Not putting up with the bullshit any more.

I can’t even imagine being compelled to do this. Sinister.

— JLahl (@JenniferLahl) November 3, 2023

They're going to need an awful lot of handcuffs!

— Rosie Duffield MP (@RosieDuffield1) November 3, 2023

… Read the rest

Princess Ivanka gets a lot of laughter for this joke:

Ivanka Trump asked a New York appeals court to pause the $250 million fraud trial of her family and its business empire as she appeals a judge’s order requiring her to testify in the case next week.

The request to stay the entire trial came at the tail end of a Thursday court filing arguing that Ivanka Trump will face “undue hardship” if forced to testify — in part because she is scheduled to appear “in the middle of a school week.”

Ah right, the middle of a school week, and how can she juggle that plus her 9 to 5 job plus cooking and cleaning and walking … Read the rest

Another law mandating lying in court:

South Australia is the latest state to endorse the use of preferred gender pronouns in the courtroom, saying it is a “matter of respect” to address parties by their chosen pronouns, and integral to “ensuring public confidence in the proper administration of justice”.

No it isn’t. Other way around. It’s a matter of respect not to lie, and not to order others to lie. People don’t get to “choose” what sex they are, and pronouns are simply grammatical indicators of what sex a third party is. (It didn’t have to be that way. In English first and second person pronouns don’t indicate sex, but third person singular ones do.)

SA follows the lead

Ah yes: how the boys talk about women amongst themselves.

Dominic Cummings called the UK’s most senior female civil servant a “cunt” in a misogynistic WhatsApp message sent to Boris Johnson and Lee Cain in August 2020.

Of course he did. What’s the worst foulest evilest thing in the world? The part of women where all humans emerge into life.

He was referring to deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara, who had commissioned a report into poor behaviour within the Cabinet Office.

And he certainly made clear that there was no bad behavior in the Cabinet Office, didn’t he.

The message in full reads: “If I have to come back to Helen’s bullshit with PET [propriety and ethics] designed to

What, again??

How many of them are there? I suppose the answer is 12, isn’t it.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Freemage on The face of asexuality.

Like many of the progressive concepts that have gotten warped and misappropriated by the identity fringe groups, ‘microaggressions’ started out as a legitimate issue. It wasn’t just, “This small thing that irritates/offends me”, but rather, “this small thing is meant to remind me that I am viewed as sub-human and can be safely targeted by violence at any time.”

Homosexuals, women and racial minorities all face the latter sort of microaggression on a regular basis, and it does extract a real toll on the persons targeted. Hell, much of the trans-speak I would count as micro-aggressions against women. It’s not that the comments themselves are anything more than childish … Read the rest

Does anyone else here watch those spycam in the wild programs? They’re a BBC thing, shown here on PBS redubbed with a US narrator. (Why redubbed? I have no idea.) I always find them highly interesting and also always wonder if they’re any use to actual scientists or just a bit of entertainment for the rest of us. An article in Outside from last year seems to indicate it’s some of each.

The Spy series began 16 years ago when producer and director John Downer became the first filmmaker to capture life among a pride of lions. He did it by shooting from the point of view of a mobile rock, fondly referred to as Bouldercam. Spy Puffer Fish from

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The infinitude of girls.

But…if you want to ignore biology all together, what are you? A biology denialist. I’m concerned about how many scientists (yes, P.Z., I’m looking at you) have entered this realm where fantasy is reality and reality is bigoted.

I seem to recall a post or two from regular commenters here who asked PZ how he knew the gender identities of the spiders he was studying with enough certainty to be able to call them “he” or “she,” and getting banned for it. Surely it’s not to much to ask for a little bit of clarity and consistency in one’s beliefs and assertions, unless you don’t have … Read the rest

Wut?

Asexuality isn't protected under the Equality Act. We aren't protected by the conversion therapy ban, but we're 10% more likely to experience it. We're still pathologised. That's what @stonewalluk & I are working to change. Find out more in our report:https://t.co/CO11yqBFoc pic.twitter.com/jReDR1i8C5

— Yasmin Benoit, MSc (@theyasminbenoit) October 31, 2023

Asexual people aren’t protected by the Equality Act.

Meaning…what? That the Equality Act doesn’t mention asexual people? But it can’t mention every [adjective] person on the planet, much less every [non-adjective] person on the planet. Just think – people who don’t love apples, people who don’t love bananas, people who don’t love greengages…then all the fruits, then all the vegetables, then all the pastries, then all the types … Read the rest

There is “Karen” Jones for example.

In 2001, a man named Mark Jones (a.k.a: Karen Jones/Lawson) was jailed after the body of his sexual partner was found in their Manchester home. Jones had allegedly murdered the man after he refused to pay for Jones’ nail polish and transgender surgeries, but, due to the advanced stage of decomposition in the body, he was only able to be convicted of manslaughter. The decomposition hindered the ability for coroners to ascertain a proper cause of death, and thus throttled the prosecution.

Jones was sentenced to 5 years, but was released just one year later on license in 2002. Less than a week after getting out of prison, Jones sexually assaulted a

The dangerous confusion.

2./ We have long argued the laws protecting LGB people are being undermined by conflating sex with gender identity. We are grateful the EHRC submission reflected our concerns and disappointed judges “have not found it easy to follow” the important point the EHRC made.

