All entries by this author

Guest post: Like a towel

Jul 29th, 2023 5:54 am | By

Originally a comment by Sonderval on Too small to measure.

I think this topic is so popular with politicians because it is like a towel in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost.”

Support for “trans rights” is like a towel: If you … Read the rest



Too small to measure

Jul 28th, 2023 4:57 pm | By

A tiny step in the right direction, perhaps.

A senior member of the Labour frontbench has offered an apology to a fellow MP, Rosie Duffield, who has said she felt ostracised by the party because of her views on gender reforms.

Duffield had also accused male party colleagues of trying to shout her down in the Commons earlier this year when she spoke to back the government’s move to block gender reforms proposed in Scotland.

Well it’s not just a matter of “accusation”; we saw them do it.

“There are times when Rosie’s kind of tweeted or liked certain things and I’ve been really upset and there were times where, you know, I’ve taken a much more defensive

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Now overwhelming

Jul 28th, 2023 11:51 am | By

Wait a second Don, there’s more.

A former Trump White House lawyer said the evidence against the former president over his handling of classified documents was now “overwhelming” and would “last an antiquity”, after new charges were filed in the case on Thursday.

New charges. New charges!

“I think this original indictment was engineered to last a thousand years and now this superseding indictment will last an antiquity,” Ty Cobb told CNN. “This is such a tight case, the evidence is so overwhelming.”

In June, the special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump on 37 counts regarding his handling of classified records after leaving the White House.

On Thursday, in a superseding indictment filed in a Florida court, four more

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Sticking the boot in

Jul 28th, 2023 10:44 am | By

Xander Elliards at The National [Scotland] recycled The Herald’s story on Police Scotland’s friendliness toward men who punch women in the head, with an original addition of his (xir?) own in the final two paragraphs.

At the protest, the WWW group represented the “gender critical” side of the debate around gender reform. They believe that someone’s sex is immutable and as such transgender people should be barred from women’s only sports and spaces.

A counter-protest of trans rights advocates saw demonstrators hold signs suggesting that WWW were wrong to focus on attacking trans people’s right to exist rather than women’s rights issues such as the gender pay gap or domestic violence.

Poisonous young shit should be fired.… Read the rest



A human rights storm

Jul 28th, 2023 10:35 am | By

The Herald [Scotland] on the legalization of punching women in the face:

Police Scotland is at the centre of a human rights storm after a woman was assaulted during a women’s rights event in Aberdeen. Julie Marshall said she was punched in the arm and head at a rally organised by Women Won’t Wheesht in the city’s Duthie Park on Sunday. The man responsible received a recorded police warning, sparking anger from campaigners about the leniency of the punishment.

In a letter to Sir Iain Livingstone, Police Scotland’s Chief Constable, the policy analysis collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, expressed concerns over the caution.

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Scotland v women

Jul 28th, 2023 10:15 am | By

What about that “warning”?

https://twitter.com/CallieMac88/status/1684823320787640320

When the women have it coming they have it coming. Understood?… Read the rest



Women are fair game

Jul 28th, 2023 9:48 am | By

Joan Smith on police indifference to a violent attack on a woman:

Following the assault on Julie Marshall in Aberdeen last weekend, the policy analysis collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie has written to Sir Iain Livingstone, Police Scotland’s Chief Constable. Their letter asks how the caution [issued to the assaulter] squares with public bodies’ obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights to protect freedom of speech and assembly. Just two months ago, Livingstone admitted the existence of institutional sexism and misogyny at Police Scotland. 

Marshall’s experience points to a very specific problem, however. She has photographs of her injuries and gave a statement to police after the assault, but she was not even informed of the decision to let her

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Everyone should read it

Jul 28th, 2023 4:49 am | By

Also rewarding to read the replies to Jon Pike:

I wonder if the staffers who wouldn’t let the New Statesman publish Dawkins’s article without a contrary view are regretting it now.… Read the rest



The opposing view was utterly incoherent

Jul 28th, 2023 4:37 am | By

It’s both entertaining and cheering to read the many replies to Andy.

It’s a funny thing that the Staggers decided to publish the Jacqueline Rose piece, because it’s so obviously bad and weak and empty. That’s the best they could do? Tells us something, doesn’t it.… Read the rest



Forced to undergo re-education

Jul 27th, 2023 3:04 pm | By

Our experience is not hypothetical.

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Not Sir

Jul 27th, 2023 2:35 pm | By

It’s not real persecution; it’s persecution envy. They want to be among The Persecuted not The Persecutors…although not…you know…really persecuted. Just…you know…the pretend kind. The kind no one actually cares about. The kind that’s a pretext for bullying other people. From a position of privilege.

