continued. “You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy

The AfD has done better than expected in the German election.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been re-elected for a fourth term in federal elections, exit polls suggest.

Her conservative CDU/CSU alliance has won 32.5% of the vote, remaining the largest party in Germany’s parliament, according to the ARD poll.

Its coalition partner, the social democratic SPD, has gained 20%.

Meanwhile, the AfD, a right-wing nationalist, anti-Islam party, was on track to win 13.5%, emerging as Germany’s third-strongest party.

…

AfD’s performance, better than what opinion polls had forecast, means that the right-wing party will have a seat at the Bundestag for the first time.

The party’s leader, Frauke Petry, said on Twitter (in German) that Germany has experienced an

Another one of those customs we’re so used to we forget to ask why they’re customs – why is it the custom to sing “the national anthem” at sporting events? It’s not a universal custom, so why is it ours?

Oh well that’s easy – because we’re vainglorious and boastful and we love violence, basically.

Back in 2011 ESPN reminded us the US “national anthem” is a war song, taunting the enemy (flag still there, nyah nyah).

That’s why, in a country that loudly lauds actions on the battlefield and the playing field, “The Star-Spangled Banner” and American athletics have a nearly indissoluble marriage. Hatched during one war, institutionalized during another, this song has become so entrenched in our sports

And then there’s the fact that a university is afraid of being called a TERF on social media.

A researcher has been refused permission to study cases of people who have surgery to reverse gender reassignment by a university that said it risked generating controversy on social media sites.

The proposal was rejected with an explanation noting that it was a potentially “politically incorrect” piece of research and could lead to material being posted online that “may be detrimental to the reputation of the institution”.

Many subjects are potentially “politically incorrect”; it seems like an excess of caution for a university to squeal “Ewww!” and refuse permission to research them.

James Caspian, a psychotherapist, who wanted to conduct the

Oh darn, I must have been out.

… Read the rest

Miranda Green in the Financial Times points out a disquieting statistic.

[N]ews this week that one in four 14-year-old girls (and one in 10 boys of the same age) are experiencing the symptoms of depression should detain us.

I think the fact that far more 14-year-old girls than boys are experiencing the symptoms of depression should detain us a good deal longer.

It may be tempting to dismiss today’s adolescent moods, blithely, as something we have all endured. But the sources of young people’s anxiety seem to have changed quite fundamentally as growing up migrates online. The worst cases have serious real-world consequences. One MP told me of a visit from a family who wanted help to move not

Planned Parenthood does sex ed. It has a section on “how pregnancy happens.” It’s a little…odd.

Pregnancy is actually a pretty complicated process that has several steps. It all starts with sperm cells and an egg.

Sperm are microscopic cells that are made in testicles. Sperm mixes with other fluids to make semen (cum), which comes out of the penis during ejaculation. Millions and millions of sperm come out every time you ejaculate — but it only takes 1 sperm cell to meet with an egg for pregnancy to happen.

Eggs live in ovaries, and the hormones that control your menstrual cycle cause a few eggs to mature every month.

Wait what? Millions of sperm come out every … Read the rest

Hmmm. There’s the left, and then there’s…this other thing. I don’t know what to call it. The fight-picking left, the eat-your-own left, the thought-police left, the bully left.

FRESHMEN crowded the lecture hall at 9am for Humanities 110, the first class of their college careers. Elizabeth Drumm, the head of the programme, made some introductory remarks, her voice quavering. As some faculty members moved to take their places at a panel discussion, three demonstrators emerged from the wings of the auditorium. “We’re protesting Hum 110 because it’s Eurocentric,” one began. “I’m sorry, this is a classroom space and this is not appropriate,” Ms Drumm said, immediately cancelling the lecture. Thus began another academic year at Reed College, a

Puerto Rico is in trouble.

A dam in northwestern Puerto Rico suffered structural damage on Friday, the governor said at a news conference, prompting evacuationsof areas nearby in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

“Close to 70,000 is the estimate of people that could be affected in the case of a collapse,” the governor, Ricardo Rosselló, said about the Guajataca Dam, which is operated by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. “We don’t know the details. It’s time to get people out.”

A flash flood warning was previously issued by the National Weather Service for the municipalities of Isabela and Quebradillas. “This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation,” the service said in an advisory.

We’ve been hearing … Read the rest