Grim.

Over two days in November, record-breaking heat in Australia’s north wiped out almost one-third of the nation’s spectacled flying foxes, according to researchers.

The animals, also known as spectacled fruit bats, were unable to survive in temperatures which exceeded 42C.

They plummeted out of trees by the thousand.

Last week, researchers from Western Sydney University finalised their conclusion that about 23,000 spectacled flying foxes died in the event on 26 and 27 November.

That tally was reached through counting by wildlife volunteers who visited seven flying fox camps following the heatwave.

There were only about 75,000 going in.

Flying foxes are no more sensitive to extreme heat than some other species, experts say.

But because they often gather in urban areas in large numbers, their deaths can be more conspicuous, and easily documented.

So we can assume it’s happening all over the place.

Be careful driving, the road is melting.

Police are warning motorists to expect delays and to avoid the right-hand lane of the Hume Freeway (heading toward the city) near Broadford as there is a 10km stretch of road that is melting. pic.twitter.com/icI1hecmvn

— Victoria Police (@VictoriaPolice) January 5, 2018

It’s real.

Thieves fall out department. Cohen helped Trump rig polls, Cohen stiffed the people doing the rigging, Cohen kept some of the money Trump gave him to pay the poll-riggers…it’s grifters all the way down.

In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor before the presidential campaign.

In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter, Mr. Gauger said.

Cohen says nuh-uh, it was all by check. Whatever.

Mr. Gauger owns RedFinch Solutions LLC and is chief information officer at Liberty University in Virginia, where Jerry Falwell Jr., an evangelical leader and fervent Trump supporter, is president.

Liberty “University” is a bible college, not a university. It’s just another con game, using “God” instead of “Trump” as the draw.

Mr. Gauger said he never got the rest of what he claimed he was owed. But Mr. Cohen in early 2017 still asked for—and received—a $50,000 reimbursement from Mr. Trump and his company for the work by RedFinch, according to a government document and a person familiar with the matter. The reimbursement—made on the sole basis of a handwritten note from Mr. Cohen and paid largely out of Mr. Trump’s personal account—demonstrates the level of trust the lawyer once had within the Trump Organization, whose officials arranged the repayment.

And Cohen may have pocketed the leftover $37k.

In January 2014, Mr. Cohen asked Mr. Gauger to help Mr. Trump score well in a CNBC online poll to identify the country’s top business leaders by writing a computer script to repeatedly vote for him. Mr. Gauger was unable to get Mr. Trump into the top 100 candidates. In February 2015, as Mr. Trump prepared to enter the presidential race, Mr. Cohen asked him to do the same for a Drudge Report poll of potential Republican candidates, Mr. Gauger said. Mr. Trump ranked fifth, with about 24,000 votes, or 5% of the total.

It’s so Trumpy, isn’t it. Fix the poll so that he can seem more popular than he is, then parlay that popularity into…what we see now. Too bad for the countrty.

Why do so many women keep buying into this line?

"We can argue all day, but trans people are dying, and I don't want to be part of a feminism that allows that to happen…"

Important, empathetic talk from @MillyAbraham on why feminism should be allied with trans rights #LwithTheT #ComeOutForTransEquality https://t.co/pnHCyz7K0q

— Stonewall (@stonewalluk) January 16, 2019

We can argue all day, but trans people are dying, and I don’t want to be part of a feminism that allows that to happen.

I haven’t watched the TED talk and don’t intend to, I’m just addressing that one sentence that Stonewall UK thinks is so convincing.

Why in hell does Milly Abraham single out feminism as somehow allowing trans people to die? And why does she announce that trans people are dying as if women were not dying? Why does she connect feminism to the death of trans people when lethal violence against women is so very common? Why does she make trans people the responsibility of women and feminism? Why any of this?

It’s like the Second Shelf bullshit yesterday, and the “Womxn’s March” bullshit also yesterday – why don’t people see it? Why don’t they see themselves telling women to be more “inclusive” while giving men a free pass? Why don’t they see that they are both re-upping the ancient tattered discredited idea that women are and must be the caring generous self-abnegating sex, and engaging in the ancient tattered discredited sport of bullying women because it’s so much easier than bullying men?

Aw no.

It says women’s march in the url, but…

THE MARCH – January 19

We kick off a the anniversary of the first Womxn’s March on Seattle with a RALLY. Hear from the region’s most powerful progressive womxn leaders as they speak about the greatest threats and most inspiring triumphs our communities have experienced in the past year. Af­­ter the rally, we will MARCH to Seattle Center, where we continue our day of service and learning. At Seattle Center, attend one of several “Activism 101” WORKSHOPS designed to energize, illuminate, and activate our marchers for the work to come in 2019 and beyond. See the most recent updates about the march on our website.

