All entries by this author

Seeking to balance inclusivity

Aug 3rd, 2023 5:51 pm | By

NBC reported, confusedly, on the decision by British Rowing that has Peter Tatchell so distraught.

British Rowing has banned transgender athletes from competing in elite female races, but has created three different categories that allow transgender participation, with the policy set to come into effect on Sept. 11, the sports body said on Thursday.

British Rowing said only athletes who are “assigned female at birth” will be eligible to compete in its women’s competitions and represent Britain or England in international events.

Apart from the women’s category, all athletes will be eligible to compete in an ‘open’ category, while a ‘mixed’ category can be offered by organizers if 50% of crew are eligible from the women’s category.

Transgender rights have

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Not all trans women athletes

Aug 3rd, 2023 5:10 pm | By

Peter Tatchell got a “readers added context” on a dishonest tweet he dropped a few hours ago.

There is no ban on trans athletes, the note says. The tweet is an intentional lie, the note says.… Read the rest



Oh yeah? What about 37?

Aug 3rd, 2023 4:50 pm | By

Rev David Brindley tells us

A Tasmanian woman has been “outed” as a NAZI because she tweeted “DAY 88 of being investigated for ‘inciting hatred’ for stating the truth….”. Yep. 88 = HH so NAZI! Too bad for all those people filling out forms where their birth date is 1988, or who live at number 88, or perhaps even want to order 88 yards of curtains.

And it’s true!

How long do we have before all the numbers become Nazi numbers?… Read the rest



Her career

Aug 3rd, 2023 11:31 am | By

Laurie Penny getting things backward again.

Is she…unaware of the professional consequences for gender-critical women? Is she unaware of Kathleen Stock? Is she unaware of the actual police persecution of gender-critical women? Is she unaware of pretty much everything but herself?… Read the rest



Learning how to seize power

Aug 3rd, 2023 11:02 am | By

A star is born.

In a conference room near the Capitol, young conservatives gathered in April to learn how to run for office — how to win and wield government power.

Among the keynote speakers at the summit, hosted by a group devoted to “training America’s future statesmen today,” was Jeffrey Clark, the former senior Justice Department official who in 2020 sought to use federal law enforcement power to undo then-President Donald Trump’s defeat.

Cool cool. Young “conservatives” gathered to learn how to seize power by force.

The criminal indictment of Trump unsealed on Tuesday depicts in vivid detail Clark’s alleged role in the conspiracy prosecutors accuse Trump of orchestrating. The indictment identifies Clark only as “Co-Conspirator 4

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That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act

Aug 3rd, 2023 10:19 am | By

How they will do it if and when they get the chance:

Out of the many new details revealed in former President Donald Trump’s third indictment, the most chilling one may be a discussion between Trump’s White House deputy counsel Patrick Philbin and “Co-Conspirator 4” — who, based on the Jan. 6 Committee report, appears to be Jeffrey Clark, a former top Justice Department official in the Trump administration. That discussion, in which the man believed to be Clark suggests using the Insurrection Act, underscores how Trump’s inner circle wasn’t simply seeking ways to delay Trump’s departure from the White House, but actively gaming out how he could stay in power even in the face of a

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They are happy to clarify

Aug 3rd, 2023 9:44 am | By

I can’t find any news coverage of this (yet) so the bird will have to do for now.

https://twitter.com/biologycounts/status/1687115660726562816

It’s not Nazism to know that men are men and not women.

Updating to add: wrong address in the tweet – correct one is the ipaper.… Read the rest



This individual is an absolute nightmare

Aug 3rd, 2023 5:32 am | By

News from Ireland:

Dangerous inmate Barbie Kardashian has been transferred to a male prison – but remains under a restricted regime for the safety of others, we can reveal. Sources say that Kardashian, who identifies as a trans woman after she secured a gender recognition certificate, has been moved into Limerick Prison’s D block in recent days in the men’s side of the jail. The lag had been housed in an isolation unit of the now-old female part of the prison, which has since closed after the opening of a brand new facility there recently.

Golly, they don’t write very well at the Irish Mirror – but I guess we get the idea.

A factor behind the move to

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Aug 2nd, 2023 2:43 pm | By

Well knock me down with a 2 by 4.

Oliver Brown in The Telegraph:

British Rowing is expected to announce a dramatic abandoning of its controversial transgender policy on Thursday by restricting the women’s category solely to those born female, Telegraph Sport can reveal.

All right. Now all other sporting bodies all over the world kindly follow suit. Restore fairness to women!

After months of intense discussion at board level, the governing body has decided to follow the majority view of its 31,500 members, more than 80 per cent of whom are understood to have urged a change in approach that would ensure the fairness and integrity of the female category.

It is about. fucking. time.

Rowing

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Obviously it’s great for diversidee

Aug 2nd, 2023 2:04 pm | By

Awww Free Willy wants to be an advertising model. Poor guy must be jealous of Dylan Mulvaney.

He was such a star on that Big Brother thing all those years ago.

https://twitter.com/mathano4/status/1686807941205082120… Read the rest


An intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger

Aug 2nd, 2023 11:33 am | By

Sarah Smith at the BBC leans on the same aspects of the indictment as I did.

Some US commentators have introduced another reason why they think these charges are the most serious. They see in Mr Trump’s alleged conduct a threat to the ideals that underpin the bedrock of the country.

