Oh well, he’s exceptionally gifted, so that’s ok then.

A teenage boy who used his phone to film young girls undressed in a changing area at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin has been spared a custodial sentence and a criminal record.

The 17-year-old “exceptionally gifted student”, who cannot be named because he is a minor, had pleaded guilty to two offences under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act for knowingly possessing two videos on his mobile phone at the centre in Blanchardstown on a date in 2022. He was aged 14 at the time.

Garda James Grogan had said the teen used his phone, which was placed on a kiosk floor, to film girls aged five and nine

What it was like on the inside:

Security agents escorted the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture out of her office on Monday after she refused to comply with her firing by the Trump administration, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, had earlier told colleagues that she intended to stay after the White House terminated her Friday, saying that she didn’t believe the administration had followed proper protocols, the sources said.

In an email to colleagues on Saturday, reviewed by Reuters, she said the independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency “has taken the position that these termination notices do not comply with

So there are some checks on Trump and his loonies. Good to know.

The White House budget office rescinded a memo ordering a broad freeze on federal grants and loans after Republican senators “hit the ceiling” over the order, which caught them completely by surprise and created confusion in their home states.

…

“Republicans were starting to hit the ceiling because the state governments, people in our states were coming to us saying, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait. What does this mean? Does it mean we’re going to lose funding for X, Y, Z?’” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the uproar behind closed doors caused by the memo. “As drafted the initial memo sounded so broad,

Amnesty does its favorite fingers-in-ears childish repetition thing yet again.

Transgender rights are human rights.
Transgender rights are human rights.
Transgender rights are human rights.
Transgender rights are human rights.
Transgender rights are human rights.

— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) January 28, 2025

As always: of course trans people have human rights. That doesn’t mean there are special new rights just for trans people, and Amnesty conspicuously fails to say what it means by “transgender rights.” Is there a “transgender right” for men to plant themselves in women’s toilets and changing rooms and organizations? No, but we can be pretty sure Amnesty thinks there is. It’s interesting that it’s careful not to spell that out though.… Read the rest

Ah. We’re at concentration camps already.

President Donald Trump signed a memo Wednesday that sets in motion preparations for a facility to house thousands of migrants at the U.S. military camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which he said was an effort to “halt the border invasion.”

“I hereby direct the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States,” the memo to the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department says.

Trump previewed the directive at a signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act,

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Ok ok we take it back.

An interesting article from Salon, “MAGA’s true believers don’t understand capitalism — Trump will teach them a hard lesson.”

The highlights

America is a nation at war with its mythologies.

For all the electoral postmortems about the desire for economic change, what’s unsurprisingly absent is what seems, to me, an obvious omission: an all-enveloping misunderstanding of American capitalism.

(…)

With due respect to the many Americans who voted for Donald Trump, their overwhelming sense of entitlement dwarfs that of the hard-working immigrants who cut their grass, scrub pots and pans in the restaurants they frequent, and care for their kids and elderly loved ones. Too

One rule for me, another for thee.

A story in 3 parts

So a women’s centre decided to have a community pop-up.
Crafts, advice, self-defence etc
Sounds good
1/3 pic.twitter.com/jN59S42wRi

— Caro Betts (@BettsCaro) January 29, 2025

So it’s been cancelled
Because heaven forfend women should have any space at all
But no conflict of interests. Right?
3/3@SexMattersOrg @MForstater @HJoyceGender @jk_rowling pic.twitter.com/sammoD5HLR

— Caro Betts (@BettsCaro) January 29, 2025

All women’s centres pop-ups have been paused from the 30th January onwards.

Mind you…the event itself sounds like all my worst nightmares in one place. Quiet/prayer space? Crafts and more crafts and more crafts?? Blrrrghh. But that’s not the point. The point is all this stupid relentless bullying.… Read the rest

Don’t mention the man.

A second teenage footballer has been handed a six-match ban for asking whether adult transgender opponents she was playing were men.

An 18-year-old who, Telegraph Sport has been told, has both ADHD and learning difficulties, was sanctioned by a National Serious Case Panel in a case with parallels to that for which a 17-year-old girl with suspected autism was handed a similar suspension.

