All entries by this author

Other activists

Dec 29th, 2022 5:28 pm | By

But

H/t GW… Read the rest



Waiting for next year

Dec 29th, 2022 5:24 pm | By

I should check out Greta Thunberg’s Twitter more often. She retweets urgent news items.

https://twitter.com/mnyomb1/status/1603014533613772800

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Not stating actual facts

Dec 29th, 2022 4:59 pm | By

David Folkenflik at NPR in September 2020:

Now comes the claim that you can’t expect to literally believe the words that come out of Carlson’s mouth. And that assertion is not coming from Carlson’s critics. It’s being made by a federal judge in the Southern District of New York and by Fox News’s own lawyers in defending Carlson against accusations of slander. It worked, by the way.

Just read U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil’s opinion, leaning heavily on the arguments of Fox’s lawyers: The “‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’ “

And … Read the rest



It was the Romanian pizza box

Dec 29th, 2022 3:07 pm | By

Took his “anti-feminism” a little too far did he?

Anti-feminist social media personality Andrew Tate ‘arrested’ in Romania on human trafficking charges

The self-styled misogynist internet celebrity Andrew Tate has reportedly been arrested in Romania…British-American Tate, 36, has amassed a huge following of young men via Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Training young men to hate women more than they already do for fun and profit; it’s almost as good as charging women $5k and a fancy dinner for the privilege of being shamed.

Former Big Brother contestant Tate has almost 3.5 million Twitter followers. He recently got into a social media spat with climate activist Greta Thunberg. After [his] bragging about the carbon emissions of his supercars, Thunberg replied that

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Too much?

Dec 29th, 2022 11:36 am | By

That unpleasant JJ Wells guy who was so merrily abusing JK Rowling and Fred Sargeant yesterday may have taken it a little too far for his own good.

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1608472170015133697

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Radically honest conversations

Dec 29th, 2022 11:09 am | By

One subject of one of Helen Lewis’s new gurus podcast is the “race2dinner” pair Regina Jackson and Saira Rao. Remember them? I did a post on them in May 2021. They’re the ones who charge five THOUSAND dollars for you to make or order in a fancy dinner with you (a white woman) and your white women friends where they (Jackson and Rao) tell you how racist you are. Peak social justice, and a nice little earner!

So they’re still doing it, which means there are still rich white women willing to spend five THOUSAND dollars for this treat.

It’s not that I think there’s no such thing as racism, or that white people shouldn’t confront it, or that … Read the rest



The wisdom-mongers

Dec 29th, 2022 10:02 am | By

I’ve been listening to this; it’s brilliant. I expect to listen to it all over again and maybe a third time.

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From the ugly days

Dec 29th, 2022 7:55 am | By

It’s still 1962. Nothing has changed. White men still assault Black teenage boys for using the “whites only” pool.

A violent attack by a group of white men on two Black teenagers at a resort pool in South Africa on Christmas Day has sparked widespread outrage, reviving images from the ugly days of apartheid and serving as a stinging reminder of the country’s unresolved racial tensions.

We get that a lot here, too. Ahmaud Arbery was murdered for running in a “white neighborhood.”

Cellphone footage of the assault — which the teenagers said started when they were told the pool was for “white people only” — spread widely on social media. It showed scenes that could have been from

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Guest post: It’s always been just us

Dec 28th, 2022 4:19 pm | By

Originally a comment by Freemage on In our religion-deferential country.

This is the kind of thing that first started me questioning my faith. Not the existence of these assholes–I was world-wise enough to know full well that people are people, no matter what granfaloon they belong to. But it was the awful, deadening silence of the mainstream churches when confronted by the undeniable evil of, say, Westboro Baptist Church. Sure, if you mentioned WBC to a practicing Catholic or Methodist, they’d insist that the former didn’t speak for them, and were out of bounds.

But they are never willing to actively do anything about it. Imagine a world where one of those anodyne interfaith councils came out with specific … Read the rest



In our religion-deferential country

Dec 28th, 2022 11:51 am | By

The FFRF says don’t gloss over the Christian Nationalist aspect of Trump’s attempted coup.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation regrets that the recently released Jan. 6 House select committee report fails to pinpoint the Christian nationalist motivations behind the Capitol attack.

The committee’s official findings do not adequately illustrate the true nature of the insurrection and its participants, asserts the national state/church watchdog. The rioters, white supremacist Nick Fuentes primary among them, frequently engaged in Christian rituals before and during the assault. The “Jericho Marches,” in which rioters walked around the Capitol in the days prior praying for the results of the election to be overturned and calling for “spiritual warfare,” the chanting of “Christ is king,” banners containing biblical

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Real equality and inclusion

Dec 28th, 2022 11:12 am | By

Now that is solidarity.

