The Guardian:

Iran has arrested a number of people for posting videos on Instagram, including a young woman whose targeting for her clips of her dancing to music has prompted outrage.

According to activists, Maedeh Hojabri, who appears to be in her late teenage years, was one of a number of users behind popular Instagram accounts who have been arrested. The identities of the other detainees have not been confirmed.

Her account, which has been suspended, was reported to have had more than 600,000 followers.

Hojabri has since appeared on a state television programme with other detainees, in which she and others made what activists say were forced confessions, a tactic often used by Iranian authorities.

State TV showed a young woman, her face blurred, crying and shaking while describing her motivation for producing the videos.

https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1015560964199075840

One effect of global warming was always going to be more extreme weather events. That’s not in the future tense any more.

Japan is being swamped by rain.

Record rainfall continued to batter Japan on Sunday, with millions of people being urged to leave their homes because of the risk of flooding and landslides that have already killed dozens.

Government officials pleaded with affected residents to “take adequate actions and follow evacuation instructions issued by municipal governments” as forecasters predicted more rain in western and central Japan.

…

The flooding had killed at least 68 people by Sunday afternoon, and 56 more were missing. More than three million people were told to move to safer places such as school buildings or municipal shelters.

In the US the fires have started already.

Firefighters have been able to build containment around several destructive wildfires burning in California.

The state’s largest blaze, the 138-square-mile County Fire burning in Napa and Yolo counties, is 57 percent contained. It has destroyed 10 structures since it broke out June 30. It’s one of many fires burning around the drought-ridden states in the U.S. West.

In early July.

Trump is at his golf course today.

Ice cream, Mandrake? Children’s ice cream?

A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

Ahhh yes the interests of people who make $$$ by selling substitutes for human breast milk – of course they are self-evidently more important than the interest of billions of infants.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

The American officials didn’t get their way at first, so they resorted to threats.

Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.

All that, to protect the profits of formula-makers against those pesky nursing babies.

“We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,” said Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, who has attended meetings of the assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, since the late 1980s.

“What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on best way to protect infant and young child health,” she said.

But then the Russians introduced the measure and the US was all “oh well in that case by all means.”

Although lobbyists from the baby food industry attended the meetings in Geneva, health advocates said they saw no direct evidence that they played a role in Washington’s strong-arm tactics. The $70 billion industry, which is dominated by a handful of American and European companies, has seen sales flatten in wealthy countries in recent years, as more women embrace breast-feeding. Overall, global sales are expected to rise by 4 percent in 2018, according to Euromonitor, with most of that growth occurring in developing nations.

The intensity of the administration’s opposition to the breast-feeding resolution stunned public health officials and foreign diplomats, who described it as a marked contrast to the Obama administration, which largely supported W.H.O.’s longstanding policy of encouraging breast-feeding.

I expect it’s much like their intense opposition to any kind of environmental protections: nothing must be allowed to compete with profits. There is zero profit to be made from infants sucking down the breast milk, and that’s just a god damn waste, when money can be made by selling infant formula instead.

I find this so infuriating – no doubt disproportionately so, but all the same.

When Tennessee K-12 public students begin classes next month, the national motto “In God We Trust” will be required to be posted somewhere in their schools.

That’s not a real thing – a “national motto.” Congress can make one up if it wants to, but it’s stupid. Congress can make up a national sandwich, a national rock song, a national hat, a national ice cream flavor – a national any damn thing, but it doesn’t mean anything. And as for making up a “national motto” that is a fact claim about a non-existent magical sky-pest – they can fuck right off with that. It’s grotesque that anyone should be forcing it on children who attend public schools. There is no god, and I don’t trust it an inch. Both.

What’s called the “National Motto Act” passed quietly at the Tennessee General Assembly last April.

The bill says local districts shall require each school to display ‘In God We Trust” in a prominent location such as an entry, cafeteria or common area.

The bill’s sponsor said there is no penalty for not displaying the motto.

Disgusting. Keep your god to yourselves.

I’m wondering who runs the Richard Dawkins Foundation Twitter, because it’s someone surprisingly crude and ignorant and dogmatic. A very young intern? But I’m wondering why no adults are supervising.

