From the cheerful news column – a successful gorilla birth at Bristol Zoo:

Keepers arrived to find the new arrival nestling in the arms of its mother.

Photographs taken just hours after the birth on Wednesday show Kala – a nine-year-old western lowland gorilla – cradling the newborn. Staff said both were “doing well”.

They say “its mother” because the zoo doesn’t know the sex yet and won’t for a while. Kala’s first infant was via emergency caesarian section and didn’t survive.

Lynsey Bugg, the zoo’s curator of mammals, said: “We knew we were having a baby gorilla due and we’ve been on baby watch for a little while.

“On Tuesday Kala looked nice and comfortable and not causing

There seems to be a lot of irritation about the Rose Garden. I share it, not least because I hate that cold colorless dull aesthetic.

So they are – I mean were – crabapples.

Remembering the White House Rose Garden pic.twitter.com/OD1FOQuHPJ

— RiotWomenn (@riotwomennn) August 22, 2020

Again, to be fair, tulips are spring flowers, but there are plenty of August flowers that could be there instead of the Big Empty.

Here is the colorful, happy Rose Garden under Obama, and here is Melania's unveiling of the new garden, entirely devoid of color or joy. pic.twitter.com/j9cNXC63tC

— Jennifer Wright (@JenAshleyWright) August 22, 2020

Ooof. That is ugleee.

Wow. Looks so different. I once played catch with Obama in the

Trump again pretending to think Democrats are mean to “God” and that he gives a shit:

Before playing golf on Saturday, Donald Trump took time to spread a false claim about God on Twitter.

“The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democrat [sic] National Convention,” the president wrote.

“At first I thought they made a mistake, but it wasn’t. It was done on purpose. Remember Evangelical Christians, and ALL, this is where they are coming from – it’s done. Vote Nov[ember] 3!”

It should be where they’re coming from, but it isn’t. It should be because school children are forced to say the pledge, and nobody should be forced to make avowals … Read the rest

I saw something yesterday saying Melania Trump would be saying something for the Republican convention from “the newly renovated [by her] White House Rose Garden.” Uh oh, I thought, what’s she done to it.

Before and after photographs of newly renovated White House Rose Garden:
courtesy #Getty and @marycjordan pic.twitter.com/w6bzoNHMjC

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 22, 2020

Ew.

To be fair, the one on the left is obviously spring – the crabapple* trees would not be flowering even if they were still there. But they’re not still there. They’ve been swept away. The vibrant various colors have been replaced by icy blue and white.

It’s funny, in a way, because the minimalism is so unlike the vulgar garishness of that … Read the rest

From a post here last October:

“Attorney General” Bill Barr met with Rupert Murdoch last night; nobody knows what they talked about.

I’m sure it’s all very innocent. I’m sure Barr in no way tried to pressure Murdoch to make Fox even more slavishly adoring of Trump. I’m sure it’s entirely normal for an Attorney General to visit the boss of a notoriously political tv network, just to lift a few beers and shoot the shit.

The Guardian today:

The attorney general, William Barr, told Rupert Murdoch to “muzzle” Andrew Napolitano, a prominent Fox News personality who became a critic of Donald Trump, according to a new book about the rightwing TV network.

Barr’s meeting with

Now that’s funny.… Read the rest

The Times asks a silly question: Who Should Compete in Women’s Sports?

The answer is in the question. Women, duh.

But the full title is: Who Should Compete in Women’s Sports? There Are ‘Two Almost Irreconcilable Positions.’

Only when it comes to women, right? Nobody else is expected to nod compliantly to such a ridiculous set-up. Who should win a prize established for black writers? There Are Two Almost Irreconcilable Positions – I don’t think. But it’s ok to bully women that way, because women are required to be Nice, which includes giving away their own rights and smiling pleasantly while they do it.

While scientific and societal views of sex and gender identity have changed significantly in recent decades,

I think Trump’s throwing a funeral for his brother at the White House is tacky, at best. It’s not normal; it’s not what presidents do. It’s gross. It’s exhibitionist. It’s narcissistic. It’s ick.

Trump on Monday said he wanted to hold a service for his younger brother, who died Saturday, at the White House, telling reporters, “I think he’d be greatly honored. He loves our country. He loved our country so much. He was so proud of what we were doing and what we are doing for our country.”

That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to do his funeral in the building.

It is a rare event for the East Room to be used for funeral events, outside of a ceremony

They all knew.

(Of course they did. How could they not? How could anyone? He’s not subtle about it.)

Trump is trying out a new brand of birtherism: pretending Biden wasn’t born where he was born.

Which is weird because…what? Who cares? What difference does it make what town or city or village or megalopolis someone was born in?

President Trump traveled to Old Forge, Pennsylvania, just miles away from former Vice President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, to deliver a scathing speech in which he claimed Biden ‘wasn’t born’ in Scranton, just hours before the Democratic presidential hopeful was set to accept his party’s nomination.

Oh no, not Not Born in Scranton! The horror!

But perhaps Trump’s most vicious and bizarre attack was on Biden’s claim to be a native son of Scranton, asserting that Biden, who

This isn’t the approach to the climate crisis, this is the climate crisis. Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano, authors of Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy, have the details.

