Don’t visit Texas right now.

A record-breaking heat wave is entering its third week in Texas, as temperatures reach triple digits in the broader US south and tens of thousands of people in affected states are without power and lack air conditioning.

More than 40 million people in the US are under a heat alert.

Texas cities have reached an unprecedented heat index – which combines temperature and humidity. Corpus Christi has hit 125F (51C), while Rio Grande Village notched 118F (47C) and Del Rio marked 115F (46C). States including New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri are also experiencing scorching heat, with the National Weather Service predicting the temperatures to rise further and last into the week

When you’re going to do an extremely dangerous thing, the key is to find cheap parts that are cheap because they’re inferior. Yep, that’s the ticket.

Arnie Weissman, the editor in chief of Travel Weekly, nearly went on that fatal trip on the Titan. He had a chat with Stockton Rush the night before the dive.

Weissmann said Rush told him how he had gotten the carbon fiber used to make the Titan “at a big discount from Boeing.” Weissmann wrote in Travel Weekly that Rush said he was able to get the carbon fiber at a good rate “because it was past its shelf life for use in airplanes.”

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

Rush had hailed the lighter carbon fiber as

The header for Dublin Pride’s Twitter:

Fake. That sign just above the rainbow flag – that’s fake.

Thanks to clamboy for the tip.… Read the rest

Rewriting history.

Now look at how this picture has been altered on the @DublinPride website. It has been tampered with to dishonestly insert trans demands into lesbian & gay history. Nobody carried a sign saying 'Trans rights are human rights' in 1983. It is urgentto push for #LGBWithoutTheTQ pic.twitter.com/53aX1FftaE

— Cookie (@Upsy_Daisy666) June 23, 2023

… Read the rest

Yesterday evening I started a frivolous read of a novel about life at the Barbizon Hotel for Women in the ’50s. I stopped reading at the top of page 12. Here’s why:

Page 2, in an account of marital sex: “she had instead surrendered to the enormity of him.”

Page 6, of an elderly fellow resident of the Barbizon: “Only her tentative movements…and the lines around her mouth and down her neck, belied her advanced age.”

Page 12: “Leave it to Patrick to bury the lead.”

Great god almighty are there no editors any more? How did no one catch these? Just in the first 12 pages!… Read the rest

Now there’s a surprise.

Warnings over the safety of OceanGate’s Titan submersible were repeatedly dismissed by the CEO of the company, email exchanges with a leading deep sea exploration specialist show. In messages seen by the BBC, Rob McCallum told OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush that he was potentially putting his clients at risk and urged him to stop using the sub until it had been classified by an independent body.

Mr Rush responded that he was “tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation”.

Right on. Who cares about safety? Full speed ahead.

(I don’t know why the BBC quotes this Rob McCallum fella without saying who he is.)

The tense exchange ended

The Famous Artis Birdy Rose spots a contradiction that is all too pervasive in these Inclusive No Not You times.

Yesterday I read online a statement on the Leigh Folk Festival Facebook page, which read:

“Leigh Folk Festival is, and always has been, an inclusive environment where everyone should feel welcome and comfortable, from artistes, to attendees, volunteers and crew”

The statement went on to say that a member of an act due to perform at this year’s festival has “made remarks online that are not in keeping with Leigh Folk Art’s values. As soon as we were made aware, the act’s performance was pulled from the line up”

Genius, isn’t it? “Incloosiv environment. Everyone should feel welcome and … Read the rest

Two successive tweets to sum up. First tweet:

Awwwwww look at that sweet little thang, wouldn’t so much as swat a mosquito.

Next tweet:

Of course two O’level Shazza Davies had a co-writer – Craig Lord. Sharron wrote her name, Craig did the rest. £1 bin very soon.

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) June 23, 2023

For people not familiar with the UK education system, “two O Level” is roughly equivalent to “flunked out of high school at 16″…only more so because of the UK’s baroque and sadistic obsession with class. It’s gasp-level insulting.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on They would magically transform.

I’m not entirely sure they really want to be women, so much as they want to be what they think women are.

That distinction I think matters. I don’t think I could ever see myself as trans, because I am me, I can only ever be me, and thus I have no frame of reference for how to really truly be anyone else.

This doesn’t mean I can’t imagine how others feel, or that I can’t empathize, but that my frame of reference is based on data that is available to myself, and thus can never fully encompass someone else’s life.

If I were to try and be … Read the rest

It’s a funny thing, when you think about it, that trans women are women, but women are cis women. I think it should be the other way around. Women are women, and trans women are not.