The science is clear and overwhelmingly one-sided. Transgender people exist & are valid. Their existence poses no threat to you or society.

Take time to learn about things. Stay skeptical, always, but learn when to admit you’re wrong should the evidence be sufficient.

— Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science (@rdfrs) July 6, 2018

What? The science is real that transgender people are valid?? What kind of bonkers claim is that? What does it even mean? That’s not something Dawkins would ever say so we know it’s someone else, and I’d be floored if Robyn Blumner said anything that absurd, so who is it?

And then the equally rude and stupid “learn about things” – what things? It sounds like Trump.

And it’s not a one-off.

Tldr; The question is settled and we are moving on to tackle *actual* problems.

Like the encroaching theocracy.

Watch this space.

— Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science (@rdfrs) July 6, 2018

“The question is settled” is not a good look, especially when it most emphatically is not.

The scientific literature. Go read. You’ve got a lot to do.

Run along now.

— Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science (@rdfrs) July 6, 2018

Not even close. “The scientific literature” has nothing to say about whether particular people “are valid” because that’s not any kind of scientific claim to begin with. I’m not clear on what kind of claim it is, but I know it ain’t empirical. And these brisk insulting little commands are just rude-Twitter…they’re not the kind of thing you expect to see a foundation for science and reason pumping out.

Your ignorance is noticed.

— Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science (@rdfrs) July 6, 2018

https://twitter.com/rdfrs/status/1015397305883811840

https://twitter.com/rdfrs/status/1015502198833340416

It’s weird, I tells ya.

Oh yes, it’s all going very well.

North Korea accused the Trump administration on Saturday of pushing a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization” and called it “deeply regrettable,” hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his two days of talks in the North Korean capital were “productive.”

How is this possible? Trump just told us the problem was over, done, history,  finito. Fixed by him, he said it was.

On Saturday, Mr. Pompeo and his entourage offered no immediate evidence that they had come away with anything tangible to show that North Korea was willing to surrender its nuclear and missile weapons programs.

Tangible? Oh come now, that’s a very high bar. Surely Trump’s word is all that’s required.

Mr. Pompeo came to Pyongyang to try to get the North Koreans to match their vague commitment to denuclearization — signed by Kim Jong-un in the June meeting with President Trump — with some kind of action. Among the first priorities were a declaration of weapons sites, a timeline of deconstruction efforts and, perhaps, a written statement that the North’s definition of denuclearization matched Mr. Pompeo’s.

Asked if he had gotten any of those, Mr. Pompeo declined to divulge details.

In other words, no.

Privately, Mr. Pompeo has said that he doubts the North Korean leader will ever give up his nuclear weapons. And those doubts have been reinforced in recent days by intelligence showing that North Korea, far from dismantling its weapons facilities, has been expanding them and taking steps to conceal the efforts from the United States.

Mr. Trump has said his summit meeting with Mr. Kim was a success, and he has declared the North “no longer a nuclear threat.” Squaring Mr. Trump’s evaluation with what increasingly seems like a more troubling reality has become one of Mr. Pompeo’s greatest challenges as the United States’ chief diplomat.

That’s not a “challenge,” it’s an impossibility. Trump’s evaluation is sheer dictator-drivel, and there’s no way to “square” it with reality. The Times should skip that kind of evasive bafflegab.

Many people who have negotiated with North Korea in the past, or who follow the country closely, also express doubt that the North will surrender its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

But Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, denied on Saturday that Mr. Pompeo saw the process as doomed.

“There’s a lot of hard work that’s left to be done,” she said. “We never thought this would be easy, and that’s why consultations continue.”

Who’s “we”? Trump did. Trump told us he’d fixed it and that the threat was over.

Trump is going to steer around the whole protest problem by…avoiding London.

He will hold talks with Prime Minister Theresa May at her 16th-century manor house, meet Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle and attend a black-tie dinner at the home of former World War Two leader Winston Churchill – all outside London.

Well that’s fine, there’s nothing of interest in London after all.

A spokeswoman for May said the British people were looking forward to his visit.

“We are looking forward to making sure the president has a chance to see and experience the UK beyond London and the south east,” she told reporters.

Definitely, because why would anyone with any sense want to go to London? There is literally nothing there.