In few places is this as clear as California, where extreme wildfires have become the new abnormal. There is currently a “fire siege” in northern California, with wildfires burning in every one of the nine Bay Area counties except for San Francisco, which is entirely urbanized. Tens of thousands of residents have evacuated and people are choking on smoke.

And that’s not some random inexplicable thing, it’s the climate crisis.

California’s governor announced on Wednesday that there were 367 fires, and conflagrations have grown so rapidly that there are

Trump is attacking California, again, for being on fire.

“I see again the forest fires are starting,” he said at a rally in swing-state Pennsylvania. “They’re starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”

“Maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us,” he added.

He wants to make “them” pay for it because California votes for Democrats plus it’s full of Those people – you know the ones.

“I’ve been telling them this now for three

Proud to demand the end of women’s sport.

“We are asking rugby clubs at all levels of the game to stand with us against a ruling that is exclusionary and that will impact some of the most vulnerable people in the community”.

Join us and @LgbtiqS in calling @WorldRugby to #TackleTransphobia https://t.co/Y0ngO2VbQE pic.twitter.com/Qj8KSdOL5S

— Stonewall (@stonewalluk) August 21, 2020

… Read the rest

Navalny needs to get out of Russia. Putin has nailed the doors shut.

The Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation organised an air ambulance to pick up Mr Navalny and bring him back to Berlin, where it said the Charite hospital was ready to treat him.

…

At a news conference in Berlin, Mr Navalny’s aide Leonid Volkov said at first doctors at the hospital had been helping to facilitate his transfer but abruptly stopped doing so.

“[It was] like something was switched off – like medicine mode off, cover-up operation mode on – and the doctors refused to co-operate any more, refused to give any information even to Alexei’s wife,” he said.

“The doctors who were helping to do

Ari Berman is reporting on DeJoy’s testimony.

Embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before the US Senate on Friday that he will not reinstall more than 600 mail sorting machines that have been removed under his leadership. Postal workers say the removal of these machines has contributed to major mail delays that could affect whether mail ballots are counted in the 2020 election.

He’s said he’ll stop taking any more out for now, since he got caught, but that’s all he’ll concede. It’s as if someone breaks into your house and the police show up and the intruder says “well ok I’ll leave now but all that stuff I stashed in my car before you got here? I’m keeping … Read the rest

The BBC a couple of weeks ago:

Twelve months into her gender transition, Grace McKenzie was recruited out of the blue to join the Golden Gate Women’s rugby club in San Francisco.

Cue Rebecca Solnit to remind us how awesome and accepting San Francisco is.

McKenzie says playing rugby has given her a platform to “just focus on living and enjoying myself” – but a new proposal to ban trans women from women’s contact rugby could bring that to an end.

Because, oddly enough, women’s safety and right to fair competition is more important than one trans woman’s “platform to enjoy herself.”

“There’s a lot of rhetoric out there about where trans people fit into sports overall, and it

Oh and let’s not forget Trump’s tax returns.

A federal judge on Thursday cleared the way for Manhattan’s top prosecutor to get Donald Trump’s tax returns, rejecting a last-ditch attempt by his lawyers to block a subpoena issued to his accounting firm.

US district judge Victor Marrero’s ruling echoes his prior decision in the case, which was upheld by the US supreme court last month. The high court returned the case to Marrero so Trump’s lawyers could get another chance to challenge the subpoena issued by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr.

Trump, through his lawyers, has argued that the subpoena was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment of him, especially

What’s the deal with Stephen Miller? How did he get to be a racist fanatic?

Jean Guerrero’s new book Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda follows Miller through a conservative media landscape where key figures — including right-wing radio talk-show host Larry Elder; David Horowitz, who founded the David Horowitz Freedom Center; and former Breitbart chief Steve Bannon — propelled the rise of a man who now influences who gets to be an American.

…

“I just became all the more fascinated with trying to understand how a descendant of Jewish refugees who grew up in Southern California — how does that person become the person crafting Trump’s harshest rhetoric and policies, targeting people fleeing violence

It’s saad, saad, he never hurdovum, never hurdovum, showboating, they were showboating, saad, he never hurdovum.

I asked Trump in the Oval Office for his reaction to the indictment of Steve Bannon. He said, in part:

I feel very badly.

I haven't been dealing with him for a very long period of
time.

Don't know anything about the project at all.

It's a very sad thing about Mr. Bannon.

— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) August 20, 2020

I asked Trump what it says about his judgment that Bannon, Stone, Flynn, Gates, Manafort and Cohen have all been indicted. What's it say about the culture of lawlessness in his campaign?

Trump: "Well, I have no idea." He then pivoted to attacking the

A tweet yesterday:

We at IGR Rugby reject this proposal, and stand with our Trans & Non-Binary players in solidarity to protect their #RightToPlay and call on @WorldRugby to do the same! #TackleTransphobia #RugbyForAll #IGRugby #WorldRugby pic.twitter.com/jIwDZO1ngp

— IGR International Gay Rugby (@IGRugby) August 19, 2020

What proposal? You may think they said what proposal in a preceding tweet but they didn’t. Maybe they deleted something, maybe they’re just sloppy. I searched and found a BBC story from July 20.

World Rugby could ban transgender athletes from playing women’s rugby because of safety concerns.

It would be the first international sports federation to prohibit transgender women from competing.

World Rugby said it had undertaken a review of its “rugby-specific