Lotta people talking about this “defense of looting” idea. Graeme Wood at the Atlantic for one:

Last week, NPR’s Code Switch published an interview with Vicky Osterweil, the author of In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action. NPR summarizes the book as an argument that “looting is a powerful tool to bring about real, lasting change in society.” If the real, lasting change you wish to effect is burning society to cinders and crippling for a generation its ability to serve its poorest citizens, then I suppose I am forced to agree. Osterweil sees an upside. Looting is good, she says, because it exposes a deep truth about the great American confidence game, which is that

William Barr is a piece of work.

Pressed late Wednesday to respond to President Donald Trump’s remarks encouraging North Carolina residents to try to cast two ballots in the November election, Attorney General William Barr—the top law enforcement official in the U.S.—repeatedly claimed to not know whether it’s illegal to vote twice.

“I don’t know what the law in the particular state says,” Barr said in a CNN appearance when host Wolf Blitzer told the attorney general that it is, in fact, illegal to vote twice

“How would I, the mere Attorney General of the United States, know such a thing?”

"I don't know what the law in the particular state says" — Wolf Blitzer has to explain to

Sex needs to be taken into account in research on COVID-19; also, we “recognize” that sex is not fixed.

Well if sex is not fixed, how can it be taken into account in research on COVID-19? How can you take it into account if you think you can’t know who is which sex?

Men this, women that – but, by the way, we don’t actually know which subjects were men and which were women. But here are our findings anyway. But! But! We recognize that we don’t actually know which subjects were men and which were women.

Claire Chandler in the Senate:

Liberal Senator for Tasmania Claire Chandler has called for Anthony Albanese to reject slurs by Labor Senators against women who acknowledge biological sex as a reality and have concerns about safety and fairness in women’s sport.

“In the Senate last week, I spoke about the findings of World Rugby that biological males playing women’s rugby present a 20-30 per cent increase in the risk of injury to female competitors. These findings have major implications for many Australian sports and this is an incredibly important issue for millions of women around the world,” Senator Chandler said.

“At the end of my speech last week – I asked the question of whether Australians are able to … Read the rest

The Australian reports:

Liberal senator Claire Chandler has been attacked as “transphobic” after she raised concerns about transgender-inclusive policy exposing women and girls in sport to injury and unfair competition.

Senator Chandler spoke on trans-inclusive sport in the Senate last week, and cited new research for World Rugby which concludes that female players would face a 20-30 per cent higher risk of injury if biological males who identify as women were allowed to compete.

On Monday Senator Nita Green, a leader of the LGBTQ ginger group Rainbow Labor, rose to denounce Senator Chandler’s campaign to defend female sport as an attempt “to veil her transphobic views as faux feminist values”.

What’s faux about them? What’s faux about thinking … Read the rest

News about news about news:

Divvi De Vendre, a candidate running in the federal election, says an article about her in the Daily Telegraph was inaccurate and a “put down” of her and her party.

The Daily Telegraph published an article on Thursday claiming a Sydney lawyer and writer named Anna Kerr had been “silenced” when a paragraph of a column she wrote for women’s media website Women’s Agenda, which detailed De Vendre’s identity as a “transgender woman”, was cut.

This is confusing stuff. What’s interesting about it is that Australia has a new party, called the Women’s Party, that was registered in February 2019. The punchline is that it was set up by this person Divvi De … Read the rest

Trump is telling people to commit voter fraud now.

President Donald Trump during a trip to North Carolina on Wednesday appeared to encourage voters to try to vote twice to make sure the system is working properly.

His remarks came following a question from a WECT reporter about absentee voting in the state.

“They’ll go out and vote and they’re going to have to go check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way,” Trump said. “Let them send it in and let them go vote and if the system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t calculated, they’ll be able to vote. So that’s

No, really, it could totally happen. Just the way it could totally happen that a giant rabbit could come down the chimney and carry little Susie away if you make her take her nap right now.

This is farcical stuff from AG Bill Barr. Wolf Blitzer is taken aback by how weak his arguments are. pic.twitter.com/osb9FohZq1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 2, 2020

It’s a matter of logic that people could send fake ballots.

That’s nice, but it’s an empirical question whether people could successfully do that or not, and it seems pretty damn unlikely given the many layers of protection there are. Your ballot has a specific number and it goes with your address and your signature and other … Read the rest

Bill Barr says it’s all fiction.

Attorney General Bill Barr denied Wednesday that there are “two justice systems” for Black and white people in the U.S., claiming in a wide-ranging interview on CNN that the idea that there is an “epidemic” of police shooting unarmed Black men is “simply a false narrative.”

How many would it take to be an epidemic? How many is too many? What’s the right number?

Barr acknowledged that there is a “widespread phenomenon” of Black men being treated with “extra suspicion” and “maybe not being given the benefit of the doubt” by police officers, but he denied that this is the product of “systemic racism.” A number of other Trump Cabinet officials and the

Who knew that singing with a bunch of people in a small enclosed space could spread the virus? Besides everyone who is paying attention at all?

The number of COVID-19 cases connected to a karaoke bar in Quebec City has grown to more than 30, public health authorities say, contributing to a jump in new cases in the region not seen since May.

Sigh. A karaoke bar ffs!

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé confirmed on Tuesday that 12 more cases had been linked to Bar Kirouac, in the city’s Saint-Sauveur district.  Dubé said video taken at the bar recently has been circulating on social media, and he suggested that patrons and staff could be fined. 

Because: small space; enclosed space; … Read the rest

It was novichok.

