What are the nations going to be talking about in Sharm El-Sheikh this week? Payments due.

Last year’s UN climate conference in Glasgow delivered a host of pledges on emissions cuts, finance, net zero, forest protection and more.

Yay pledges! Unless…they haven’t been carried out?

Egypt says their conference will be about implementing these pledges.

What that really means is it will be all about cash, and specifically getting wealthy nations to come good on their promises of finance to help the developing world tackle climate change.

So expect the main battle lines to be between the north and south, between rich and poor nations.

And expect the rich nations to do the least they can possibly get away with. … Read the rest

The second contributor to the Guardian’s civil war in the US roundup is Stephen Marche, a Canadian novelist and essayist.

One of the surest markers of incipient civil war in other countries is the legal system devolving from a non-partisan, truly national institution to a spoil of partisan war. That has already happened in the US.

The overturning of Roe v Wade, in June, was both a symptom of the new American divisiveness and a cause of its spread. The Dobbs decision (in which the supreme court held that the US constitution does not confer the right to abortion) took the status of women in the US and dropped it like a plate-glass window from a great height. It

In the Guardian three scholars tell us how a civil war could unfold in the US. The first is Barbara F. Walter, political scientist and author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them. She starts by pointing out that a second civil war here won’t resemble the first.

If a second civil war breaks out in the US, it will be a guerrilla war fought by multiple small militias spread around the country. Their targets will be civilians – mainly minority groups, opposition leaders and federal employees. Judges will be assassinated, Democrats and moderate Republicans will be jailed on bogus charges, black churches and synagogues bombed, pedestrians picked off by snipers in city streets, and

I found this pretty exhilarating. (Too exhilarating: I couldn’t sleep afterwards.) It’s streaming until December 2.

About

… Read the rest

They are if they say they are. No really.

A notorious transgender pedophile in Scotland was forced out of his house on October 19 following a citizen’s protest against his presence in a public housing complex in which many children resided.

Katie Dolatowski, 22, a trans-identified male, appeared in Kirkcaldy Sheriff’s Court on October 18 after breaching a probation condition which required Dolatowski [to] inform police of his address changes. Dolatowski is a registered sex offender, and his conditions stem from two incidents involving young girls.

On February 8th, 2018, Dolatowski was caught filming a 12-year-old girl in a women’s bathroom at an Asda supermarket in Fife, Scotland. Dolatowski was with a care aide using the women’s restroom and

Remember Dr Carol Hay? The philosophy academic who mourned the tragic plight of trans women in Ukraine while cheerfully calling actual women “terfs”? She’s still busy living her definition of feminism as a movement for men who call themselves women.

"Who counts as a woman?" is reprinted in this excellent new collection. #byeTERFs https://t.co/trd6Y48BhR

— Carol Hay (@DrCarolHay) October 27, 2022

“Feminist professor of philosophy” her Twitter bio calls her. Yes it’s so feminist to welcome men into feminism, to center men in feminism, and to call feminist women who object rude names.

If 30-plus years of intersectional feminism has taught us anything, it’s that this is precisely the move that feminists need to stop making.

— Carol Hay (@DrCarolHay)

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Smirky little goon.

What they owe her is the courtesy of actually understanding her stance before going public about her.

It is a sign of the times that the trans activists could simply say “transphobe” and have so many people turn on someone, even in many cases, someone they’ve felt respect for, they liked, they spent time with.

It’s the casual betrayal of someone you’ve been close with (to some degree) for years that really gets me. They don’t want to be linked to the pariah. Not because she actually is one, but because everyone else says she is. Radcliffe, Watson and Grint would have had better access than … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on A set of enduring core principles.

The problem is that the Founders were so terrified of democracy that they installed a system with so many “checks and balances” that it’s a recipe for gridlock and lack of accountability. Recent custom has only made this worse through things like requiring 60 votes in the Senate to pass most measures.

In other countries, one party (or a coalition of parties) wins an election, and has more or less free reign to govern as they see fit, subject to some broad restrictions. Then after however many years they have to return to the voters and be judged on their governance. But in the U.S., what … Read the rest

A new literature review is published, experts in the field say it’s terrible.

Important dive into the existing methodologically-sound evidence relevant to policy and practice. https://t.co/zATZu9oiOW

— Jocelyn Downie (@jgdownie) November 3, 2022

I second the suggestion, this time for reasons related to the quality and accuracy of the physiological arguments. There are instances where studies are cited incorrectly, false statements attributed to them. In some, the paper actually concludes the opposite to what is reported.

— Ross Tucker (@Scienceofsport) November 4, 2022

Other than that…… Read the rest

Trans “woman” mocks woman for…having short hair. Progress!

Is constitutional originalism even possible? Does it even mean anything?

Advanced most influentially by Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, two law professors turned judges, originalism contends that the Constitution should be interpreted and enforced on the basis of its “original meaning,” namely what it meant when it was adopted.

But how do we know what it meant when it was adopted? How do we find out what it meant then?

There is a certain appeal to originalism. At a time when the world seems increasingly complicated, originalism, like other forms of fundamentalism, promises simple answers. At a time when distrust of institutions, including courts, is high, originalism purports to tie judges’ hands. And in a divided nation that no longer

Philadelphia Magazine has a list of top influential people in that city. Coming in at number 27 is the ever-popular William “Lia” Thomas, celebrated cheat.

