Andrew Sullivan has an interesting take on Trump in this conversation, saying he didn’t do all the authoritarian things he said he was going to do.

FS: So the authoritarian rhetoric didn’t materialise. Do you think that’s because it was always just talk, part of a tough guy image? Or do you think he just wasn’t capable of executing it?

AS: I don’t think he actually likes the exercise of power. He’s not that interested in controlling the lives of everyone around him, or indeed most Americans. He’s concerned primarily with his own ego, with his own glory, and with his own sense of being right in a particular moment. And so when it comes to difficult things, like

A bit of academic news:

Simon Fanshawe OBE has been named the Rector of the University of Edinburgh following an uncontested election.

He will take up office on 4 March 2024. 

Simon is a consultant and practitioner in the field of diversity, author, broadcaster and activist.  

He was formerly Chair of the Governing Council of the University of Sussex from 2007 – 2013.

He will replace Debora Kayembe, who has served as Rector since 2021.

[whispers] He knows men are not women.

Simon was one of the six original co-founders of Stonewall in 1989. In 2011, he co-founded the international charity Kaleidoscope, which campaigns for the human rights of LGBTI+ people around the world. 

In 1989 Simon won the Perrier

Gather round everyone, it’s time to CATASTROPHIZE.

Ten days since the judge at the trial of Brianna Ghey's killers identified transphobia as partial motive for the murder, the University of Edinburgh announces its new Rector is a founder of LGB Alliance, an organization categorized in Ireland as an "anti-transgender" hate group. https://t.co/6mP1965Wcm

— Dr. Gina Gwenffrewi (@GinaGwenffrewi) February 12, 2024

Ten days after random thing happens, unrelated thing happens in another part of the forest. BE APPALLED. Also, here’s this fella, that someone in Ireland said was something. ARE YOU APPALLED YET?

You’ll be surprised to learn that the person who composed that ridiculous sentence has a PhD. You’ll be less surprised now that I tell you it’s in “transgender … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The president he so admired.

(Third story: his enemies lie about him. This one is handy for wiping up any lingering cognitive dissonance.)

Usually listening to Trump for any length of time is proof enough that he’s a narcissistic, bullying, thin-skinned, know-nothing, blowhard who shouldn’t be put in charge of a lemonade stand, let alone a government, but that’s just me. Maybe he’s actually brilliant, and all I’ve seen are Deepfake clips manufactured and strung together to make him look like a complete fucking moron. That nobody seems to be claiming this gives me some confidence that this is not the case, and that his manifest self-centered cruelty and stupidity … Read the rest

Foxy Jo tells women what we should be doing instead of what we’re already doing that he doesn’t like.

He’s right you know.

Trump inviting Russia to attack NATO allies should be one of the biggest stories of this election. The fact that it's not even on the front page of the NYT or Washington Post (while stories about Biden's age are) is a disgrace to journalism. https://t.co/1urTOFyq4e

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) February 11, 2024

… Read the rest

A little frivolity break. A story via Facebook (public):

I’ve been so busy between getting home and staying warm and skijoring and doctor’s appointments…I forgot to tell you the story of our journey home.

Well, our original flight was to be early February but the Alaska Airlines flight with the blown door changed everything. Flights were canceled and then the weather came in and more flights were canceled and then there was so much backup that Alaska Air would not fly the dogs for fear of delayed flights and the dogs getting stuck somewhere. I do appreciate that Alaska Air keeps a good eye out for the animals on their flights.

So, I had three canceled flights and was getting

The Journal of Gender Studies presents:

(Re)producing sex/gender normativities: LGB alliance, political whiteness and heteroactivism

Do pause to drink it all in before moving on to the abstract. It’s so…how shall I say…predictable. Formulaic. Conformist.

The author is Helen Clarke of Oxford Brookes University. We are told:

Helen’s research explores how decolonial feminism can be used to create alternative practices of solidarity, tackling trans-hostility in cis lesbian communities. She is involved in various feminist projects, working at creating more inclusive and supportive activist environments for all women, non-binary folk and gender diverse people.

Weird, isn’t it, claiming to be a feminist who specializes in feminism while she deletes women from feminism.

So, the abstract:

LGB Alliance, as a prime example

Tom Nichols at the Atlantic is eloquent on Trump’s NATO lunacy.

Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the presumptive Republican nominee, said earlier today that he would side with Russia against NATO and encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to brutalize our allies…

Trump issued this unhinged threat while telling one of his “sir” stories, a rhetorical device in which some unnamed interlocutor shows Trump great deference while humbly seeking his advice.

And we all recognize the pattern. We’re all familiar with the childish boasting, the infinite sea of conceit, the relentless focus on precious self at the expense of any other concern.

Trump’s feelings about NATO are well-known. He is gripped by the stubbornly ignorant belief,

Ya gotta pay your bills (unless you’re Trump of course):

Donald Trump has said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any Nato member that fails to pay its bills as part of the Western military alliance.

At a rally on Saturday, he said he had once told a leader he would not protect a nation behind on its payments, and would “encourage” the aggressors to “do whatever the hell they want”.

This is money we’re talking about. Money is all that matters. Not alliances, not resistance, not peace; just money.

