Alison Flood in the Guardian reviews Rowling’s new novel. (Oh does she have a new novel? I hadn’t heard.)

Before it had even come out, criticism of JK Rowling’s new Robert Galbraith thriller, Troubled Blood, was already wall-to-wall, after an early review in the Telegraph claimed that its “moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress”.

In other words people who hadn’t read it were already tearing it to shreds because of a highly dishonest remark in the Telegraph.

As the pair look into the disappearance – and this is a spoiler – one of the avenues they investigate is the possibility Margot was murdered by Dennis Creed, a now-imprisoned and notorious serial killer who once

In the more long-term bad news…

The world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems in the last decade, according to a devastating new report from the UN on the state of nature.

From tackling pollution to protecting coral reefs, the international community did not fully achieve any of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets agreed in Japan in 2010 to slow the loss of the natural world. It is the second consecutive decade that governments have failed to meet targets.

Well let’s look forward to 2030. Or 2050. Or maybe 2100.

The Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, published before a key UN summit on the issue later this month, found

Nick Cohen tells us that in addition to being crappy the latest attack on Rowling is wrong on the facts. He knows this because he’s actually read the novel they’re screaming about, because he has a review copy. It hasn’t even been released yet.

The hideous hashtag #RIPJKRowling was trending as trolls and their easily manipulated followers poured out their hatred. Rowling was a rat and a racist. She should ‘Sit Down and Shut the Fuck Up For The Rest of Time You Transphobic Bitch’. She wants trans people ‘to die’.

The ‘evidence’ that provoked the malice was so flimsy, even Twitter should have been embarrassed to publish it. Pink News, which dominates the LGBTQ+ outrage market, gave

Social media ACLU continues to make a fool of itself, no doubt because it lets Chase Strangio set policy on trans issues.

At least 21 transgender women have been murdered in the US this year.

Transmisogynistic violence is an epidemic, and yet instead of addressing a system that perpetuates this violence, our community is being attacked by politicians, by lawmakers, and yes, by famous authors.

— ACLU (@ACLU) September 14, 2020

Trans women are murdered by men, usually in a context of “sex work.” Men are not inspired by feminists to commit violence against women who identify as men; that’s not how any of this works. Male violence is not the fault of women.

Also…quite a few women have … Read the rest

Within weeks – i.e. before the election. Definitely before the election.

Donald Trump has been on Fox & Friends this morning. Among the tidbits are that he said he had read Bob Woodward’s book Rage last night, and that it was “boring”. The book runs to some 400 pages.

Trump can barely read at all. People who can barely read read very slowly. They read one word at a time instead of a sentence or phrase at a time; it’s slow work. Being barely able to read rules out being able to skim effectively.

(By the way whatever happened to “speed reading”? Remember that? Claims of being able to read an entire page at a glance and thus read an … Read the rest

Why is this man laughing…

That’s Trump in California yesterday meeting with Gavin Newsom and other officials.

He’s not wearing a mask.

He’s not social distancing.

He’s sitting right next to them, breathing on them, laughing in their faces, and he’s not wearing a mask.… Read the rest

This is an annoying thing that Twitter does.

Who wrote that? Is there a person called Twitter who wrote it? Of course not, so who did? It looks like a diktat from god. That matters because it’s not neutral fact-reporting, it’s tendentious. The word “cisgender” is new jargon which is meaningless and redundant unless you buy into the nonsensical novel dogma that sex is not a matter of what body you have but of “identity.” Without that dogma there is no need for any “cisgender” in front of “man” or “woman” and it doesn’t mean anything when it is there. We might as well start talking about cis daffodils and cis squirrels and cis oak trees. A “cisgender male … Read the rest

He did say it. And then laughed stupidly.

Trump on climate change: "It'll start getting cooler. You just watch … I don't think science knows, actually." pic.twitter.com/JdYzdrcjgq

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 14, 2020

He also says all this shit, which is just…

"They can explode" — Trump's attempt to explain how poor forest management leads to wildfires is totally beyond parody pic.twitter.com/8yYmJ7lR8O

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 14, 2020

there aren't words for this level of stupidity https://t.co/Ny6BqojrJL

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 14, 2020

There really aren’t.… Read the rest

President Dodo went to California and said the scientists are wrong about climate change – as he knows from his years of rigorous research on the subject.

“I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump said at a Monday briefing with officials in McClellan Park, California, with a laugh.

Haha, yes, it’s hilarious.

He told Wade Crowfoot, secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency: “It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.”

Also the pandemic will go away, like a miracle. You just watch.

Also what is “it”? Much of the northern hemisphere will start getting cooler over the next few weeks, yes, because that’s the time of year it is. If “it” means the planet, one does wonder how he knows.

(Not … Read the rest

News outlets need to stop adopting the language of trans ideology.

NBC News for instance:

“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling was hit Monday with renewed criticism calling her views transphobic as she releases her latest book, a mystery novel about a serial killer who dresses as a woman to prey on his victims.

The novel, “Troubled Blood,” is to be published Tuesday as the fifth installment in the “Cormoran Strike” detective series, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Strike’s latest mystery revolves around a cisgender man who dresses as a woman, according to a review from The Telegraph.

There’s no such thing as “cisgender.” Referring to “a cisgender man” makes about as much sense as referring to “a … Read the rest

Yes sure, this is fine.

