Again with the sloppy “trans rights!!!!” without defining trans rights.

But what ARE trans rights? Of course trans people should have human rights. Do you mean new rights, specific to trans people? If so you really need to tell us what they are before you order us to endorse them with no ifs or buts.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 24, 2022

It's not a coincidence that you can only talk in meaningless general platitudes. That's because once we are clear on what these claimed "rights" actually are, we say hell no get out of here. https://t.co/YxwtmqOyXw

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 24, 2022

Define "trans rights." Of course trans people have human rights, but what are specifically trans rights?

The Sun says it’s sorry.

The Sun newspaper says it regrets publishing a Jeremy Clarkson column about the Duchess of Sussex and is “sincerely sorry”.

What was its first clue?

I still don’t see why the editor or editors didn’t read it the first time and say “Ffs he can’t say that” and simply take it out. Even if you think Markle is scheming and manipulative and fake, you don’t get to say poisonous degrading things about her in a much-read tabloid.

Neil Wallis, media commentator and former editor at the Sun and News Of The World, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme Clarkson was failed by the editorial team.

“The bottom line of this is this is a

Some responses to the ACLU’s triumph in Connecticut:

In other words, women and girls don't have the right to equal access to sporting opportunities and achievements. https://t.co/oY5wDgAnsy

— ZombieTron (@ZombieTron) December 24, 2022

"Equal and fair play" https://t.co/MKcim9xASG pic.twitter.com/cW8OzwiSyO

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) December 24, 2022

I no longer donate to the @ACLU . They are not about fairness. They certainly aren't about free speech. They only care about erasing women's and girl's opportunities. https://t.co/Aqo7Wr99QS

— AllTheThingsICannotSay (@All_I_CannotSay) December 23, 2022

“Trans youth have a right to equal and fair play.”

Women, apparently do *not* have a right to equal and fair play in your mind.

Cc @PolitiBunny https://t.co/e2WatSbmMR

—1) (@AaronWorthing) December 22, 2022

If this is taken

It never ceases to amaze, the smugness, the shy self-flattery, the absolute indifference to the concerns and rights of women.

I will be proud to vote to extend trans rights today.#GRRbill#TransRightsAreHumanRights pic.twitter.com/l1wkSXvIN6

— Richard Leonard (@LabourRichard) December 22, 2022

He will be (and was) proud to vote to take rights away from women and hand them over to men. What a thing to be proud of.

He starts from the position that, as a socialist, he believes in equality. What does equality have to do with pretending that some men are women? What does it have to do with ignoring all the women who object?

“Trans people are among the most discriminated against,” he sermonizes, while ignoring the … Read the rest

What utter morons.

“Historic day for equality” – what’s it got to do with equality????

Not one thing. It’s not equality to get governments to affirm that you are something you’re not. If a small segment of people decided to start identifying as bears it wouldn’t be “equality” for the government to pass a law saying those people really truly are bears. It would be ridiculous, embarrassing, baffling, weird, incomprehensible, but not For Equality.

If a small segment of bears decided to start identifying as people it wouldn’t be “equality” for the government to pass a law saying everyone has to welcome the bears and give them all the rights and privileges that people have.

It’s not “equality” for … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Working with.

WAIT!

WE NEED A LOGO!

It’s gotta fit into a corner of our poster-like images. We could use it on our letterhead, if we ever bothered to commit anything to paper. Or pay for postage. Our logo has to be something convincing enough to make people think we’re more authentic and bigger than we really are boldly dynamic, engagingly synergystic, with exponentially mobilized potential to leverage strategic, global-stakeholder partnerships. Something Institutional. Without one, how will anyone be able to tell our Official Institute Communications from those of some ersatz, wannabe “Institute” that’s just somene else with a laptop? We have to have some way for our marks… Read the rest

Originally a comment by John Wasson on Chiseling away.

Loss of glaciers and sea ice means less sunlight is reflected.

