Huh. Has SWR ever painted a train to signify inclusion of women?

Finally!!!!

UK’s first Intersex-Inclusive Pride train launched by SWR will run through Hampshire https://t.co/Hxp2mnyuEc

— LGBWithTheT (@LGBwiththeT) March 28, 2023

… Read the rest

It seems that suddenly the trans movement has bumped up against a boundary.

Twitter says it has removed thousands of tweets showing a poster promoting a “trans day of vengeance” protest in support of transgender rights in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of Trust and Safety, said in a tweet Wednesday that the company automatically removed more than 5,000 tweets and retweets of a poster promoting the event.

“We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them. “Vengeance” does not imply peaceful protest. Organizing or support for peaceful protests is ok,” Irwin wrote in the tweet.

But trans activists don’t know from peaceful protest. They feel entitled and aggrieved, and they’ve been … Read the rest

Important business.

LAUREN BOEBERT WAYLAID a congressional hearing on crime in the nation’s capital on Wednesday by repeatedly grilling D.C. City Council Member Charles Allen on what she insisted were efforts to decriminalize public urination. 

“Did you or did you not decriminalize public urination in Washington D.C.,” Boebert asked.

“No we did not,” replied Allen.

“Did you lead the charge to do so?” Boebert rephrased. 

“No, the revised criminal code left that as a criminal charge,” Allen answered. 

Did you “lead the charge” – what a dopy question.

The exchange continued for some time, with Boebert asking different variations of “Do you support peeing in public?”and Allen attempting to clarify that taking a piss on the sidewalk remains illegal

Have the sick bag nearby.

You know…if all this nonsense they tell the kids is true, why don’t the kids already know it? Why haven’t their parents been telling them it all along? Why are they being told it only now when they’re eight or nine years old? Why don’t they already know all about it via their parents’ many trans friends? Why don’t they already know about it from their own friends whose parents are trans? Why don’t they know about it from their trans classmates? It couldn’t be because it’s all bullshit could it?… Read the rest

Sigh.

I see this, so must investigate.

How can even you say this? Especially after the atrocity that just occurred in Nashville…. fire her immediately @GovernorHobbs @joss_berry pic.twitter.com/pAq3dqRuKS

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) March 29, 2023

What? Who? What?

Oh. Josselyn Berry is the press secretary to Katie Hobbs, the governor of Arizona. Yes that’s a good look, offering to shoot feminist women who don’t believe men can be women. Solidarity forever yadda yadda.

Update: she’s resigned.

Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ spokesperson has resigned amid controversy over a social media post suggesting violence posted hours after the deadly shooting at a Nashville school on Monday.

The Governor’s Office confirmed Wednesday that Press Secretary Josselyn Berry resigned from her job

The AP put out a fake news warning.

CLAIM: A photo of a person holding a sign featuring pink, blue and white guns and the words “trans rights… or else” shows the shooter who killed six people at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The person who took this photograph confirmed it was captured in Oklahoma City before news of the Nashville shooting was widespread. It does not show the shooter.

THE FACTS: The photo circulated widely online after the police chief identified the shooter as transgender in a late afternoon news conference on Monday. Police had previously identified the shooter as female.

“This is the trans shooter, Audrey Hale,” read one tweet

Now that’s what I call a grift.

The University of Pittsburgh recently allocated a reported $26,000 to host trans activist Dylan Mulvaney but petitioned to cancel an event featuring women’s rights activist Riley Gaines.

Example of #ProgressivePrivilege — bigotry of cancel culture. https://t.co/DDdoadf4jo

— Independent Women's Forum (@IWF) March 27, 2023

Guy puts on a dress, gets $26,000.… Read the rest

Good move.

The government is planning on banning a cosmetic surgery called hymenoplasty across the UK.

It attempts to recreate a woman’s hymen, which in some cultures is linked to virginity, and has been described as a form of honour-based abuse. The procedure will be criminalised, as will virginity testing.

