Finally: a win.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto has settled defamation actions launched against him by two women who joined a controversial rally on the steps of state parliament that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis last year.

The private settlements – with UK anti-trans rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen and Melbourne woman Angela Jones – leave Pesutto to fight just one defamation action in the Federal Court, brought by exiled Liberal MP Moira Deeming.

…

Keen and Jones alleged Pesutto defamed them in an effort to have Deeming removed from the Liberal party room, after the three women helped organise the Let Women Speak rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis outside parliament in March last year.

The women all alleged Pesutto defamed

Next up: get rid of everyone who says the earth is not flat.

Scottish Greens expel gender rebels

Rebel members have been kicked out of the Scottish Green Party for declaring that “sex is a biological reality”.

Signatories to the Scottish Green Declaration for Women’s Sex-Based Rights were accused of making the party less safe for trans and non-binary members in an official complaint.

Did anyone point out that the obsession with “trans and non-binary members” is making the party less safe for women? And that there are far more women than “trans and non-binary” people? That in fact half of all people are women and girls? Did anyone ask why it’s better to make the party “less safe” for … Read the rest

Republicans are the party of liberty liberty liberty.

The North Carolina Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to ban anyone from wearing masks in public for health reasons, following an emotional debate about the wisdom of the proposal.

So people with compromised immune systems just have to stay home or die. Peak liberty!

The proposal faced strong opposition from Democratic lawmakers, community activists, and advocates for people with health issues — who are concerned about the consequences of the proposal.

House Bill 237 would ban everyone, not just protesters, from wearing masks in public for medical reasons if it becomes law. It passed 30-15, with every Republican in favor and every Democrat opposed.

“It’s unconscionable,” said Sen. Lisa Grafstein,

A tiny step back at last.

Schools in England should not teach about gender identity, according to new draft guidance from the government. Government sources told BBC News about plans to ban sex education for under-nines, as well as teaching about gender identity, on Wednesday.

…

Under the plans, secondary-school pupils will learn about protected characteristics, such as sexual orientation and gender reassignment. But the updated guidance makes clear schools “should not teach about the concept of gender identity“, the government says.

There’s a problem already: what is “gender reassignment”? How will these pupils learn about it minus the concept of “gender idenniny”? In short why not delete “gender reassignment” from the curriculum too?

It said it was

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Just going with what a lot of other people have said.

The purpose of the thought experiment, indeed any thought experiment, is to force you to confront the intersection of your intuition and your reason. It is not to stack the deck and make one choice seem absurd.

It is exactly the thing that we do when we work in idealized frictionless environments of perfect elasticity. If you, as a physics student, refuse to answer the exam question because the real world is messy and not frictionless, you’re missing the point. We idealize the situation in full knowledge that it’s unrealistic. Why? Because it allows us to focus on the … Read the rest

This is in the Guardian?? Oooooh she gonna be in TRUBble.

I have some inspiring news for heterosexuals who may be struggling with their lifestyle choices: Dannii Minogue has bravely come out as straight.

She has a long-term boyfriend, see, but she was doing a presser and was asked if she fancies women.

Minogue replied: “You girls are hot. You know it. I love it. I’m here for it. Is that an answer?” Not really, to be honest. Still, she also helpfully clarified that she identifies “as queer in a weird way”.

Whoops, the Australian singer obviously thought, when she looked at the papers the next day and saw a million headlines along the lines of “Dannii Minogue ‘fights

Amsterdam is tired of being a tourist spot for disgusting people.

The local politician Sofyan Mbarki believes the major problem is Amsterdam’s image as a place where anything goes. With the quiz, he hopes to change the way visitors think about the city. But the truth is that a problematic image can’t be changed overnight. You will actually have to adjust reality too.

The mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, is aware of this. Five years ago, she boldly proposed closing the window brothels in the red light district – an audacious move considering that many local people still considered window prostitution an integral part of the city’s folklore. Gradually, more people are realising that what goes on in the

Originally a comment by Freeinder on The rights of mariners.

Sadly, this is not unusual. Even if the crew are issued shore passes, they may still be blocked from stepping ashore. Many ports in the USA are private property, and therefore declare crewmembers trespassers if they leave the ship. Many ports, globally, do not allow crew changes anymore, as they ban non-company vehicles from entering. This was common before 9/11, but afterwards it became virtually impossible in too many ports (here’s looking at you, Oakland, New York, Norfolk). Seattle, LA and San Francisco used to allow crew swaps, but then a mariner has just 24 (or in some cases 12) hours to leave US territory, on pain of arrest. … Read the rest

It’s like, like.

Serious students of language have a hard time knowing what to do with this all-too-familiar use of like. They call it “filler,” and it’s hard not to regard it as something bordering on the sublinguistic, an almost intolerable torturing of the magnificent instrument bequeathed to us by Shakespeare and his successors. For those of us who teach and spend a lot of our time talking to young people, the endless supply of self-interrupting likes that litter their speech and impede the flow of their thoughts can be very hard to take.

I’ve been noticing that lately – the way the filler-like has expanded to the point that it excludes other words almost entirely. How do … Read the rest

Horrors – I didn’t realize the crew of the ship that destroyed the Key Bridge in Baltimore are stuck on the damn ship.