As glaciers grind over ground they free up mercury in rocks and 42 tonnes may be released from south-west Greenland ice sheet. Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/s4a561-021-99753-w

New Scientist May 29 2021 p. 21

As the world warms and the Greenland ice sheet melts, its fresh cold water is expected to slow down a dominant conveyor belt of ocean currents: the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). An AMOC collapse would leave an excess of heat in the tropical South Atlantic, which would trigger a series of air-pressure changes that ultimately strengthen the Pacific trade winds.

The good news is … Read the rest

When news outlets and dictionaries lie:

Fact Check-Cambridge Dictionary expanded, not replaced its definition of “woman”

When it comes to definitions, expansion can be replacement. If you expand the definition of “apple” to include bananas, cherries, apricots, papayas, and tangerines, it’s no longer a definition of “apple.”

The Cambridge Dictionary updated its definition of the word “woman” to include a further definition that includes transgender women. However, social media users sharing the new definition mistakenly claim the dictionary replaced existing definitions of “woman” with the description.

See above. If you “expand” the definition of “woman” to include “trans woman” then the definition is no longer a definition of “woman”; you have replaced it. The social media users were not … Read the rest

Just depressing. Adult human female mocking adult human females who don’t believe in magic gender. Adult human female who is a Lib Dem councillor mocking adult human females who don’t believe in magic gender.

How many transphobes does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Currently none, as they live in the dark. We can only hope they get to have a light bulb moment at some point in the future.

— Prue Bray (@PrueBray) December 23, 2022

Hur hur, so funny. Why won’t women just shut up and wave all their rights goodbye?

Bray is a councillor in Wokingham, and that’s not even a joke – it’s a real town, 7 miles from Reading.… Read the rest

On a more cheerful note – South Ken Natural History Museum T rex gets Xmas jumper:

The animatronic T.rex is sporting the festive knit, which has been made by a family-run firm in Leicester.

British Christmas Jumpers has previously produced sweaters for Ed Sheeran and the Houses of Parliament.

Director Snahal Patel said the latest design was the company’s biggest job yet and took staff 100 hours to complete.

When did we all decide that it’s ok to invent new rights out of thin air and then impose them on everyone else no matter how batshit zogborst they are?

I say we never did all decide that, it’s just that a few people did, but they’ve had amazing and horrifying success in imposing this sleight of hand on the rest of us.

Like so:

What rights? What rights?? What rights of trans people are we talking about? There is no human right to force everyone else to believe one’s fantasies about one’s own precious self. That. is. not. a. human. right.

How did so many people so swiftly let themselves be convinced that it is? Especially governments and … Read the rest

The NY Times first reported Hannity’s admission that he lied.

On Nov. 30, 2020, Sean Hannity hosted Sidney Powell on his prime-time Fox News program. As she had in many other interviews around that time — on Fox and elsewhere in right-wing media — Ms. Powell, a former federal prosecutor, spun wild conspiracy theories about what she said was “corruption all across the country, in countless districts,” in a plot to steal re-election from the president, Donald J. Trump.

At the center of this imagined plot were machines from Dominion Voting Systems, which Ms. Powell claimed ran an algorithm that switched votes for Mr. Trump to votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. Dominion machines, she insisted, were being used “to

Oh, interesting.

Fox News star Sean Hannity – one of former President Donald Trump’s strongest allies on the air and one of his closest advisers off it – admitted under oath that he never believed the lie that Trump was cheated of victory in the 2020 presidential election by a voting tech company.

That stands in contrast to what played out on some of Fox’s biggest shows – including Hannity’s. On television, Fox News hosts, stars and guests amplified and embraced such wild and false claims, made by Trump, his campaign lawyers and surrogates, presenting them to millions of viewers.

“Stands in contrast to” is a euphemism for “this purported news reader lied repeatedly”…thus helping the liar Trump to … Read the rest

Some replies to the ACLU’s smug triumph at trashing girls’ sports:

Great work ruining the dreams of girl and young women athletes! Whose “civil liberties” matter to you today?