On his arrival on Thursday afternoon, the president will travel to Blenheim Palace, the 18th-century mansion where Churchill was born and spent most of his childhood, eight miles (12 km) north of Oxford, according to May’s office.

He’ll like Blenheim. It’s very him – very gaudy and showy and massive.

In the evening, May will host a black-tie dinner for Trump at the stately home that will be attended by about 100 business leaders from industries including finance, pharmaceuticals, defense and technology.

For the only time during his visit, Trump will then travel into London when he will stay overnight at the home of the U.S. ambassador in the center of the city.

On Friday, Trump and May will visit an undisclosed location to witness a display by British soldiers.

Trump will travel with May to Chequers, the prime minister’s official country residence. He will then go to meet the Queen at Windsor Castle, the family home of British kings and queens for almost 1,000 years.

Afterwards, the president will travel to Scotland, where he owns two golf courses.

Which will cost millions for security. Trump won’t be paying for it.

Optimism.

“Mr. Trump surely knows that the legal flood around him is rising…. in America, no one is above the law and common decency. Even if it’s possible to hold off the flood after the cracks in the dam begin to appear, at some point the dam eventually breaks.” https://t.co/5xYu0fi7rG

— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) July 6, 2018

Aw come on. “In America, no one is above the law and common decency”? Really? Then how come so many people get away with being just that for so long? In America lots of people are above the law and common decency, and flourish like the green bay tree. Some of them are eventually brought to justice, but not all. It’s a pretty sentiment but it’s false, and we don’t need pretty but false sentiments right now. We don’t need them at this time when Trump is miles above the law and common decency, and laughing in our faces. Maybe he’ll be hauled down eventually but eventually is way too late for many people.

The linked piece is an op ed by Eisner and Noah Bookbinder about what a corrupt horror Scott Pruitt was.

Given the extent of Mr. Pruitt’s scandals and the damage he leaves behind, it is a wonder that he survived so long. Some may point to the fact that he doggedly pursued Mr. Trump’s environmental agenda, including the shredding of Obama-era commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions in the power and transportation sectors, but we are not convinced — after all, that effort didn’t work out as well as he had hoped.

Yes, but also to the fact that Trump has no objection to scandals and damage unless and until they interfere with his enjoyment. He welcomes most of them – he’s a scandals and damage kind of guy. His instincts are all toward vandalism…provided the vandals leave his solid gold living room alone.

A more likely explanation is that Mr. Trump did not want to let Mr. Pruitt go because the president was afraid of what it might mean for him. Mr. Trump too has endured in the face of mounting investigations and litigation. Between the Russia investigation, Michael Cohen’s potentially impending cooperation with the government, and a raft of civil cases, Mr. Trump surely knows that the legal flood around him is rising. Did he put off firing Mr. Pruitt because he was afraid to admit the taint of scandal on his administration?

Mr. Pruitt’s case demonstrates that in America, no one is above the law and common decency. Even if it’s possible to hold off the flood after the cracks in the dam begin to appear, at some point the dam eventually breaks.

“At some point” – but that could be 200 years in the future. It’s a pretty thought but it’s also very general – maybe the dam will finally break in 2030 and by then it will be far too late. Maybe the dam will eventually break but not until Trump has done damage that can never be repaired. Maybe the dam will eventually break but Trump has already ruined many people’s lives – those children yanked from their parents may never get over the trauma.

I think I get what they’re saying, I think the idea is that even Trump isn’t immune to the law if the cracks are many enough and wide enough. That may be true, I hope it is, but that claim is quite limited and quite different from “in America, no one is above the law and common decency.” Let’s be realistic about this: the US encourages certain kinds of lawlessness, and fails to do enough to prevent others. Corruption in many forms is easy and risk-free here. That’s the swamp.

The delegation of Republican senators went to Russia and made fools of themselves.

Republican lawmakers who went to Russia seeking a thaw in relations received an icy reception from Democrats and Kremlin watchers for spending the Fourth of July in a country that interfered in the U.S. presidential election and continues to deny it.