As a controlled explosion rocked the Dali on Monday, nearly two dozen sailors remained on board, below deck in the massive ship’s hull. The simultaneous blasts sent pieces of Baltimore’s once iconic Francis Scott Key Bridge into the dark waters of Maryland’s Patapsco River, seven weeks after its collapse left six people on the bridge dead and the Dali marooned.

Authorities – and the crew – hope that the demolition will mark the beginning of the end of a long process that has left the 21 men on board trapped and cut off from the world,

Return to Gardencourt…not an obscure Henry James sequel but a new window into just how brazen the Stonewall bullying is.

“I trust that you will do what is right.” Aka “Nice little place you got here, would be a shame if something happened to it.”

Pdf of the full letter.… Read the rest

The usual incomplete evasive dishonest manipulative reporting:

Transgender golfer Hailey Davidson narrowly misses out on qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open

He’s not a “transgender golfer” – he’s a transgender man, aka a man who claims to be a woman. “Golfer” is not a gender.

This careful evasiveness seems to be universal in mainstream journalism, which is maddening. It’s not the job of news outlets to protect men who are working 24/7 to destroy the rights of women.

The caption under the photo at the top of the story is even more evasive:

Hailey Davidson, a winner earlier this year on the NXXT Tour, missed qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open by one spot.

Nothing even hints that he’s … Read the rest

The new homophobia in action:

We’ll be seeking an explanation from Anneliese’s office, as well as reassurances on the Labour leadership’s policy commitments to LGBT+ people – including Trans people – on hate crime, healthcare, conversion therapy, gender recognition reform and more. (2/2)

— LGBT+ Labour (@LGBTLabour) May 14, 2024

… Read the rest

I’m just catching up on the news about a teacher who was abruptly fired, apparently for teaching critical thinking. It seems the school also seized his personal laptop and is keeping it, which…how is that legal? It’s either that or he was writing a book on a school computer and not backing it up on a computer of his own, which…why tf would he do that?

7 days ago I was fired from my school after 4 years of teaching.
I recorded this the following day in order to share my perspective – honestly & in good faith – in order to move forward and put this experience behind me. I have no desire to cause complications or bring unwanted…

The NY Times reported several weeks ago that Republicans are hard at work purging voters.

A network of right-wing activists and allies of Donald J. Trump is quietly challenging thousands of voter registrations in critical presidential battleground states, an all-but-unnoticed effort that could have an impact in a close or contentious election.

Calling themselves election investigators, the activists have pressed local officials in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia to drop voters from the rolls en masse. They have at times targeted Democratic areas, relying on new data programs and novel legal theories to justify their push.

…

The groups have made mass voter challenges a top priority this election year, spurred on by a former Trump lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, and True

We are learning to Be Kinder.

Can everyone just start being a bit kinder, like India Willoughby please. pic.twitter.com/miXYoPo4kk

— Nicky Clark (@MrsNickyClark) May 14, 2024

… Read the rest

An interesting detail from Michael Cohen’s testimony yesterday:

He reported directly to Mr Trump, on “whatever concerned him, whatever he wanted”, Cohen said, calling his ex-boss a micromanager. “Everything required Mr Trump’s sign-off,” he said.

At the same time, Mr Trump was careful about paper trails, Cohen said. The Trump Organization founder never had an email address, telling Cohen that “emails are like written papers”.

“There are too many people who have gone down as a direct result of having emails that prosecutors can use in a case,” Cohen said Mr Trump once told him.

Gone down, eh? As in, been exposed as criminals? If Trump did say that it tells us he knows he’s a crook and takes … Read the rest

Many many people, especially women, are asking why the BBC keeps promoting drag and why it doesn’t equally promote blackface. It’s a fair question.

Amir Dean, also known as Lady Bushra, is one of the UK's most well-known British Asian drag artists.

Since debuting Lady Bushra four years ago, Amir has travelled the world performing with the hope of encouraging people to "be more like Bushra" pic.twitter.com/KL7lZjRSOJ

— BBC World Service (@bbcworldservice) May 14, 2024

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Arty Morty on True Selves.

His “true self” being the woman he is not. His fake true self, his pretend true self, his fantasy true self. Back in the before times a true self meant something along the lines of a self not repressed and stifled by convention. It didn’t mean childish fantasy. Adults didn’t prance around saying their true selves were birds or race cars or space travelers or Nobel laureates or ponies. Fantasy and delusion are now what’s real, so I guess truth and sanity are fake.

How are we supposed to even try to show compassion for people who may or may not have debilitating dysphoria when so many of the most … Read the rest

That’s embarrassing. She’s a lawyer and a journalist and that’s her reading comprehension level?

Probably not, most of the time. Probably it’s an excess of anger that caused her to miss the point so thoroughly. Let that be a lesson to us all: when in a rage, slow down and read carefully before you rush to denounce. Otherwise you’re gonna look like a damn fool in front of all those sages and wits on social meeja.

Motown and cornrows. That’s what this dizzy bitch thinks being Black is about.

Motown and cornrows. https://t.co/lOJYLgyjM2

— Imani Gandy (Orca’s Version) (@AngryBlackLady) May 13, 2024

… Read the rest