— LGB Alliance (@AllianceLGB) November 1, 2023

4./ Nothing sums up this confusion better than the judgment’s implication that lesbians or gay men will have to admit the opposite sex to their single sex spaces. As we have consistently warned: our basic rights as homosexuals are being put at risk.https://t.co/eene0jDBil

— LGB Alliance (@AllianceLGB) November 1, 2023

… Read the rest

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH

A campaign group has lost its appeal against a legal judgement relating to gender balance on public boards.

The Court of Session has ruled trans women with a gender recognition certificate do count when ensuring females take up half the posts.

So boards can be 100% men as long as 50% of them say they are women. HahahahaHA women back to the 19th century for YOU.

It’s utterly disgusting.… Read the rest

Victor Madrigal in all his diversity.

… and second time pic.twitter.com/sU8QFY1z0M

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) November 1, 2023

The repeated phrase is “girls in all of their diversity.”

(Yes, I'm annoyed at being called a bio-essentialist by these unthinking gender-identity essentialists)…

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) November 1, 2023

It’s bio-essentialism to say elephants are not ostriches. It’s bio-essentialism to say whales are not lobsters. It’s bio-essentialism to say daffodils are not sequoias. It’s bio-essentialism to say potatoes are not grapes.

I begin to detect a pattern here.

We need to know the differences between things. It’s necessary for our enjoyment but also for our survival. Fire is not snow and it’s not like snow – if you touch it it … Read the rest

Replies to this are harsh.

States must uphold the ideal of sport that is inclusive of LGBTI+ persons.
Read a joint statement issued by 13 @UN_SPExperts: https://t.co/80jLaUq33j
"We're convinced that sports have the power to change perceptions, prejudices & behaviors: it must not be used to reinforce them". pic.twitter.com/TTXXgiyN3X

— Victor Madrigal-Borloz (@victor_madrigal) October 31, 2023

Categories based on age, sex and disability exist in sport to ensure fairness.

Stop destroying women’s rights.

You are a corrupt man.

— Homunculus  (@tryingattimes) November 1, 2023

https://twitter.com/LouiseWluddite/status/1719666043868598424

This what our ‘human rights’ expert is campaigning for everyone.

Unfair, unsafe sport for women

But I guess that’s OK because Victor doesn’t recognise women as full human beings pic.twitter.com/CijqaET3IT

— Rebecca Marian

UN Human Rights High Commissioner issues a slimy manipulative statement pretending to defend women’s rights while actually stamping on them.

Expressing grave concern about structural barriers to sport faced by women and girls in all of their diversity, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and other gender diverse persons and intersex persons, a group of UN experts* today issued a policy position urging States and other stakeholders to respect the right of all to participate in cultural life through sports and games and to tackle discrimination against, and enforcement of equal treatment of all athletes, especially women and girls in all their diversity, LGBT and intersex persons.

This of course means the opposite of what it appears to mean. It doesn’t mean … Read the rest

When skepticism goes meta:

Two years ago, the star researcher Dan Ariely, a behavioral scientist, fell into the spotlight when a trio of data sleuths exposed problems with the numbers supporting a headline-making 2012 study he helped write. The study found people were less likely to lie on a form if they signed an honesty statement at the top, as opposed to the bottom.

On the blog Data Colada, the sleuths examined one of three experiments in the paper, which claimed to use data from an insurance company. Amid the fallout from their findings, Ariely claimed that the company “collected, entered, merged, and anonymized” the data before sending it to him. That company, The Hartford, said back then

It’s kind of like Citizen Kane but without any Orson Welles. The Washington Post lines up the players:

Trump’s four-year presidency — and the tumultuous period of investigations and criminal and civil litigation since he left office — have reshaped much of the Trump family’s wealth, business and dynamics with one another, according to court filings, financial records, emails and interviews with people close to the family.

Ivanka Trump, once considered by Trump’s business partners to be the most likely of his children to take over the Trump Organization, has largely stepped away from the limelight of both business and politics, at times telling others she was stung by the scrutiny she received in Washington…

Yeah gee why would … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Athel Cornish-Bowden on It is important to distinguish.

We should never forget the Deir Yassin massacre carried out by Irgun terrorists led by Menachem Begin, who later founded Likud, the current party of government, which continues the ideas of Irgun with less overt violence. Likud is largely responsible for the humiliations and hardships that Palestinians suffer every day, starting with the continuing invasion of the West Bank. If some Palestinians feel pushed into retaliating in horrific ways then we still need to ask who is ultimately to blame. A few years ago we had a colleague older than us — well into her 70s and maybe 80s — who was involved in non-violent support of … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Pliny the in Between on Here’s your amuse-bouche sir.

Being a white haired guy i my ’60s, almost every time I go to a restaurant anymore some 20 something asks if I need help with the QR code menu or ordering. Or in the self-check line at the grocery, or any other place where modern IT is about. I smile, say no thank you, and enjoy my wife’s wry smile at all this ageism, knowing full well that I just spent the last 8 hours analyzing training sequences in an AI system I developed. Or figuring ways to constrain generative AI. They don’t know that, of course and I could get all pissy about it … Read the rest

Fighting for the glorious cause of…this one person.

Double Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya says her focus is now “more about winning battles against the authorities” than collecting medals.

Semenya, 32, was born with differences of sexual development (DSD) and cannot compete in any track events without taking testosterone-reducing drugs. The South African wants to hold World Athletics to account for discrimination against athletes with hyperandrogenism.

“I fight for what is right for humanity and for inclusivity,” she said.

Inclusivity of what though? Of people with extra testosterone? Is that really a glorious cause?

Hyperandrogenism is a medical condition characterised by higher than usual levels of testosterone, a hormone that increases muscle mass and strength.

You can see his … Read the rest