…

Members of the delegation set off on their trip late last week promising to be tough with Russian officials ahead of the president’s visit, especially on matters of election interference. But they struck a conciliatory tone once there: The point of their visit, Shelby stressed to the Duma leader, was to “strive for a better relationship” with Moscow, not “accuse Russia of this or that or so forth.”

Ah yes, this or that or so forth like playing an uninvited part in our election and helping land us with the evil demon Trump. Republicans are fine with that because after all, Republican. If the Russians were helping Democrats it would be a different story, but since they’re not, well…

On Russian state television, presenters and guests mocked the U.S. congressional delegation for appearing to put a weak foot forward, noting how the message of tough talk they promised in Washington “changed a bit” by the time they got to Moscow.

“We need to look down at them and say: You came because you needed to, not because we did,” Igor Korotchenko, a Russian military expert, said on a talk show on state-run television.

A glorious moment.

Our consolation for today will be laughing at Scott Pruitt’s resignation letter.

Pruitt’s deeply weird resignation letter should have been titled, “On Bended Knee: Ode To His Majesty On The Subject of His Most Gracious Reign,” and recited in a stately pleasure dome where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea. pic.twitter.com/rkc9ttLAdl

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 6, 2018

Here’s that last paragraph from Pruitt’s letter again:

My desire in service to you has always been to bless you as you make important decisions for the American people. I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. I believe that same providence brought me into your service. I pray as I have served you that I have blessed you and enabled you to effectively lead the American people. Thank you again Mr. President for the honor of serving you and I wish you Godspeed in all that you put your hand to.

If that’s the god they worship…dang.

Oh did you think joining the military would be a path to citizenship? Did you think that because we told you so? Hahahaha just kidding, it’s not – so get out. No refunds, no rides home, no nothing.

Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.

The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures.

…

Eligible recruits are required to have legal status in the U.S., such as a student visa, before enlisting. More than 5,000 immigrants were recruited into the program in 2016, and an estimated 10,000 are currently serving. Most go the Army, but some also go to the other military branches.

To become citizens, the service members need an honorable service designation, which can come after even just a few days at boot camp. But the recently discharged service members have had their basic training delayed, so they can’t be naturalized.

Margaret Stock, an Alaska-based immigration attorney and a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who helped create the immigrant recruitment program, said she’s been inundated over the past several days by recruits who have been abruptly discharged.

All had signed enlistment contracts and taken an Army oath, Stock said. Many were reservists who had been attending unit drills, receiving pay and undergoing training, while others had been in a “delayed entry” program, she said.

Welcome to America.

The service members affected by the recent discharges all enlisted in recent years under a special program aimed at bringing medical specialists and fluent speakers of 44 sought-after languages into the military. The idea, according to the Defense Department, was to “recognize their contribution and sacrifice.”

Screw language, just drop bombs, am I right?

Took them long enough.

Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned after facing months of allegations over legal and ethical violations.

Mr. Trump announced the resignation in a tweet on Thursday in which he thanked Mr. Pruitt for an “outstanding job” and said the agency’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler, would take over as the acting administrator on Monday.

An outstanding job, eh. What would a terrible job look like then?

Trump likes them dirty, because it gives him a hold over them.

Earlier on Thursday, The New York Times reported on new questions about whether aides to Mr. Pruitt had deleted sensitive information about his meetings from his public schedule, potentially in violation of the law.

Ok but MSNBC was reporting that on Monday. Three days ago Monday.

White House advisers for months have implored Mr. Trump to get rid of Mr. Pruitt, including his chief of staff, John F. Kelly. Ultimately, the president grew disillusioned with Mr. Pruitt after a cascade of accusations of impropriety and ethical missteps overshadowed Mr. Pruitt’s policy achievements.

In recent days, people who have spoken with Mr. Trump said he sounds exasperated with his EPA administrator’s negative headlines. “It’s one thing after another with this guy,” one person close to Mr. Trump quoted the president as saying.

Same with Trump. Ever noticed that? It’s one thing after another with him.

It remains unclear how well some aspects of Mr. Pruitt’s regulatory rollback agenda, and his effort to undo the environmental work of his predecessors, will stand the test of time. In his haste to cripple government regulation and publicize his success, Mr. Pruitt and his officials have failed to follow important procedures, and courts have already struck down at least six of his rollback efforts.