— Bev Jackson (@BevJacksonAuth) December 17, 2022

If trans youth have a right to equal & fair play, why allow them in opposite sex categories? Fair & equal means same sex sport. Trans id-ing girls take F disadvantage into M sport & trans id-ing boys take M advantage into F sport.
As you were.
Males are more equal than females.

— Cathy Devine (@cathydevine56) December 17, 2022

https://twitter.com/MujerGuerrera78/status/1604166935440146432

This is not "equal and fair play" for girls and women.

How dare you. As a young girl, I wanted to be an

I kept meaning to get back to that ruling that it’s fine for huge hulking boys to compete against girls as long as the boys say they are trans girls. The ACLU is delighted to see girls deprived of opportunities and wins in this way.

VICTORY: Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a student athletic policy in Connecticut allowing transgender students to play on the teams consistent with their gender identity.

Trans youth have a right to equal and fair play.

— ACLU (@ACLU) December 16, 2022

They’re such liars these days. The issue isn’t “trans youth” or “transgender students”; the issue is boys invading girls’ sports. “Trans youth” are not an issue for the boys, but boys … Read the rest

Joan Smith on the disaster in Scotland yesterday:

So crazed are MSPs by this ideology that on Tuesday evening they voted down an amendment that would have placed barriers in the way of convicted sex offenders who seek to apply for a GRC, complete with a new female name. They even rejected an amendment — proposed by Michelle Thomson, an SNP MSP who has waived anonymity to reveal her own experience of being raped when she was fourteen years old — that would have paused the process of acquiring a certificate for men charged with sexual offences.

This is an extremely troubling development. Let’s not forget that the SNP-Green government has pressed ahead with the legislation even after Lady

This is scary.

Current predictions of ice melt in the Arctic are probably way off. According to an updated model, glaciers in the icy north could be slipping into the sea up to 100 times faster than previously forecasted.

Too bad they couldn’t have been way off in the other direction. Arctic ice melting way more slowly than we thought! But no, always it’s faster.

Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) think they’ve figured out at least part of the problem.

Gaps in data meant that climate scientists have been plugging in observations from accessible glaciers to build models of how all glaciers melt.

But what’s happening to the Antarctic ice sheet amid

The “Institute” has been tweeting a lot of posters lately…including, of course, the give us money kind.

pic.twitter.com/bymT3YxzKQ

— Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (@LemkinInstitute) December 20, 2022

What does that mean? Works with them how? It’s very vague and general – could mean anything or nothing. Is that an accident? Or could it be because they don’t actually do anything? Except self-promotion?

pic.twitter.com/r2mJxsGMec

— Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (@LemkinInstitute) December 20, 2022

Contribution for what purpose? What do they do?… Read the rest

I've sometimes been accused of being a psychopath and a liar for accusing GCs and their fascist allies of promoting genocide of trans people. The Lemkin Institute agrees with me.https://t.co/kBkf8U9rzM

— Roz Kaveney (@RozKaveney) December 21, 2022

A person agrees with him.

Take it up with the world's premiere anti-genocide organization. I can't rewrite their link.

— Roz Kaveney (@RozKaveney) December 22, 2022

Hoo-boy – where did he get that idea? It’s not the world’s premiere anything. It’s an obscure academic and her website.

H/t Mostly Cloudy.… Read the rest

So, they’ve done it.

The Scottish Parliament has passed legislation which aims to make it easier for transgender people to change their legally recognised gender.

At the expense of women.

Campaign groups have warned that the reforms – which seek to make the process for people to obtain a gender recognition certificate easier – could risk the safety of women and girls.

Will. Not could, but will.

However, supporters of the changes insist that it is about simplifying the process and removing hurdles within the current requirements.

That’s not a however, it’s just an and. Of course it’s about simplifying the process and removing hurdles, which is what makes it a risk to the safety of women and girls.… Read the rest