But it wasn’t the first Womxn’s March on Seattle – it was the first Women’s March.

In intervals between jumping off cliffs, Parliament has passed legislation making “upskirting” a crime. I don’t really understand why it can’t just be part of existing laws against doing creepy shit to women, but whatever. A young woman named Gina Martin started a campaign to this end after some toad stuck a camera up her skirt.

Speaking after the bill was approved, Gina said: “Eighteen months ago I was upskirted at a music festival and I decided I wasn’t going to brush it off.

“I was tired of ‘ignoring it’. I felt this was wrong and I was astounded to learn that upskirting wasn’t a sexual offence. I wanted to change this for everyone, because the least we deserve is to be able to wear what we want without non-consensual photos being taken of us.”

Gina was waiting to watch The Killers perform at British Summer Time music festival in London’s Hyde Park when a man put his phone between her legs and took pictures of her crotch.

This is the bit that interests me. Why would a man do that? With porn available with a click or two, what need is there to collect photos of women’s crotches? Surely none. It has to be about hostility rather than sex. It’s degrading, it’s shaming, it’s intrusive and insulting and intensely hostile. It’s dominance.

Solidarity with.

Patreon

They want to be clear about something.

We want to be clear about something. The Second Shelf is intersectional, inclusive, and expansive in our use of the term women as we embrace the multidefinitionality of gender identity and expression. We will not debate this.

— The Second Shelf (@secondshelfbks) January 15, 2019

Only, to me it’s not clear. It’s anything but clear; it’s downright muddy.

For instance, why is there any need to be “expansive” in anyone’s “use of the term women”? Why can’t the word “women” just mean “women” and let it go at that? Apart from anything else, it’s convenient. It saves trouble when words mean what they mean and not some “expansive” extra set of things imposed from the outside. If the word “women” is “expanded” to include dogs and hammers and lettuce and who knows what else, won’t we just need a new word that means “women”?

For another instance, why “women” in particular? Why “women” only? Why not also, for instance…oh let’s see…hmmm…”men”? Why not “men” too? Why is The Second Shelf not announcing, with a stern “We will not debate this” for emphasis, that it is intersectional, inclusive, and expansive in its use of the term men?

And that raises another question, which is: why don’t people notice this? Why don’t they feel discomfort about it? Why don’t they notice that it’s only women they’re telling to move over and share and shut up and don’t even try to debate this? Why don’t they notice that it’s only women they’re bullying, and the historic pattern that fits, and the social justice movement that has been trying to rectify that for quite a long time? Why are they so comfortable and at ease with this new arrangement where people take to Twitter to issue orders to women about what we can call ourselves and how we have to abase ourselves to men who want to use the term women for themselves?

One reason, I’m afraid, is just that they can. It’s easy to bully women because it fits the old pattern, so let’s just do that to get our daily quota of bullying in. Women have been told to be compliant in a million ways ever since infancy; even those of us who had feminist parents still lived in a culture in which telling women to be compliant is second nature. The Second Shelf is just tucking itself comfortably into that ancient pattern. (They can go fuck themselves.)

So that’s a big NO to Theresa May and her particular Brexit plan. Unfortunately a second referendum is not the only other option.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal has been rejected by 230 votes – the largest defeat for a sitting government in history.

MPs voted by 432 votes to 202 to reject the deal, which sets out the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU on 29 March.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has now tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, which could trigger a general election.

The confidence vote is expected to be held at about 1900 GMT on Wednesday.

Putin is no doubt hugging himself with glee.

News from the Barr hearing.

In William Barr’s first day of confirmation hearings to be attorney general, one of the key topics was special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He’s been pressed on whether he’ll make the final report public, whether he’d consider recusing himself, and whether he’d fire Mueller, and he’s fielded questions on his independence. Here are some of the takeaways from the first day so far:

• Barr suggested he is inclined to think a sitting president cannot be indicted. “For 40 years the position of the executive branch is that you can’t indict a sitting president,” Barr said, adding that he hasn’t read those opinions in a long time, but “I see no reason to change them.”

waves madly

I can think of one! If the president is a flagrant, prolific criminal who is still steadily criminaling while being a sitting /golfing/ lying president.

• It’s unclear if Mueller’s final report on the investigation will be made public. Barr said he wants to make as much public as is consistent with the special counsel regulation, but it’s Barr who has the final say on what is made public, and he suggested that in the event prosecution is declined, those findings may not be made public.