…

Hymenoplasty is available in clinics and can cost up to £3,000. The procedure recreates a thin membrane known as the hymen which partially covers the entrance to the vagina. It is often done as a way to “repair” a hymen.

Because without that there hymen all you’ve got is a slut.

A woman’s hymen can tear for all sorts of reasons and not just through sexual intercourse, for

Another cleanup on aisle 10.

Several Agatha Christie novels have been edited to remove potentially offensive language, including insults and references to ethnicity.

Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries written between 1920 and 1976 have had passages reworked or removed in new editions published by HarperCollins to strip them of language and descriptions that modern audiences find offensive, especially those involving the characters Christie’s protagonists encounter outside the UK.

To be honest this doesn’t really outrage me all that much. Agatha Christie wasn’t a giant of literature, she was a popular mystery writer.

The updates follow edits made to books by Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming to remove offensive references to gender and race in a bid to preserve their

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on More than viz.

I get the feeling that those organizing and supporting this aren’t going to be satisfied with “vengeance” that is purely rhetorical. Unlike the “violence” of “misgendering” and “deadnaming” that they’re always decrying, the vengeance they’ll be looking for isn’t going to be limited to saying mean things. Trans activists have threatened and used physical violence for years. It’s always been there. It’s always been in one direction. Against women. Claims of “trans genocide” are just another tool of escalation and justification, the hyperbolic paranoia and explicit emotional blackmail allowing them to excuse whatever they do as “self defence.” If your opponents are Nazis, you get to … Read the rest

Meanwhile this guy also hasn’t been arrested.

One pic is of the 70 year old woman who was punched in the face multiple times for attending a women's rights rally in Auckland on Saturday 25 March 2023.

The other pic is the man who punched her.

Four days later and no charges have been laid against the perp. pic.twitter.com/m8hXD6CHCH

— IWDBrisbaneMeanjin (@IWDBrisMeanjin) March 29, 2023

Word is he succeeded in fracturing her skull.

The 70 year old woman who was violently attacked & punched in the head at the #LetWomenSpeakAuckland
event has a cracked skull

Rex Landy is raising money for post trauma counselling for the injured woman.If anyone would like to donate,info is in the cliphttps://t.co/WDaXnhsnKz

— Bessie

Originally a comment by John Wasson on Plastics.

The ubiquity of plastics is incredible.

Mary Jo DiLonardo “Microplastics Found Near the Top of Mount Everest” November 20, 2020

Rowan Jacobsen, “An Ocean Plastics Field Trip for Corporate Executives”, Outside August 8, 2019

There may be some progress replacing ‘plastic’ made from fossil.

Clare Watson “Scientists Created a New Recyclable Plastic Not Made From Crude Oil” 29 March 2023

Allison Christy and Scott Phillips describe making a new type of plastic based on poly(ethyl cyanoacrylate) or PECA, which is prepared from the monomer used to make Super Glue.

Small-scale lab experiments replicating industrial processes suggest roughly 93 percent of the new plastic could be recycled into clean starter materials – … Read the rest

Amanda Marcotte points out how mass shootings are commercials for Trump:

[Republicans] are, after all, a party still completely in the thrall of Trump, whose main campaign message is that America is a hellscape beyond redemption, and that the only viable response is about “retribution.” Last Saturday, his “burn it all down” message assumed a new metaphorical meaning, as he held a rally in Waco, Texas, on the 30th anniversary of the FBI’s standoff with a group of doomsday cultists who ultimately chose to die by fire rather than surrender their illegal weapons. Trump’s speech was a cut-rate version of the apocalyptic ravings of Waco cult leader David Koresh, full of talk of how the country is “failing,” our

The police are very politely begging Eli Rubashkyn to turn himself in for a friendly chat, because they just really really don’t want to arrest him.

Police are investigating “alleged offending” at an anti-transgender event in Auckland over the weekend, after supporters and counter protesters clashed.