“I am not ‘sir.'” Yeah right up there with do not get rich off my labor, do not rape me or kill me, do not enslave me or … Read the rest



Time’s up

Jul 27th, 2023 11:06 am | By

He’s right you know.

Read the rest



Echoing

Jul 27th, 2023 10:40 am | By

Headline news: man says women are adult females.

Keir Starmer repeats anti-trans dogwhistle, claiming a woman is an ‘adult female’

Claiming? What else would a woman be? An infant male?

Sir Keir Starmer has said a woman is an “adult female” in response to being probed over the “penis question”, echoing language used by the Tories and gender critical’ campaigners to attack the trans community.

Hey now. Sophie Perry (the author of this absurd piece) is also echoing language used by Tories and gender criticals. She used the word “said” for instance – Tories and GCs use that word all the time. Isn’t it shocking?

Furthermore, we don’t define women accurately “to attack the trans community.” If “the trans … Read the rest



Whose generosity? Whose freedom?

Jul 27th, 2023 9:44 am | By

The New Statesman introduces:

We asked two thinkers to address one of the most vexed questions of our time: “What is a woman?”
Here, Jacqueline Rose argues against the claim that sexual differentiation is “reality”.

Why not ask “what is a man”? Why is it only “what is a woman?” that is one of the most vexed questions?

Jacqueline Rose “argues”:

“What is a woman?” The formulation has the merit of suggesting that to be a woman, far from being obvious, is a question, and one susceptible to more than a single reply. This is encouraging at a time when the fight over the definition of what a woman is has taken on such virulence. Being a woman is

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Respect the grid

Jul 27th, 2023 6:45 am | By

The grid is there for a reason. You can’t just walk out the door and go live off the grid. You have to know how to live off the grid, and make intelligent choices about exactly where off the grid you decide to live. You also have to know when it’s time to go back to living on the grid, if you don’t want to be a pile of rotting remains found months after you stop living on or off anything.

Three members of a Colorado family died while attempting to live “off the grid” in the Rocky Mountains, family members and investigators say. The emaciated remains of sisters Christine and Rebecca Vance and the latter’s 14-year old son,

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83 deaths

Jul 27th, 2023 5:21 am | By

As if cooking ourselves isn’t enough, we also let a Kennedy run around causing multiple deaths.

(Ignore the Biden photo, the clip is Paul Offit.)

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Sea to shining sea

Jul 27th, 2023 5:01 am | By

Much of the US is under an extreme heat warning. Really much of it.

Some of it has been for weeks.

Missouri and Iowa:

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Dim bulb

Jul 26th, 2023 10:41 am | By

When mature adults talk like addled teenagers.

https://twitter.com/RayyaGhul/status/1683900022822141965

Rosie Duffield and Putin both know where to look for the sun at dawn, but that doesn’t make them friends or allies. Claiming Putin is a friend of Rosie’s is fatuous.

https://twitter.com/RayyaGhul/status/1684013484030173184

Again – it’s not fascist to know that men are not women. How is Ghul not embarrassed to talk such childish drivel?

https://twitter.com/RayyaGhul/status/1684187489131692035

Again – fatuous. We’re not advocating for the marginalisation and erasure from public life of anyone. Men who claim to be women can go right on being in public life even though we point out that they are men. We’re not denying their right to existence as an equal human being – and saying we are … Read the rest



Words have meanings

Jul 26th, 2023 9:12 am | By
Words have meanings

But what does any of this have to do with equality?

https://twitter.com/MaggieChapman/status/1684175360181542913

What is “the self-identification principle”? In what way is it a “principle”? What besides sex is covered by the “principle”? Is self-identification as a squirrel a principle? How about self-identification as an MSP? How about self-identification as Maggie Chapman? In other words, how can it be a “principle” that people can self-identify as something they’re not and that we all have to accept and … Read the rest



Lying rat concedes he is a lying rat

Jul 26th, 2023 8:09 am | By

Giuliani admits.

Rudolph W. Giuliani has conceded that while acting as a lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump, he made false statements by asserting that two Georgia election workers had mishandled ballots while counting votes in Atlanta during the 2020 election.

The concession by Mr. Giuliani came in court papers filed on Tuesday night as part of a defamation lawsuit that the two workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, had brought against him in Federal District Court in Washington in December 2021.

The suit accused Mr. Giuliani and others of promoting a video that purported to show Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss — who are mother and daughter — of manipulating ballots while working at the State Farm

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