Angela Merkel has demanded answers from the Kremlin over the “attempted murder” of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, after toxicological exams at Berlin’s Charité hospital indicated “unequivocally” that Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent from the novichok family.

At first it seems odd that they use a poison that will scream RUSSIA when it’s detected – and then you remember that it’s an instrument of terror, and it no longer seems odd. Putin is just saying, as publicly as anyone could wish, “I can kill you whenever I feel like it.”

The discovery that novichok was used on Navalny will lead many to conclude that the attack was meant as a brazen message

Some academics are angry that male people won’t be allowed to play on women’s rugby teams.

World Rugby’s proposals to ban trans women from playing women’s rugby have been criticised by dozens of academics, who have written to the sport’s governing body to insist there is “no evidence” that trans women pose a safety risk to others playing the sport.

One, that’s absurd, but two, it’s beside the point. Women and men are physically different in many ways, and that’s why they compete mostly on separate teams. Trans women are physically men, so they should not force themselves onto women’s teams.

The letter, which has been co-signed by 84 leading academics from a range of fields including sport, public health

What is Red Tent Australia?

The aim of Red Tent Australia is to connect, collaborate and create a community of strong and educated women in a supportive & nurturing environment. Our direction is governed by the need to nurture a symbiotic relationship with the earth. We believe everyone is connected. We believe that the earth needs us to remember our ancestral knowledge & go back to “the old ways.”

It is our goal to connect women with their natural wisdom in all areas of their lives, to initiate and increase their healing.

Well, ick, as far as I’m concerned, but whatever. It’s a thingy for women, and the “red tent” reference is about menstruation, and the need to shun and … Read the rest

Trump says nuh uh he DID NOT EITHER have a stroke or a bunch of mini-strokes. We must accept that because he is famous for never lying.

Sadly, #Strokeahontas is trending on Twitter.

OK: #Strokeahontas or the Soup Nazi?

Discuss.pic.twitter.com/Iym6Wfa7Yi

— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) September 1, 2020

Both.… Read the rest

Official White House transcript of Trump remarks on July 31 at a meeting of police organizations:

In cities across the nation, we’ve also seen police officers assaulted with bricks, rocks, bats, Molotov cocktails, frozen bottles of water. Somebody said last night, one of the protesters — I saw it — he said, “It’s only water. How can water hurt you?” Yeah, they don’t say it’s frozen, in a bottle the size of a football. And they throw it at the police. It’s unbelievable. “It’s water.”

And then they have cans of soup. Soup. And they throw the cans of soup. That’s better than a brick because you can’t throw a brick; it’s too heavy. But a can of soup, you

I cannot get past this Scary People On a Plane thing. This isn’t some disheveled person on the bus, it’s not even an agitated cousin at the family reunion, this is the president of a heavily armed nation.

Apparently he got it, directly or indirectly, from Facebook.

It’s unsettling, to put it mildly, to think the sitting American president believes there are nefarious forces lurking in “dark shadows,” whom he won’t identify, but whom he sees controlling both a presidential candidate and American streets.

But Trump didn’t stop there.

In an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Trump claimed that “we had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane

Here he is vouching for the complete and utter truth of his claim about that mysterious plane full of scary people in dark clothes.

Here's Trump doubling down on his claim just now: pic.twitter.com/pcLwuM2Acb

— The Recount (@therecount) September 1, 2020

See, there was a person on a plane, and there were about six people like that person, and the entire plane filled up with that other kind of people. (Could this possibly be code for white people on the one hand and black people on the other hand? Surely not. Surely surely not.)

The plane filled up with The Looters and The Anarchists and The Rioters, people that were obviously Looking For Trouble, and The Person felt very uncomfterbul

Another lovely glimpse into his id – he sees himself as standing alone in a sea of incompetent stupid people.

Trump on his message to women voters wary of his tone: "I have to be aggressive … look at all of those horrible race riots you had during Obama." pic.twitter.com/zyw5u6kAOp

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 1, 2020

Ingraham asks him what he says to people, women in particular, who don’t love his aggressive tone.

He pulls himself up and says a preliminary “Okay,” like, here it comes – “I have to be aggressive, I’m standing here [leans forward a touch] in a sea of incompedent people, stupid people, and violent people, [shake of the head] very violent people –

Ingraham … Read the rest

Completely normal, nothing to see here.

The President claims people in the dark shadows who control the streets are really controlling Biden. He goes on to talk about a plane full of people wearing black uniforms but then says he can’t reveal anymore because it’s under investigation pic.twitter.com/AAk5GX0eWu

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 1, 2020

Sounds like a joke but isn’t. That’s actually what he says.

Ingraham: Who do you think is pulling Biden’s strings, is it former Obama people –

Trump: People that you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows –

Ingraham [cutting in]: What does that mean, that sounds like conspiracy theory, dark shadows, what is that?

Trump: No, people that you haven’t heard of, … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Claire on Ask Doctor Oz next. (Excuse two guest posts from the same person in one day but if you people will insist on being wantonly informative and clarifying this way it simply can’t be helped.)

Herd immunity. For a pandemic. Fuck.

Herd immunity is a population specific term. Herd immunity is used in humans for very specific reasons. Calculating the vaccination rate required to reduce infections in a population. In a retrospective manner, looking at historical data. Projecting into the future in worse case scenarios and measuring against interventions and their efficacy.

By the time you’re working with populations, they’ve stopped being people and have become mere numbers. Epidemiologists have to remind themselves from … Read the rest