Not since the nation’s founding has any president “voted out of office been accused of plotting to hold onto power in an elaborate scheme of deception and intimidation that would lead to violence in the halls of Congress,” writes Peter Baker in the New York Times.

He goes on: “As serious as hush money and classified documents may be, this third indictment in four months gets to the

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The heart of the matter

Aug 2nd, 2023 11:10 am | By

Peter Baker on the implications of the indictment:

But not since the framers emerged from Independence Hall on that clear, cool day in Philadelphia 236 years ago has any president who was voted out of office been accused of plotting to hold onto power in an elaborate scheme of deception and intimidation that would lead to violence in the halls of Congress.

What makes the indictment against Donald J. Trump on Tuesday so breathtaking is not that it is the first time a president has been charged with a crime or even the second. Mr. Trump already holds those records. But as serious as hush money and classified documents may be, this third indictment in four months gets to

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The beauty of this indictment

Aug 2nd, 2023 10:30 am | By

A legal eagle, Randall D. Eliason, takes us through the third indictment.

The charging decisions in the indictment reflect smart lawyering by the special counsel Jack Smith and his team. The beauty of this indictment is that it provides three legal frameworks that prosecutors can use to tell the same fulsome story.

It will allow prosecutors to put on a compelling case that will hold Mr. Trump fully accountable for the multipronged effort to overturn the election. At the same time, it avoids legal and political pitfalls that could have delayed or derailed the prosecution.

Good to know. I woke up this morning brooding on the two cliffs we’re racing toward – the climate one and the prolific criminal … Read the rest



Bitches n blokes

Aug 2nd, 2023 8:36 am | By

Hahahaha I for one, unlike SOME people, never wear either baseball caps or shades. I’ll cop to being “bitchy” though – but not in the way Mr Willoughby means it.

(It’s very telling though. Men wear shades and caps; women are bitchy. Clearly there’s not a misogynist bone in Will’s body. Clearly.)

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Peak friendliness

Aug 2nd, 2023 7:52 am | By

The “friendly” atheist again, at Religion News Service:

Richard Dawkins has abandoned science to justify his transphobia

Even the title is ridiculous. It’s not “abandoning science” to know that men are not women. Trans ideology is not scientific, it’s all about the fee-fees.

Subhead:

It’s jarring to see the world’s most famous atheist use his massive platform to downplay or deny trans identities.

Wait. Are we talking about science here, or idenninies? They’re not the same, to put it mildly.

And how is it “jarring” to see an atheist deny that claims about idenninies can trump physical realities?

For decades, the renowned evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins urged his readers to use science and reason to counter religious misinformation.

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The monstrous regiment

Aug 2nd, 2023 6:58 am | By

Bros line up to brosplain trans ideology for Dawkins. (That is, they line up that way on my Twitter, because they would, wouldn’t they.)

And what is the “expertise” that tells us men are women if they say they are? Having a trans significant other, of course. What more do you want?

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It all helps the fundraising

Aug 1st, 2023 4:59 pm | By

Trump raised nearly $250 million pushing fake election claims in the weeks before Jan. 6

The House select committee that investigated the riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021 said in their final report that Donald Trump raised nearly $250 million between Election Day and Jan. 6 as the former president’s tried and failed to fight the election results in court.

“Evidence gathered by the Committee indicates that President Trump raised roughly one quarter of a billion dollars in fundraising efforts between the election and January 6th. Those solicitations persistently claimed and referred to election fraud that did not exist,” the committee said in their final report.

His crimes are nested, or recursive. He tries to steal the election, … Read the rest



Number 3

Aug 1st, 2023 4:30 pm | By

Here we go.

Former President Donald Trump was criminally charged Tuesday in connection with his efforts to reverse his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.

The charges mark the unprecedented third criminal indictment against the former president since he launched his latest bid for the 2024 Republican nomination. No other U.S. president, current or former, has ever faced criminal charges.

No other US president has ever been such a rampant, lifelong, determined criminal.

Attractively, he’s using it as a lever to raise yet more money.

Trump is back to fundraising off of the latest federal indictment against him just days after it was revealed that his allied political action committee has spent over $20 million on his legal fees.

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Swim in the moat

Aug 1st, 2023 11:17 am | By

Boris Johnson wants to put in a swimming pool at his Oxfordshire house, but there’s a problem. The Great Crested Newt is in his way.

The UK’s largest newt, which takes its name from the striking jagged crest that males display in the spring breeding season, is a protected species under British law.

As such, an unlimited fine and up to six months in prison could await anyone found guilty of disturbing the newt’s resting places and breeding sites, or taking their eggs.

Johnson launched an application with South Oxfordshire district council in June for the construction of an outdoor pool, measuring 11 metres by 4 metres (36ft x 13ft).

But Edward Church, a local government ecologist who reviewed

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Guest post: A uniquely vulnerable, needy group

Aug 1st, 2023 11:09 am | By

Originally a comment by Sastra on Hemantsplaining biology to a biologist.

In a way, trans ideology resembles a religious Accomodationist argument. Trans people, like the devoutly religious, are seen as a uniquely vulnerable, needy group utterly dependent on their belief. It provides them with their foundation for meaning and sense of self. Without the reassurance that there is this one thing they can know and depend on, their life shatters.

It comes back to New Atheism, which as I saw it was a reaction not so much against religion, but against Accomodationism. In Accomodationism, arguing for the truth of atheism was insensitive at best, a cruel intellectual exercise which ignored the grieving widow in need of a future heavenly … Read the rest