Helen Joyce:

It’s obviously extremely hurtful for men whose dearest wish is to pass as women to be told they really don’t. I wish they hadn’t been lied to and misled by gender doctors, who promised them the impossible.

These men were promised that if they took cross-sex hormones and underwent genital amputation, they would magically transform to such a degree that everyone, but specifically women, would see them as women.

Those men want that so badly, and they are so self-centred, that

Peter Brookes in The Times:

H/t Margaret Nelson… Read the rest

Where it started.

JK Rowling has now transitioned to denying that trans people exist. She is a bigot. She is causing immense harm. People of good conscience need to stop supporting her or her work. pic.twitter.com/yWlGDenKsK

— Tom Coates (@tomcoates) June 21, 2023

It’s worth belaboring this because it’s dangerous as well as wrong. It’s a not very subtle way of inflaming and intensifying hatred of people who don’t subscribe to gender ideology.

No, wrong; she doesn’t deny that trans people exist, she denies that people can be the opposite sex. She disputes a fact claim about people who call themselves trans, which is very different from denying that people who call themselves trans exist. We know they exist. We … Read the rest

Existence precedes essence.

What’s not super hard is grasping that people don’t cease to exist when others don’t believe their self-descriptions. The two things are separate. Tom Coates could claim to be very clever, and I would not believe that claim, yet my non-belief would not cause Tom Coates to stop existing.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Freemage on Mandatory affirmation.

Puberty blockers have been weighing on my mind, in particular, lately.

The whole claim is that the blockers prevent the development of sexual characteristics until the child has become old enough to be able to decide for themselves as an adult whether or not to transition. On first glance, this seems reasonable–I’m fine with adults transitioning, though I still agree to the GC in terms of what transition actually entails, and more importantly, permits. (Ie, an adult TIM still has no business in a women-only space, or participating in women’s sports, etc.) At that point, it becomes cosmetic surgery, which is generally up to the person getting it.

But this claim … Read the rest

Abigail Shrier tells us:

Gender ideologues in California let the mask slip, or perhaps just tossed it away: A new bill, AB 957, directs family court judges to award custody based in part on “a parent’s affirmation of a child’s gender identity,” which the bill defines as intrinsic to the “health, safety and welfare of the child.”

And what “a child’s gender identity” means in this context “a child’s assertion that she or he is the other sex.” So custody decisions will be based partly on a parent’s “affirmation” of a silly lie, one which could end up prompting the child to make drastic changers to her or his body – irreversible damage in short.

How far must a

Birdy has the information.

But wait, there’s more! (I didn’t wait. Wasn’t possible. I couldn’t leave that bit of Emptyspeak unmocked for one second.)

It’s genius, isn’t it?

WHAT KIND OF BEHAVIOR??

Did they forget, between the second tweet and the third, that they hadn’t said what “kind of behaviour” they were talking about? The word “remarks” doesn’t quite cover it. We can’t believe they would never knowingly book an artist known for making remarks. There must be something specific about the remarks that they disapprobate, but they haven’t said what that something is.

Trans ideology makes people stupid.… Read the rest

This is the sort of thing up with which one must not put.

It’s been brought to our attention that a member of an act due to perform at this year's festival has made remarks online that are not in keeping with Leigh Folk Arts’ values. As soon as we were made aware, the act's performance was pulled from the lineup. (2/3)

— Leigh Folk Arts (@LeighFolkArts) June 21, 2023

Could it be any more stupidly meaningless? “Somebody told us somebody said something not in keeping with some values. As soon as somebody told us, somebody pulled somebody’s performance.”

It’s bound to be about trans something, because people don’t talk this stupidly and meaninglessly about anything else, but even beyond … Read the rest

Whooo-eeeee, we’ve got a live one here.

The “trans rights activists” (that is, the decent people of the LGBTQ community) saw this coming.

The “gender criticals” are still trying to work out how they can blame trans people for this.

You can’t. This is on you. https://t.co/K6d6tHqYlA

— Paul Ilett (@Paul_Ilett) June 20, 2023

What?????

Andrew Tate is our fault????

How, exactly? Show your work.

But wait, there’s more.

After three solid years of the gender critical movement, violence against women continues to rise whilst hate crime against LGBTQ+ people (trans people in particular) has rocketed. Imagine what GC supporters could have achieved by now if they hadn’t obsessed about trans rights.

— Paul Ilett (@Paul_Ilett) June 20, 2023

Imagine … Read the rest