In a profile of Thomas last winter, Sports Illustrated called the elite swimmer “the most controversial athlete in America.” It’s not a title the recent Penn grad ever set out to hold. When Thomas decided to begin her gender transition process in 2019, her aim, she told ESPN, was simply “to be happy, to be true to myself.”

Well he would say that, wouldn’t he. He wasn’t going to say it was in order to take all the prizes.

NCAA rules allowed Thomas, who’d spent three years on Penn’s men’s team, to compete with the

This is not just snide, it’s stupid and wrong.

Giving someone a job, based on the skills they have to offer, does not entitle you to anything other than their performance of the job. You don't expect the plumber you hired 20 years ago to share your views out of "gratitude." https://t.co/RZtFCJeINs

— Joanne Harris (@Joannechocolat) November 3, 2022

JoAnne Harris is a novelist and the Chair of the Society of Authors. Some members of that society think it’s crappy that such a snide cheerleader for trans ideology is in that role.

As for the substance of her comment: nobody is claiming Rowling gave Daniel Radcliffe a job or that he has to share her beliefs out of gratitude. The … Read the rest

David Bell replied to Bernadette Wren’s LRB piece; he paints a drastically different picture of GIDS from the conscientious, thoughtful, torn in many directions one that Wren painted.

As the author of the ‘damning internal report’ referred to by Bernadette Wren, I was one of several people to draw attention to concerns about the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service (LRB, 2 December [2021]). In 2018, between a quarter and a third of the staff working in GIDS sought me out in my role as academic and clinical staff representative on the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust’s council of governors.

They didn’t seek him out to ask about his holiday snaps, they sought him out because they were … Read the rest

Michael Biggs responded to Bernadette Wren’s long piece in the LRB defending the GIDS.

Richard Rorty is a favourite philosopher of Bernadette Wren, and her Diary (‘Epistemic Injustice’, London Review of Books, 2 December 2021) brings to mind his definition of truth as ‘what your contemporaries let you get away with saying’.

Wren blames the disarray in her Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) on the increasing number of referrals starting in 2016. She must know that a whistle-blower, Sue Evans, had already raised concerns over a decade before. The ensuing internal review in 2006 highlighted all the problems that have become familiar: the failure to collect basic data on patients (the unit did not bother to count the number

I’m reading a 5k word piece by Bernadette Wren in the LRB last year. In the first part, at least, she comes across as highly aware of the questionable nature of and risks attached to the gender ideology. Around halfway she gets to the controversies.

I will offer only a few brief reflections on some of the issues over which GIDS has been most vociferously attacked. The first contention is that there wasn’t enough research evidence to enable GIDS to offer medical therapies to young people with confidence. This is an important challenge, but it relies on an idealised conception of medicine as offering effective and safe interventions, based on a wide range of randomised-control studies with extended evaluation.

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

In the therapy room, therapist and client draw on these different vocabularies and matrices of meaning, and our task is always to resist speaking one dimensionally; this is the reflexive work of therapy. The decision to recommend physical treatment for young people is then a genuinely shared but imperfect decision, involving the client, family, other professionals in the context of a wider cultural world, in which the meaning of trans is constantly shaped and re-shaped, but which rests on no foundation of truth. The therapist is not burdened with needing to be right or certain, but to offer a reflexive and thoughtful space to help clients explore the architecture

Narcissism continues its march through the institutions:

A transgender mountain biker dominating the women’s competition has said it’s ‘horrifying’ that critics think people like her are ruining the sport.

People like HIM. Of course people like him will, if allowed, ruin women’s sport.

Kate Weatherly, 20, who began taking hormone blockers when she was 17, said a proposed open competition for transgender athletes would ‘limit their abilities’.

It will “limit their abilities” only in the sense of limiting their ability to cheat by competing against women and thus ruining the women’s sport.

The New Zealand athlete was considered an average rider when she formerly competed in the men’s open division, where she usually finished about mid-pack.

But competing against women … Read the rest

Is that right?

Stochastic Terrorism is when an individual, website or movement doesn’t physically attack you themselves – but knowingly creates the mood so that others do.
Think Donald Trump, the British Gov, the GC movement, Kiwi Farms or Twitter trolls like Alex Belfield. https://t.co/VWCsv5LprO

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) November 2, 2022

In case you can’t read it, it’s “India” Willoughby replying to a tweet about stochastic terror and the violence against Pelosi:

Stochastic Terrorism is when an individual, website or movement doesn’t physically attack you themselves – but knowingly creates the mood so that others do. Think Donald Trump, the British Gov, the GC movement, Kiwi Farms or Twitter trolls like Alex Belfield.

Yes, Donald Trump, Kiwi Farms, gender … Read the rest

Bolsonaro manages what Trump never has and probably never will:

Jair Bolsonaro has reportedly thrown in the towel after his presidential election defeat in Brazil on Sunday, telling members of the supreme court: “It’s over.”

He went silent for nearly two days after being beaten by the leftwing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the vote. When Bolsonaro finally appeared before the cameras on Tuesday afternoon, he failed to explicitly concede defeat or congratulate his vanquisher.

However, shortly after that appearance, he made his way to the supreme court where he met seven of its judges, including Edson Fachin, who later told journalists that Bolsonaro had indicated to them that he understood the writing was on the wall.