Of course, as always, “an anti-transgender event” is inaccurate and highly inflammatory.

Thousands gathered at the Albert Park rotunda on Saturday to protest British activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s Let Women Speak event.

That’s much more accurate. Thousands gathered to scream DO NOT LET WOMEN SPEAK.

About 150-200 people turned out in support of Keen-Minshull, who goes by Posie Parker, but they were drowned out by close to 2000 people rallying in support of trans rights.

Republican-run Southern states reject federal funding for hospitals. That’s nice for the non-rich people who live there.

Since its opening in a converted wood-frame mansion 117 years ago, Greenwood Leflore Hospital had become a medical hub for this part of Mississippi’s fertile but impoverished Delta, with 208 beds, an intensive-care unit, a string of walk-in clinics and a modern brick-and-glass building.

The Delta was where slavery was at its worst. It’s where Parchman is. It’s where Emmett Till was tortured to death. It’s where Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered. Fertile for cotton but horrible for the people forced to work in the fields.

But on a recent weekday, it counted just 13 inpatients clustered in a single ward.

Oh yes that Trans Day of Vengeance thing…maybe it got an early start yesterday?

Trans Day of Vengeance, a weekend of protests for trans/non-binary rights, has been initiated by TRAN (Trans Radical Activist Network) and OURRIGHTSDC, because “visibility” is no longer enough. We resist and denounce the criminalization of transgender identity and violence against our siblings currently happening across the nation. We are fighting for our rights to exist. We are taking back the narratives. We are fighting back. With vengeance, because this is a fight for our survival.

Details are still being worked out, but we will meet at 11am on April 1st in front of the SCOTUS, where we will have a few speakers to kick off

Remember Wayne State professor of English Steven Shapiro? Who said –

Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes, I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.

The president of Wayne State is not charmed.

Dear campus community,

This morning, I was made aware of a social media post by a Wayne State University professor in our Department of English.

The post stated that rather than “shouting down” those with whom we disagree, one would be justified to commit murder to silence them. We have on many occasions defended the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the

Plastics can’t be “recycled.” So-called recycling creates more pollution than it “recycles.” It’s all a big scam.

The disturbing reports on plastic pollution just keep coming: toxic plastic waste is filling up our oceans, our landfills, and even our bodies. But if you’ve seen a recent surge of ads from the companies that produce this garbage, you might be forgiven for thinking they’re working on solutions to the problem.

“America’s Plastic Makers” is the brand promoting a slew of ads about a new “solution” to plastic pollution that experts and evidence say creates new climate and environmental harms, and doesn’t actually work. It’s called “advanced” or chemical recycling, and refers to various processes for repurposing plastic waste. Some of those

Tom Nichols on Trump in Waco:

Almost 30 years after a cult leader caused a disaster in Waco, Trump rallied his own political cult—and the location cannot be a coincidence—in that same Texas city. The Waco tent revival featured the usual Trumpian cast of grifters, carnies, and misfits, including the fan favorites Mike Lindell and Ted Nugent. Most of the former president’s speech was, of course, about himself and his many grievances, and the crowd reportedly began to thin out somewhat early.

I never will understand why a flabby rich guy who never stops talking about himself and his ludicrous grievances is so appealing to The Folk. He’s rich. He’s self-obsessed. He’s greedy. He’s lazy. He’s cruel. He’s … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Glam.

It occurs to me that the way these people talk about, celebrate, and encourage this shit online is similar to what I’ve seen of two other horrid online groups. Specifically those formed around murder and suicide. Looking into either one gets really dark, really quickly. You can see the same sorts of psychological pressures in action, all of which are also present in other high demand groups (i.e., cults). It’s also the same sort of assault on identity, one’s conception of oneself as a continuous entity of worth, that Lifton documented in Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. (Side note: I highly recommend the book. It’s one of … Read the rest