A hunger strike.

So, I posted a bit of mockery about @WhatTheTrans's breathless tweet about Alan "Sarah Jane" Baker's performative hunger strike to get jail accommodations with real women by QTing, "Pls pass the balls." They felt genocided and blocked me, so here's a screencap for your enjoyment. pic.twitter.com/1Kpr4SRQaJ

— Fred Sargeant (@FredSargeant) August 19, 2023

A violent man who claims to be a woman and told a rally to “punch a terf in the face” is demanding to be moved to a female prison so that he can terrorize yet more women.

Colin Montgomerie is on Team Men in Women’s Spaces of course.

Half of all transwomen are in jail for sexual offenses which is 2½ times the

The ever-popular “but what do you mean by ‘trans rights’?” question.

Another thought on this fine Sunday morning: if you are anti-trans, and wish to remove trans rights, just admit what you are, instead of hiding behind ‘women’s rights’, as time again trans rights are shown not to be in conflict with women’s rights. https://t.co/31M83wz0T3

— Thomas Willett (@ThomasWillett9) August 20, 2023

For once we get an answer.

The right to access the single single sex spaces they identify with for one.

— Thomas Willett (@ThomasWillett9) August 20, 2023

Ah, that “right.” Ok so now explain to us how that can be a right without demolishing the right to single sex spaces. Explain how it can be a right for … Read the rest

British Columbia’s turn:

About 30,000 households have been ordered to evacuate in Canada’s British Columbia province, where nearly 400 wildfires are raging.

Two huge fires in the Shuswap region merged overnight, destroying blocks of houses and other buildings. To the south, travel to the waterside city of Kelowna has been restricted, and smoke from nearby fires hangs over Lake Okanagan. Fires have charred homes in West Kelowna, a nearby city of 36,000.

…

The province’s emergency management minister said officials “cannot stress strongly enough how critical it is to follow evacuation orders”. Bowinn Ma added: “They are a matter of life and death not only for the people in those properties, but also for the first responders who will

Robin Ince promotes LGBT Youth Scotland, is reminded of the allegations of grooming and trafficking, boasts that he views the people reminding him as flat-earthers.

Great work, Robin. Finger on the pulse as always https://t.co/FGZrDyrtwB

— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) August 20, 2023

https://twitter.com/robinince/status/1693051284608188447

It’s a particularly odd comparison, because it wouldn’t be supernatural or an overturning of a huge chunk of science for LGBT Youth Scotland to have a history of grooming.

It’s also callous and smug.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on We can say it; he can’t.

We could say the same about the word “nerd”, which people tell me isn’t an insult anymore. They tell me that it’s cool to be a nerd now. They tell me to look at how nerd subculture is mainstream with comic book superheroes reigning at the box office.

Permit me to doubt. What I see is the cool kids saying, “I’m such a nerd,” in the same way and the same tone as they would say, “I’m such a bitch.” I see basic functionality locked behind menu options with labels like “stats for nerds”, implying that to understand or care about such things … Read the rest

India Willoughby spits venom at The Telegraph for saying “terf” is a slur. Such a lovely guy.

He says, echoing every racist who wants to say “nigger” because theyyyyyy dooooooooo so whyyyy cannnnnn’t weeeeeee? Thick as a plank and nastier than rancid fish.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Francis Boyle on The situation evolved rapidly.

Terrible as this is it’s almost the best case scenario. The worst case scenario would be that the planet warms more or less uniformly with the tropics slowly becoming uninhabitable while the industrialised world looks on with much hand-wringing but precious little useful action. This way everyone is on notice that it’s their life or at least their property that is on the line.

Now, I’m not pretending that anyone is voluntarily going to give up their lives of consumption-for-the-sake-of-consumption. The sense of entitlement is too deeply engrained in the wealthy and the wannabee wealthy. But we have an opportunity to make the worst of the destructive behaviours … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on More threats.

It’s an easy, and lazy, argument to make that chess is played with the brain, not the genitals or the muscles therefore saying there is a need for a separate women’s category is demeaning to women. It relies on the trope of men’s brains and ladyeez brains and assumes women’s intellect is inferior to men’s.

Susan Polgar – Hall of Famer, the Winner of 4 Women’s World Chess Championships,12 Olympic Medals (5 Gold, 4 Silver, 3 Bronze), and the first woman in history to break the gender barrier in chess would like to disagree.

“Why is there a need for Girl’s or Women’s tournaments?”

This is probably one of

It’s never not weird that Giuliani started out as a scourge of mobsters and then turned into one. Maureen Dowd writes:

Giuliani went from cleaning up corruption to ginning up corruption, from crimebuster to criminal defendant in Georgia and unindicted “Co-Conspirator 1” in D.C. Rudy, the prosecutor who made his reputation aggressively pursuing RICO cases, is now Rudolph William Louis Giuliani, a defendant in the Georgia RICO case about the deranged plot to steal the election.

We have seen many cases of mobsters turning state’s evidence for prosecutors. But now we have the rare experience of seeing a prosecutor turn into a mobster.

After all those years spent prosecuting the Five Families in New York, Giuliani surrendered himself to

The passive-aggressive self-flattery is off the charts.

We get it – you want everyone to think you’re very very very very kind, you’re all about kindness, you put kindness first on all occasions, you’re a kind kind kind man. We get it; we get that you think that. We get that you think you’re massively kind and we’re cruel bitches. We get it.

But you’re not. You’re not, for instance, “kind” to women. Being “kind” to men who claim to be women entails being very unkind to women, and that’s what you’re doing.

