We still have “National Prayer Breakfast.” In the government. FFRF tells us:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation reiterates its disapproval of the National Prayer Breakfast held today, including President Biden’s involvement, the U.S. Capitol venue and the overarching Christian message.

The 71st annual event, although technically private, had an even stronger appearance this year of being sponsored by the federal government because it took place for the first time in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. Historically, when under the open sponsorship of the Fellowship, a shadowy Christian nationalist group, the main event took place at a hotel.

Steps, innit. Start out in private and inch your way into the god damn Capitol building.

There was reading from scripture,

It’s a step.

Voters in Paris have approved an effort to drastically increase parking fees for large sport utility vehicles and other heavy cars, the latest move by Mayor Anne Hidalgo to reshape the French capital with environmentally conscious and pedestrian-friendly policies.

It’s nice how the two go together. Walking around does minimal harm to the environment, and massive cars are a bad thing in more ways than just the contribution to global hotting.

Paris residents who park in their neighborhood will not be affected. Neither will taxis or other professional vehicles, or people who use larger vehicles because of a disability.

The city authorities had argued that big S.U.V.s and other large cars emit more greenhouse gases than

More on the Newcastle United craziness:

A female football fan was banned from matches over social media posts that were deemed transphobic after a “Stasi” spying investigation by the Premier League.

A special unit set up to root out racism in the game was used to comb through comments made by Linzi Smith, a gender-critical Newcastle United supporter, even though the posts had nothing to do with football.

And even though knowing that men are not women is not racism.

Ms Smith, who is gay and promotes lesbian, gay and bisexual rights and women’s rights, was put under investigation by the police, the Premier League and Newcastle United after expressing strong views on trans ideology on her personal account

There’s just no pleasing some people. A high school in Brookfield, Connecticut, was kind enough to put a tampon dispenser in a boys’ toilet room only to have it torn out of the wall minutes later.

It’s all part of a new state law that goes into effect this fall. Local and regional boards of education shall provide free menstrual products in women’s restrooms, all-gender restrooms and in at least one men’s restroom for 3rd to 12th grade students. 

Just in case an 18-year-old boy decides he wants a tampon and can’t wait to go to a drugstore or ask a friend or steal one from a sister.

One parent in town, who wished to stay anonymous, was disheartened to

The Telegraph:

A coalition of gender-critical groups have accused Stonewall of “targeting” the female boss of Britain’s equalities watchdog. 

Led by women’s rights organisation Sex Matters, which believes biological sex takes precedence over self-identified gender, the 39 groups said Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chairwoman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, was being attacked for taking action to protect women.

They said Stonewall had subjected her to the same sort of “unreasonable, vexatious complaints” used to harass ordinary women at work.

The groups have signed a letter to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (Ganhri), which has been persuaded by organisations such as Stonewall to carry out a “special review” into the EHRC, claiming it is anti-trans.

What … Read the rest

Ok, we see his written answer. Now what?

Jon, as it happens we had a written question on this at the @CambridgeUCU + @OUbUCU hustings last week, to send in today.

Because it's a 156 page judgment + the case itself exposes the damage of Twitter "pile ons", please see my written answer rather than a tweet: pic.twitter.com/d33fwG5ylz

— Ewan McGaughey (@ewan_mg) February 5, 2024

Nasty stuff tucked away in among the boilerplate babbling about undefined “inclusion” and “rights.”

“I am completely committed to equality, inclusion, and freedom,” he says, as if others were committed to inequality, exclusion, and slavery. Inclusion of what? Freedom to what?

“UCU will never be baited into the right-wing culture war” – meaning what? That … Read the rest

Uh, yeah.

This frightens and horrifies me. pic.twitter.com/oecp44f1dG

— Iseult (@iseult) February 4, 2024

The tweet Iseult saw was then deleted, but there are others.

May 14th I will be participating in Burning Day. The Israeli flag has become a symbol of oppression, subversion, and genocide.

They censor our speech. They undermine our governments with bribery and blackmail. They've captured our media, banks, and virtually all of academia.… pic.twitter.com/gdmocxNjnO

— I Abject (@Abjectivist) February 4, 2024

“They’ve captured our media, banks, academia”…golly gee that sounds familiar, i.e. exactly what the Nazis used to shout, when they weren’t too busy dropping the zyklon B pellets into the “showers.”… Read the rest

Well now that’s just silly.

Dead people should be able to change their gender, says Labour MP

Dead people can’t change anything, on account of being dead.

A Labour MP has called for the law to be changed so transgender people can have their gender changed posthumously in official records.

Well they can’t do that either, because people of any kind can’t do anything posthumously. They can leave instructions for other people to do things, but they can’t posthumously do them themselves. Aren’t journalists expected to know how to use words?… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Acolyte of Sagan on It woz the volcanoes wot dunnit.

Another indication that human emissions dwarf those of volcanoes is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels, as measured by sampling stations around the world…

This reminded me of conversations I’ve had with climate change deniers who have argued that the global temperature isn’t rising, there are plenty of cold areas that would lower the average that the scientists calculate if only there were more measuring stations. In other words, there are large areas between measuring stations and that’s where ithe colder regions are that would lower the measured average. Some even go so far as to claim that the scientists deliberately avoid those areas in … Read the rest

Jo Phoenix takes a wide-angle look at the sitch:

Random observations after nearly two weeks:

1. By trying to shut me up and because I stood up to them, the harassers and bullies and discriminators at OU have given me a platform I would never have had. Own goal there. Misjudged the strength of my conviction and belief in academia. Or you are all just too bloody arrogant.