But, hilariously enough, he had ambitions.

His removal will deal a blow to his political aspirations. People close to Mr. Pruitt have said that he had been using his prominence in the Trump administration to position himself for a run for state office in Oklahoma. His sights, some said, were set on a possible presidential run in 2024.

Instead, Mr. Pruitt is now the latest in Mr. Trump’s purge of top administration officials.

He might have trouble getting a job serving at Chick-fil-A now.

Sarah Ditum takes a look at the peculiar asymmetry of the move to make language more “inclusive” by not using the word “women.”

In June Cancer Research UK, a charity, tweeted: “Cervical screening (or the smear test) is relevant for everyone aged 25-64 with a cervix.” The odd phrasing—“everyone with a cervix” rather than “women”—was not accidental. The charity explained that it had deliberately chosen to use what it described as “inclusive language”. Similarly, the campaign Bloody Good Period, which donates tampons and sanitary towels to asylum-seekers, uses the word “menstruators” rather than “women”. And Green Party Women, an internal campaign group of the British Green Party, confirmed last year that its preferred designation for the constituency it represented was not, in fact, “women” but “non-men”.

…

Trans people face substantial injustices, most significantly violence (perpetrated, like all violence, largely by men) and discrimination. The process of applying for a gender-recognition certificate is intrusive and burdensome for many, and there are frustrating waiting lists for medical transition, which are compounded when doctors appear unsympathetic or obstructive. Yet rather than confront male violence or lobby the medical system, the focus of trans activism has overwhelmingly been the feminist movement, spaces and services designed for women, and the meaning of the word “woman”.

It is notable that Cancer Research UK did not test its “inclusive” approach with a male-specific cancer. Its campaign messages about prostate and testicular cancer address “men”, rather than “everyone with a prostate” or “everyone with testicles”. (Addressing “people with a cervix” is, of course, only inclusive of people who know they have a cervix. Many women do not have that detailed knowledge of their internal anatomy. And those who speak English as a second language may well not know the word.) While organisations in the women’s sector have revised their language to avoid the word “women”, male-specific charities such as CALM (the Campaign against Living Miserably, a movement against male suicide) continue to refer uncomplicatedly to “men”. Women’s groups are aggressively picketed for being exclusionary; men’s clubs are left unmolested.

Strange, isn’t it. The explanation that leaps to mind first is the fact that men hit harder. Sarah points out in that parenthesis that most violence is perpetrated by men – so who ya gonna go after if you have a choice? Not men, because they might cut up rough.

But also, let’s face it, because women are inferior. Women are the subordinate sex, so if there is bullying aka “activism” to be done, it’s obviously women it should be done to.

Or, in other words, we’ve always told women what to do so why stop now?

Also, to be perfectly honest, women are the sex trained to be agreeable – or is it innate? Nature or nurture? Some of both with a dash of lemon juice? Either way, they are, so let’s push them around, not those stubborn autonomy-protecting men. Let’s keep right on treating women as the servant half of humanity.

As Sarah sums it up,

There is a word for a situation where women talking about female bodies is considered impermissibly antisocial, where describing the consequences of sexism for women is systematically impeded, where resources for women are redistributed to male users while resources for men are left in male hands, and where “male” and “female” are rigidly associated with masculinity and femininity. That word is not “progressive”, “liberal” or any of the other terms usually associated with trans activism. The word is misogyny. Trans rights should not come at the cost of women’s fragile gains.

Wouldn’t you think?

The “charity” founded by Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu aka “Mother” Teresa has been caught selling babies.

A woman working at Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand has been arrested for allegedly selling a 14-day-old baby.

Two other women employees from the centre have been detained and are being questioned about other possible cases.

Police took action after the state’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC) registered a complaint.

The charity has not responded to BBC requests for comment.

“We have found out that some other babies have also been illegally sold from the centre,” a police official told BBC Hindi’s Niraj Sinha. “We have obtained the names of the mothers of these babies and are further investigating.”

Police also recovered 140,000 rupees ($2,150; £1,625) from the centre, which is located in Jharkhand’s capital, Ranchi.

Ending a pregnancy is terrible, unthinkable, a dreadful sin, but selling babies is ok…especially if the money goes to the church.