We get that you think the default for kind people is to heap flattery on men who call themselves women while ignoring all the … Read the rest

Life on a cooking planet:

About 15,000 households have been ordered to evacuate in Canada’s British Columbia, as firefighters battle raging wildfires that have set homes ablaze. Officials said a “significant” number of buildings caught fire in West Kelowna, a city of 36,000 people, and more than 2,400 homes were evacuated. A state of emergency has been declared for the entire province, where hundreds of separate fires are burning.

Meanwhile there are only about a thousand people left in Yellowknife.

In British Columbia, evacuation orders grew from covering 4,000 homes on Friday afternoon to about 15,000 in the space of an hour. Another 20,000 homes are under alert. Premier of the province, David Eby, said that evening that the

Blah blah blah women must not be allowed to have anything for themselves blah blah trans blah blah blah.

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) says it is temporarily banning transgender women from competing in its women’s events. The FIDE said individual cases would require “further analysis” and that a decision could take up to two years. The move has been criticised by some players and enthusiasts.

…

Yosha Iglesias, a trans woman professional chess player with the FIDE rank of chess master, said the policy would lead to “unnecessary harm” for trans players and women. “This appalling situation will lead to depression and suicide attempts,” Iglesias said.

See? That’s all he’s got. Men must be allowed to take what belongs … Read the rest

Another shipment of pestilent bullshit:

Please read Almut Gadow's crowdfunder statement. It is jaw-dropping.

She is bringing a case against the Open University for unfair dismissal. She was dismissed for questioning gender ideology.

The details are horrifying.https://t.co/OAcJHVc7LZ pic.twitter.com/e1FEzspw1f

— Professor Alice Sullivan (@ProfAliceS) August 18, 2023

I am reading it and it is indeed horrifying. The case:

My name is Almut Gadow. For almost 10 years, I taught law at the Open University. I was dismissed for questioning new requirements to indoctrinate students in gender identity theory, in ways which, I felt, distorted equality law and normalised child sexual exploitation.

I am bringing an employment tribunal claim arguing that I was harassed, discriminated against, and unfairly dismissed because

The BBC’s AntiSocial on “queering” museums.

The debate sparked by reviewing historic collections through a queer or LGBT lens. A “queering the collection” blogpost from the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth was criticised for making what some saw as tenuous links between historic objects from the ship and the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. Supporters of “queering” museums and galleries say it’s needed to redress a traditional approach to history that has often ignored non-heterosexual people or stories. But it’s led to controversy and criticism that some institutions have gone too far by focusing on the LGBT angle at the expense of others or imposing a modern interpretation that wouldn’t have made sense at the

Interesting.

Do you ever see signs like this on the mens washroom? pic.twitter.com/gVutx6uRYC

— Buck Angel® Transsexual (@BuckAngel) August 18, 2023

The * in trans* leads to a clarification at the bottom of the poster: “In this case, trans refers to people who identify as transgender, transsexual, two-spirit, non-binary, genderqueer, or gender diverse.” In other words, anything and everything. Any guy who feels like going right on into the women’s washroom [rest room, toilet, bathroom, WC, etc] is welcome to; all he has to do is say he’s gender diverse. Who’s going to challenge him on that? Who even knows what the fuck it’s supposed to mean? So come on in, bros, fill the place up, make it so bro-friendly … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Empowering the bullies.

I think the block feature is an absolute necessity to prevent harassment.

It’s true that mass-blocking tools were bad: the promotion of block-lists to true believers to get them to isolate themselves from dissenting views was a move straight out of the Scientology playbook. But I don’t think that problem — which appears to have largely abated anyway; I don’t hear about mass block-lists anymore — merits getting rid of the block feature altogether.

Very often we have to be able to block specific accounts from replying to our posts, because they harass us. It’s true that people can create sockpuppet accounts to circumvent blocks, but very often harassers want … Read the rest

Yes, we do want someone who knows how to utter a coherent sentence, whether to us or to Putin or to Zelensky. That’s one reason we don’t want Trump.

Trump told Newsmax he would say this week if he’s debating. It’s Thursday. pic.twitter.com/HldvmTJxZs

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 18, 2023

Word is he’s gonna snub the debate and have a chat with Tucker Carlson instead.… Read the rest

Musk tells us he is getting rid of the block feature. Auschwitz Museum tells him why that’s a terrible idea.

Failing to address the antisemitic and Holocaust denial comments that appear under our posts commemorating the victims of Auschwitz would be a disservice to their memory.

We've chosen to block users who promote denial and hatred. This decision stems from our deep dedication to… pic.twitter.com/snLlW2pHtx

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) August 18, 2023

The whole reply:

Failing to address the antisemitic and Holocaust denial comments that appear under our posts commemorating the victims of Auschwitz would be a disservice to their memory.

We’ve chosen to block users who promote denial and hatred. This decision stems from our deep dedication to our

We’re the creationists???

Talking to people who know that men are not women is like talking to creationists.

So we’re the ones engaged in magical thinking? We’re the ones who deny reality? We’re the ones who believe in the power of thought to change physical givens? We’re the ones who value faith and submission and compliance more than truth and evidence?

We’re the ones who believe what we’re told to believe as opposed to what it’s reasonable to believe? We’re the ones who conform? We’re the ones who let The Community tell us what we’re allowed to think?

We’re the ones who put fantasy ahead of reality – who let fantasy contradict reality? We’re the ones who believe in … Read the rest

Hahahaha nothing to do with being a woman.

The requirements of being a surrogate aren’t even remotely related to “being a woman.” Please stop speaking about things you know absolutely nothing about https://t.co/gBDc6k2uzk pic.twitter.com/Sj7vLN9hXj

— celia (@_celia_bedelia_) August 18, 2023

… Read the rest