Addressing crowds during the rally in South Carolina, Mr Trump said he had made his comments about Russia during a meeting of leaders of Nato countries. He recalled that the

Look at this smug creep:

Trans identifying Oxford academic, gives his opinion on Women's toilets and safe spaces.. pic.twitter.com/gRQSdiCwav

— Jonny Bell (@Jonnywsbell) February 10, 2024

“There shouldn’t be this tension between trans women’s rights and non-trans women’s rights. I think a lot of that has been stirred up to drive division and devise [?] hate. Most of the time I’ve been – I transitioned ten years ago and – you know – [little laugh, or snicker] I’ve always felt comfortable using the bathroom and I’ve never been challenged -“

As if the only possible issue were how he feels while using the women’s bathroom. “I force myself on women and I’ve never been challenged.”

Nice hairdo though.… Read the rest

Meet the Zioterfs.

New term has dropped. ZioTERF. For the avoidance of any doubt I stand with Jewish people and always will. And I utterly detest antisemitism seen in Leeds and elsewhere. pic.twitter.com/k4dgPsHao9

— TheVikingDane (@TheVikingDane) February 10, 2024

I bet at least half of Hamas is trans women.… Read the rest

There’s a big internecine war over The Pronoun Issue at the moment. I’m staying out of it, partly because it’s too volatile and partly because I see what the “It’s ok to be polite/kind to individuals” side means.

But. If someone grabbed me by the throat and insisted on knowing what I think about it, I would say I continue to think we shouldn’t use luxury pronouns for anyone.

(I’m so ancient I remember gay friends calling each other “she” in a jokey camp way. See also: Nathan Lane in The Birdcage. An innocent time.)

Here’s why I continue to think that: it’s because the luxury pronouns nudge us into thinking of the luxury people just the way they want … Read the rest

The Daily Mail tells us:

The NHS has axed a programme backed by Stonewall which told hospitals to stop using the words ‘woman’ and ‘mother’. Health service bosses have ended funding for the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme after the Mail revealed how it rewarded trusts for dropping ‘gendered language’.

As if it were a good idea for hospitals to drop gendered language. Sure, in hospitals, nobody knows what sex is.

As many as 77 NHS trusts across England had signed up to be graded by Stonewall and the LGBT Foundation, which back trans rights, on how inclusive they were towards patients and staff. They gained points for referring to women in maternity wards as ‘clients’, renaming female health clinics

The Times has a long flattering piece on celebrity archaeologist and “trans ally” Alice Roberts. There’s an interesting moment where…

She says she chooses her words carefully, and it is not long before she is doing so again. We have been talking about men’s and women’s brains and whether there are fundamental intellectual differences between them. Ten years ago, she made a Horizon documentary with Michael Mosley called Is Your Brain Male or Female?. “And the answer is very simply, no. You cannot separate the brain from the culture that it is immersed in from the moment the baby is born, and even before. Your brain is going to develop in a way that is responding to that culture.”

I’m reading an Atlantic piece by Robert Draper from October 2022 and got distracted wondering about one claim near the beginning.

In March of 2020, I sat in a federal courtroom in Utah and watched a man stand before the judge and murmur through sobs, “This wasn’t me. This wasn’t me.”

The defendant, a 55-year-old health-insurance salesman named Scott Brian Haven, wasn’t protesting his innocence. He openly acknowledged that over the two-year period before his arrest in the summer of 2019, he had placed 3,950 calls to the Washington offices of various Democratic members of Congress, spewing profanities and threatening violence against them.

But as the prosecutor listed a sampling of Haven’s vile threats in the courtroom, the defendant—a devout

Following up on the last one, in which the BBC quoted “Cade Hatton, co-chair of the LGBTQIA+ Greens group” talking about “the most vulnerable” by which of course he didn’t mean the W or the L or the G but rather the T. Is Cade Hatton among The Most Vulnerable xirself I wondered?

Cade has a page at LGBTQIA+ Greens. The complete written content of the page:

Cade is a disabled, queer, trans nerd who spends most of their time either playing video games or sewing.

They joined the GPEW at sixteen, over ten years ago.

They’re passionate about climate justice, LGBTIQA+ rights, and their dog Gizmo, and cat Booker.

If Cade really spends most of xir time … Read the rest

The BBC on Shahrar Ali’s win:

The Green Party discriminated against former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali during a row over his gender critical beliefs, a court has ruled.

The court found the Green Party had improperly dismissed Dr Ali as a party spokesperson because it had failed to identify any misconduct.

Sigh. No. It didn’t dismiss him because it found no misconduct. Its dismissal of him was improper because it found no misconduct. Clarity in writing is important!

Dr Ali called the result a “landmark case”.

He called the result the latest in a “series of judgments” supporting gender critical beliefs, since the High Court ruled Maya Forstater’s belief people cannot change their biological sex was protected under

Lefties (or people who think they’re lefties) cheering for theocracy. News flash: theocrats are not big fans of lefties. Theocracies are not socialist utopias.

Self proclaimed Human rights advocates in Leeds University support those that will happily kill real liberals.
We are leaving in troubling times pic.twitter.com/ifnk7fOntD

— Avi Nir-Feldklein (@avraham_nir) February 9, 2024

… Read the rest

Belief belief belief, but it’s not a “belief”; it’s reality.

Sure, it’s a “belief” in a silly narrow sense, but it’s not a “belief” in the sense of being tentative or contrary to fact. It’s not like a religious belief, because religious beliefs can be anything at all and are subject to no checks.

The BBC leans heavily on the b word:

The Green Party discriminated against former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali during a row over his gender critical beliefs, a court has ruled.

But “gender critical beliefs” aren’t beliefs as commonly understood. It’s not a “belief” to know that humans are not cats, it’s not a belief to know that turnips are not chainsaws, it’s not a belief … Read the rest