Shabnam Nasimi is a former Policy Advisor to the Minister for Afghan Resettlement and the Minister for Refugees.… Read the rest



REAL activists

Dec 28th, 2022 8:45 am | By

There are some very bad people in that movement.

Fred is Fred Sargeant and James is James Garvey.

Some bad bad bad people.

Updating to add:

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Off the lam

Dec 28th, 2022 8:02 am | By

Guy who enslaved women in porn arrested:

The founder of San Diego-based website GirlsDoPorn.com, who had been on the lam for the past three years while facing federal sex trafficking charges, was arrested this week in Spain, the FBI announced Friday.

Michael James Pratt, 40, was arrested Wednesday by Spanish National Police in Madrid, according to a statement from the FBI. Pratt will be held there pending extradition to San Diego.

He was on the FBI ten most wanted list.

The New Zealand native is charged in a 19-count indictment for allegedly running the now-defunct website. Charges against him include sex trafficking, production of child pornography, sex trafficking of a minor, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.

Prosecutors allege

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Rare influence

Dec 28th, 2022 7:31 am | By

Free enterprise, free speech, freedom of the press, all labored and brought forth…Fox News. Next up could be President Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson, as the most-watched host of the most-watched cable news network, holds rare influence over not just Republican supporters, but politicians, too. This year Carlson has been unafraid to wield that power, across issues including war, subjugation of continents and testosterone.

That’s what we want to see – another “personality” dragging the world toward a deeper abyss.

On 22 February, Vladimir Putin’s forces were massed on the Ukraine border. As people in the eastern European country braced themselves for war, and as the Russian leader was widely condemned by the international community, Carlson used his Fox News

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Arrested development

Dec 27th, 2022 3:30 pm | By

This guy is a psychiatrist, an assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at The University of California San Francisco.

https://twitter.com/jack_turban/status/1607481465616633857

I guess I’m a man then. Short hair, gender-noncommittal T shirts or turtlenecks instead of strappy sundresses, no necklace, no earrings, no lipstick, no perm – zap, I’m a guy.

This adult academic psychiatrist is obsessed with the dopy meaningless cartoon.… Read the rest



Guest post: Religion calls submission freedom

Dec 27th, 2022 10:26 am | By

Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on Varying beliefs.

Hamline was the first University in Minnesota, founded by the Methodists. They currently emphasize interfaith (including those with no faith) co-existence. When I was thinking of Law School I was seriously contemplating pushing for attending their Mitchell Law School since they place a high value on using the Law as a tool to fight The Man. My son graduated from a charter school sponsored by Hamline, and they emphasized intellectual freedom in education.

So, this comes as a surprise, in one sense, but then when I think about it? Perhaps not so much? I see that so many liberal institutions have taken on fear of offense as a measure of … Read the rest



Career interrupted

Dec 27th, 2022 9:57 am | By

Turns out it’s illegal to plot to kidnap people.

The ringleader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Adam Fox, 39, appeared in front of US District Court Judge Richard Jonker on Tuesday. Earlier this year he was found guilty of planning to abduct Ms Whitmer from her holiday home with other militiamen.

The group targeted the governor in 2020, after she imposed Covid rules early in the pandemic.

I wonder how many of us are alive today because of measures taken to deal with the flu pandemic in 1918.

As well as conspiring to abduct Ms Whitmer, Fox was sentenced for planning to use a weapon of mass

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Bad writing files

Dec 27th, 2022 9:10 am | By

I have a little stack of New Yorkers from a Little Free Library (to which they’ll return once I’ve perused them), and the other day I settled down to read what looked like an interesting article by Jill Lepore about a UK writer fella. But…the longer I read the more irritated I got.

You know how there’s a popular magazine style that involves adding a lot of “color” to reporting via details about decor, clothes, food, yadda yadda, so that it’s not just a parade of facts but more like a short story? And for that matter a popular fiction style that does the same thing? And you know how unskilled people can overdo it to the point where you … Read the rest



Dogs from Essex

Dec 27th, 2022 7:30 am | By

Adjectives, how do they work?

Let’s try it with “dog.”

This is a brown dog.

This is a small dog.

This is a friendly dog.

This is a rescue dog.

This is a pretend dog.

This is a fake dog.

This is a fantasy dog.

Thus ends today’s lesson on how adjectives work.… Read the rest



Varying beliefs

Dec 26th, 2022 4:07 pm | By

The Hamline University student newspaper reports on the showing of images in an art history class a few weeks ago:

Hamline undergraduate students received an email from the Dean of Students on Nov. 7, condemning an unnamed classroom incident as “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic.”

That must have been weird. “Hi students. There was a bad bad bad incident. Love, the Dean.”

The Oracle has since learned that the event in question occurred on Oct. 6, when a professor shared two depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in class, while discussing Islamic art. One was a 14th century depiction of the Prophet and the other was a 16th century depiction of the Prophet with veil and halo. 

In other words a … Read the rest