The Independent on the Ched Evans retrial.

A former solicitor general has condemned the way the Ched Evans rape trial was conducted.

Vera Baird told the BBC details of the woman’s sexual past should not have been heard in court and the case could discourage people who are sexually assaulted from reporting it to police.

The 27-year-old footballer was cleared on Friday of raping a woman in a hotel room in 2011, only after her sexual history was scrutinised before a jury. Evans was initially found guilty of the rape in 2012.

And you think that might deter women from reporting rape? Just a little?

While he was in prison, Evans’ family and friends offered £50,000 for information that

Rebecca Solnit again.

So Trump’s position is “I boast about sexually assaulting women, but when women confirm that is true, they are liars, because I was just lying all those times, and you must believe I am telling the truth, because whatever is convenient for me to say in this very moment weighs much more than what they say with witnesses, confirmation, etc., just as I weigh much more than the people I assault.”

I wrote about Bill Cosby and Donald Trump and the way women’s credibility is assaulted if they speak up about being assaulted, before the revelations about their crimes, because it’s the same old same old nearly every woman knows:
The story of Cassandra, the woman

The Great Barrier Reef is not dead, yet. It’s in trouble but not dead. So far.

Perhaps you have read its obituary by writer Rowan Jacobsen on the website Outside Online.

No, but I saw some headlines, probably inspired by that, so I hit the googles.

“For those of us in the business of studying and understanding what coral resilience means, the article very much misses the mark,” said Kim Cobb, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “It’s not too late for the Great Barrier Reef, and people who think that have a really profound misconception about what we know and don’t know about coral resilience.”

Cobb spoke to the LA

In news of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and freedom of protest, and freedom of the press –

This Monday afternoon, as the sun hits its peak over Mandan, North Dakota, the award-winning journalist, and host of Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman will walk into the Morton County–Mandan Combined Law Enforcement and Corrections Center and turn herself in to the local authorities. Her crime: good, unflinching journalism.

Goodman had the audacity to commit this journalism on September 3, when she was in North Dakota covering what she calls “the standoff at Standing Rock”: the months-long protests by thousands of Native Americans against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The $3.8 billion oil pipeline is slated to carry barrel after barrel of Bakken

Remember what I said about seeing women as the same kind of thing as a hamburger when you’re hungry? Dave Holmes at Esquire has the same thought.

Twenty years ago he saw a woman get sexually assaulted on the subway. She was on her way to work at the Fashion Cafe, wearing its uniform of tight T shirt with the logo and a miniskirt.

Here’s where my memory snaps into high-definition: The train approached the Rockefeller Center stop, and she moved toward the exit. A man, seated in the spot nearest the doors, looked her up and down. And then, as the doors opened, he got underneath her skirt and grabbed a handful of her.

It was not a pat,

Clementine Ford tells us about a thing that happened.

[E]arlier this week, a woman posted a lengthy diatribe to Facebook calling out a man who had engaged in threatening behaviour on public transport. The woman described him harassing three fellow female passengers, pressing into their personal space and insisting they give him high fives. After intervening, she took a photograph of the man and shared it alongside her Facebook post. It was quickly reposted by numerous people, including myself.

Shortly afterwards, unqualified rebuttals started appearing claiming this man had an intellectual disability. This was soon framed as him being autistic, with numerous people (who were not there) deciding this meant his behaviour was harmless and it was the nasty

Obama points out that Republicans don’t get points for disavowing Trump at this late date, after enabling him and all his horrors for months.

They know better, a lot of these folks who ran, and they didn’t say anything, so they don’t get credit for, at the very last minute, when finally they guy that they nominated and they endorsed and they support is caught on tape saying things that no decent person would even think, much less say, much less brag about, much less brag about or joke about, much less act on, you can’t wait until that finally happens and then say, ‘Oh, that’s too much! That’s enough!’ and think that somehow you are showing any kind of

The rising generation of baby Trumps:

A young design and technology teacher has used the TES community forums to reveal how male students used their mobiles to take “upskirt” photos while she was leaning over in class.

The 23-year-old – who said she felt “violated” and “threatened” – was concerned that the images would be shared across social media.

The incident took place as she taught more than 20 boys. “My [teaching assistant] noticed a few of my male students acting suspiciously,” the teacher said.

“It turned out, after further inspection…that the boys had been taking photos of up my skirt while I…leaned over to support students [working on] computers.”

She continued: “I’m mostly worried about keeping the authority

Here’s a nice animation of Stephen Law’s Evil God Challenge, by Steph Hope for CFI UK.

[Note: I know Stephen and his teeth are not like that!]… Read the rest

Oh that locker room.

[Four guys sitting in front of some lockers – Brock Turner, Trump in his nasty red cap, Bill Cosby, Jared Fogle.]… Read the rest