This is no good. He should recuse himself, because he shouldn’t have the final say or any say, because Trump.

• Barr, who has been critical of the Mueller probe, isn’t inclined to recuse himself. He said he will ask Justice Department officials to review any cases in which he should recuse himself but won’t follow any recommendation if he disagrees with it.

In short, the fix is in.

Gaby Hinsliff suggests that Piers Morgan is actually part of the advertising campaign.

What would the advertising industry do without Piers Morgan?

Whenever they need a grumpy middle-aged man to be triggered, there he is, reliable as clockwork. He did it with Greggs’ vegan sausage roll, helping catapult their January marketing wheeze onto the front pages by complaining that it was a monstrosity. And he’s done it again with the new Gillette ad targeting toxic masculinity, which twists its familiar “the best a man can get” tagline to suggest that men can do a lot better than Harvey Weinstein and fighting in the street.

It’s true! We’re all pitching in to help sell this shaving cream.

Gillette is solemnly insisting that it’s not just a stunt; that in addition to the ad it will be putting money into projects to “inspire and educate” men of all ages, and routinely challenge male stereotypes in the images and words it chooses. Like all marketing gambits, that should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt.

Now we’re marketing salt. It just never ends, does it.

But seriously.

Feminism has endlessly opened up horizons for girls, giving them permission to be anything they want to be. They are bombarded with messages about how it’s fine to be both smart and pretty, encouraged to visualise themselves in male-dominated careers and to push the boundaries of behaviour considered “acceptable” for women. That paves the way for girls who never fitted the pink princess stereotype to be far more comfortable in their skins.

But expectations of boys have remained more rigid, to the detriment both of those who don’t fit the macho stereotype and of those who will grow up to be the victims of insecure male rage. “Let boys be boys” is an excellent principle. But only if we recognise the full range of things boys are capable of being, when we let them.

It’s a bind. Women are the subordinated half of the equation, so the move for them is as it were upwards; for men it is as it were downwards. It isn’t literally, but it seems that way. Since women have always been figured as weak and subordinate, men are by implication strong and dominant; trying to change that runs into this “You want to make us into cowardly weaklings” problem.

The Guardian reports the deep outrage at the wild claim that men shouldn’t bully or sexually harass.

Gillette is under fire from men’s rights activists and rightwing publications for a new advertisement that engages with the #MeToo movement and plays on its 30-year tagline “The Best A Man Can Get”, asking instead: “Is this the best a man can get?”

The advertisement features news clips of reporting on the #MeToo movement, as well as images showing sexism in films, in boardrooms, and of violence between boys, with a voice over saying: “Bullying, the MeToo movement against sexual harassment, toxic masculinity, is this the best a man can get?”

The film has generated heated debate and plenty of criticism.

Far-right magazine The New American attacked the advertisement’s message, saying it “reflects many false suppositions”, adding that: “Men are the wilder sex, which accounts for their dangerousness – but also their dynamism.”

Yers! You can’t have one without the other! Men can’t possibly invent shaving cream if they’re not allowed to bully and rape; the two are inextricably linked.

They really want to go with that?

This is startling.

I've used @Gillette razors my entire adult life but this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity.
Let boys be damn boys.
Let men be damn men. https://t.co/Hm66OD5lA4

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 14, 2019

The ad is just saying don’t be a bully and don’t be a sexual harasser…and Piers Morgan is saying YES, DO be a bully and a sexual harasser. And he’s calling it “virtue-signalling PC guff” to say don’t be a bully and don’t be a sexual harasser?

He’s also saying, whether he realizes it or not, that being male requires being a bully and a sexual harasser – that that’s what “masculinity” is.

Surely that’s far more insulting to men than saying that men don’t have to be like this.

Aw isn’t that sweet – Trump had a winning sports team over for a fancy dinner to celebrate.

President Trump is serving McDonald’s and Wendy’s at the White House on Monday night — but it’s far from the first time the president’s enjoyment of fast food has been apparent.

On Monday, Trump announced plans to serve the Clemson football team fast food during their visit to the White House, following the team’s national-championship win. The decision was in part because most of the White House staff is furloughed during the government shutdown, which is now in its 24th day, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told CNN.

Still in the fancy styrofoam boxes and everything!

He was serious. pic.twitter.com/fD3oPmZ0kg

— Taylor Mason (@taylomason) January 14, 2019

Isn’t that just so fancy and special and generous?

Here’s a video I shot of President Trump showing off his 300 hamburgers. pic.twitter.com/P06S6I5w07

— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) January 14, 2019

None of your fancy French muck for our Don!