The hashtag #RIPJKRowling is so revealing. It’s a hateful response to women declaring love of a sister who shares their love of women and girls. Wishing death on women=Contemporary witch burning. There a reason we have a problem with fatal male violence. Men. #IStandWithJKRowling

— Jean Hatchet (@JeanHatchet) September 14, 2020

But also –

There are plenty of books to read by authors that aren't transphobic. #RIPJKRowling https://t.co/K6HVI4WxNt

— Bitch Media (@BitchMedia) September 14, 2020

Bitch Media calls itself “A Feminist Response to Pop Culture.” Nope, not feminist.

The revolting spewing of hate on this hashtag #RIPJKRowling has been enabled and encouraged by all those shouting TERF at any woman speaking up for her rights.

Today in disgusting: #RIPJKRowling is what they call “trending” on Twitter. That’s nice; that’s progressive; that’s humane; that’s decent.

I’m pretty sure Twitter could tweak something so that it would no longer be “trending” but Twitter of course has chosen not to do that, instead adding a smirky “no JKRowling is not dead.” No, she’s just being bullied and abused on social media for not agreeing that men who say they are women are literally women.

The fact the disgusting hashtag #RIPJKRowling is trending on this mess of a platform, tells you everything you need to know about the mindset of these TRAs. Read the comments.

Don’t ever ask me to justify my position on this again.

It’s sick. Just

The NY Times reports:

The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus accused career government scientists on Sunday of “sedition” in their handling of the pandemic and warned that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election.

Michael Caputo, 58, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, said without evidence that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was harboring a “resistance unit” determined to undermine President Trump.

That is astounding. It’s Nazi-level manipulation and lying and provocation.

This is the guy who’s been trying to force the CDC people to change their reports to match Trump’s stupid lies.

“You understand

The abuse continues.

So, @christophelston and I could have anonymously put up a billboard in Vancouver. But we didn't. The threats & abuse are still coming: more than 12,000 comments on my Facebook. Hundreds of abusive and threatening DMs.

— Amy Eileen Hamm (@preta_6) September 14, 2020

And PS, as I've already said: I'm fine, I'm tough as nails, bring it bros!

— Amy Eileen Hamm (@preta_6) September 14, 2020

This is not normal. It doesn’t happen in other intra-left disagreements. Why is this so different? I can only conclude that it’s because misogyny is the most deeply rooted hatred of all. We’re watching lefty men fall all over themselves in their ecstatic eagerness to rip lefty women to pieces … Read the rest

Ooh a rally in Vancouver. Too bad they too are having a hazardous air day, but when it’s for a good cause…

Join A Celebration of Freedoms and Rights, No New Normal, The Line, Hugs Over Masks, CLEAR, Liberty Talk Canada and Unify the People in this event for all of BC to attend!!!!!

This is where we put our feet down and declare “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”

It’s a rally for DO NOTHING ABOUT THE PANDEMIC FREEDOM FREEDOM.

ANY topic you OPPOSE such as MANDATORY masks / vaccines, contact tracing, 5G, communism, social distancing, media lies, child trafficking, lockdown measures, curfews, etc.

Any “topic” I oppose? Anything at all? What if I oppose stupid people who refuse to follow … Read the rest

There are eleven thousand comments on Amy Hamm’s public Facebook post about the Rowling billboard. One particularly deep thinker says it’s about white women (wot no Karen?):

Imagine having this amount of money to actually help people in need and instead using it on a billboard to promote a hateful person. White women findings ways to make feminism exclusive to them and theirs is a tale as old as time though.

Yup yup yup that’s it, it’s nothing to do with men trying to take over being women from women, it’s all about white women taking over everything from everyone, the way we always have. … Read the rest

Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano wrote a book about the Paradise Fire. They tell us some things:

Prior to European settlement in the West, fire flowed freely, sparked by lightning or intentionally by Native Americans to encourage the growth of favored plants or clear areas for easier hunting. As much as 4.5m acres of California’s 105m acres might burn every year. These low-intensity fires did not kill large trees, and some plants even came to depend on fire to regenerate themselves. A shrub called chamise appears to encourage fire by releasing combustible gases in the presence of flames.

The shift to a different approach occurred after several instances in which wildfires became appalling urban fires. In October 1871,

This is a flattering photo.

Seen at the Guardian.… Read the rest

About those fires…

The death toll from wildfires choking the west coast of the US continued to rise on Sunday as authorities feared more bodies were likely to be found in the charred ruins of towns across several states, and politicians lambasted Donald Trump for his response to the escalating crisis.

It’s what he does so as not to panic us.

The White House announced that Trump would visit California on Monday for “a briefing”, a move that drew strong criticism from Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles.

“He’s going to come out here and probably tell us ‘I’m going to send you rakes’ instead of more help,” Garcetti told CNN’s State of the Union, referring to the

It’s fine that Trump lied to us about the virus and that thousands of unnecessary deaths are the result. Totally fine.

Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, and Jason Miller, a campaign senior adviser, tried to mitigate the damage caused by Trump’s taped confessions to Watergate journalist Bob Woodward, for his book Rage, by playing up the president’s handling of a crisis that has killed more than 190,000 in America.

“The president was calm and steady in a time of unrest and uncertainty,” McDaniel insisted on NBC’s Meet the Press.

That’s not the Trump we know. He’s very volatile and he has the attention span of a gnat.

“What would it mean if the president came