2. I win a case of harassment, discrimination, unfair and constructive dismissal along with post-employment victimisation and within days I get those who seem to possess “irrational fears” or are palpably “uncomfortable” with sex realism swarming around my X feed like flies on shit.

3. For years I get told *any*

A thing dissenters say about global warming is that volcanoes contribute way more than human activities. Back in 2009 Scientific American said nuh-uh.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than one percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors.

200 million v 24 billion. Hard to argue that it’s close.

Another indication that human emissions dwarf those of volcanoes is the fact that atmospheric CO2

Hey kids: never ever do this.

Never ever say you’ve demanded a meeting with someone high up in government followed by speculation on the someone’s reasons for ignoring you.

Why? Why never ever do this?

Dear oh dear isn’t it obvious? I’m quite sure it’s obvious.

Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch has not responded to my invitation to discuss the Govt's troubling failure to ban conversion therapy, adequately fund sexual health clinics & enable trans self-ID via a legal Statutory Declaration

What'she afraid of? https://t.co/k4gwpuSkzT

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) February 4, 2024

… Read the rest

Today.

We were told by one of the directors at @womenslibrary that they don’t agree with censorship at the library. So why do they not have any displays or books about the amazing GC women & women’s groups currently working hard for women’s rights in Scotland?

— Suzanne Malyon (@suzxu) February 3, 2024

Oh that’s not censorship, it’s just…er…not having.… Read the rest

Originally a post at Miscellany Room by Your Name’s not Bruce?

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith set to announce changes to policies around “gender” issues

(A link in the above piece takes you to a “CBC Explains: How gender-affirming health care for kids works in Canada” page that carries lots of trans talking points and next to no dissenting ones.)

Most of the above measures seem to be aimed at keeping minors from irrevocable changes. Prime Minister Trudeau has done the forced teaming work for Team Trans, calling the proposed policies “most anti-LGBT policies anywhere in this country.”

Not to be outdone by the CBC, Global News flaunts its own captive status allyship by supposedly “fact checking” Smith’s claims about “trans … Read the rest

Sidney Blumenthal on DARVO Trump:

Time after time, with predictable regularity, never missing a beat, Donald Trump proclaims his innocence…

Then, he declares himself to be the victim. Whatever it is, he is falsely accused. But his self-dramatization as the wounded sufferer is only half his story: he insists that whoever has accused him is in fact the offender. He emerges triumphant, the martyr, the truth-teller, courageously unmasking the real villain. J’accuse!

Trump’s pattern is textbook manipulation – literally. It has a precise name given to it after decades of academic research. Jennifer Freyd, now professor emerita of psychology at the University of Oregon, developed the theory over her career studying sexual assault, trauma and institutional betrayal. She named

Arwa Mahdawi on the malign influence of Peter Thiel:

He, along with a group of other venture capitalists, is currently deploying part of his vast fortune to help bankroll a pro-drugs version of the Olympics called the Enhanced Games. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a sporting competition in which participants are encouraged to take as many performance-enhancing substances as they can get their steroid-enlarged hands on. All in the name of science and innovation, naturally.

Much science! Peak innovaty! Artificial enhancements are good at artificial enhancement. Who knew?!

Honestly? It sounds amazing. I would 100% watch. It’s a real shame Thiel, who currently runs spy tech firm Palantir, doesn’t spend all his resources on reality TV

A feel-good story from Paris:

A French policeman who called a female sexual assault complainant a “whore” has been let off by a police court.

The incident happened in February 2022 when the woman filed her complaint at a Paris police station. The officer later rang her and left a voicemail message about paperwork but his insults were accidentally recorded after he thought he had hung up…

During the hearing, the court was to asked consider that the officer made the insults to himself or to his colleagues, and that they were not aimed directly at the woman…A female judge ruled that the comments had not amounted to a sexist insult and acquitted the officer.

Well, sure, it’s not … Read the rest

Just a straight-up lie. Many people have lined up to point out that there are no such front pages. No newspapers are glorifying the children who killed Brianna Ghey. (It would be extremely odd if there were. What would that even look like?)

The NY Times has plucked up the courage to run a piece on detransitioners.

Grace Powell was 12 or 13 when she discovered she could be a boy.

Well, no, she didn’t discover “she could be a boy.” She discovered she could claim to be a boy, identify as a boy, pretend to be a boy. Let’s be careful about how we word things, ok?

Growing up in a relatively conservative community in Grand Rapids, Mich., Powell, like many teenagers, didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. She was unpopular and frequently bullied. Puberty made everything worse. She suffered from depression and was in and out of therapy.

“I felt so detached from my body, and the way it

Oh hey, the queer rivers book is published by my neighbors at the University of Washington.

A snip at $30 for the paperback.

Rivers host vibrant multispecies communities in their waters and along their banks, and, according to queer-trans-feminist river scientist Cleo Wölfle Hazard, their future vitality requires centering the values of justice, sovereignty, and dynamism. At the intersection of river sciences, queer and trans theory, and environmental justice, Underflows explores river cultures and politics at five sites of water conflict and restoration in California, Oregon, and Washington.

What intersection is that exactly? In what way do river sciences and trans theory intersect? For that matter what is “trans theory”?

The politics of rivers in the west is in … Read the rest