The second teen was charged by her county FA over comments she made to a referee during a match in September, the same month she turned 18. It was alleged she said: “Ref, have you checked if all of their players are eligible to play? Look at their ’keeper and for example

Oh honestly, is this how it’s going to be? They throw a bomb, the shouting is too loud, they haul the bomb back? Government by toddlers?

The White House budget office on Wednesday rescinded an order freezing federal grants, according to a copy of a new memo obtained by The Washington Post, after the administration’s move to halt spending earlier this week provoked a backlash.

In a memo dated Wednesday and distributed to federal agencies, Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, states that OMB memorandum M-25-13 “is rescinded.” That order, issued Monday, instructed federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.”

In other … Read the rest

Trump is setting fire to the entire federal government.

The Trump administration has offered buyouts to almost all of the roughly 3 million people who work for the US government if they leave their jobs by 6 February, as the White House attempts to gut the civil service.

The US office of personnel management (OPM), the government’s human resources agency, sent an email to the entire federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating. They included a full-time return to the office for most employees.

The email said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct”, aiming to retain only employees who were “reliable, loyal, trustworthy”. It

So even the Holocaust has to be inclooosive now. I did not see that on the horizon.

Holocaust Memorial Day is about the holocaust of Jews under the Nazi regime. End of story. It’s not a grab bag. It’s not about Everyone.

Updating to add: Ok I overstated it – see Naif’s comment @ 2. It’s about the holocaust of Jews and others in the Nazi death camps. It’s not about post-Nazi genocides.

The truth is there should be a new Memorial Day, or rather a God damn it stop DOING THIS day, to recognize AND DISCOURAGE all these post-1945 genocides that keep happening. Have one of those days every month, or every day, since we can’t seem to … Read the rest

Rape Crisis Scotland still determined to taunt and bully women who have been raped.

A rape crisis charity embroiled in a transgender row has dropped a pledge to issue a definition of women, The Telegraph can reveal.

Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) admitted it was no longer planning to publish a definition, despite previously promising to do so, following the recommendations of independent expert review.

Of course we shouldn’t need a definition, since we already know, and have all along, but because RCS is so determined to play silly buggers, here we are.

Vicky Ling was commissioned to investigate Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) after a damning tribunal ruling found it was operating an “extreme” version of gender identity theory under

Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic:

Until recently, Russia was the most important state seeking to undermine European institutions. Vladimir Putin has long disliked the EU because it restricts Russian companies’ ability to intimidate and bribe European political leaders and companies, and because the EU is larger and more powerful than Russia, whereas European countries on their own are not. Now a group of American oligarchs also want to undermine European institutions, because they don’t want to be regulated—and they may have the American president on their side. Quite soon, the European Union, along with Great Britain and other democracies around the world, might find that they have to choose between their alliance with the United States and their ability

This clip is an oldy, but it’s still interesting.

Yes.

Michael Ann Devito is an Assistant Professor in Khoury College of Computer Sciences, with a joint appointment in the Department of Communication Studies. She works in the areas of AI & Social Justice and Extraordinary HCI. Dr. Michael Ann DeVito (she/her) is a qualitative, interdisciplinary researcher and designer. She studies how users and communities understand and adapt to the challenges of AI and machine learning-driven sociotechnical environments…

Michael Ann most often acts as a member-researcher, employing her own positionality as a neurodivergent, transgender lesbian as a key tool in her grounded theory-based approach.

Such as sharing clips of himself warbling that if you … Read the rest

Yeah great, let’s throw all those unemployed little kids off school lunch programs.

CNN’s Pamela Brown asks Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) about President Trump’s administration pausing aid for federal grants and loans that could affect millions of Americans. McCormick defended President Trump’s move and argues that aid programs, including ones that help vulnerable students eat lunch at school, should be evaluated.

And in order to “evaluate” the programs it’s necessary to snatch them away first, because poor people, especially children, must be punished.… Read the rest

Noah Berlatsky on The Terror:

Donald Trump spent the first week of his second term using the presidency to glorify political violence and weaponize the threat of it against anyone who might consider criticizing him.

Trump pulled the security detail from former chief White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is an enemy of MAGA thanks to his efforts to fight covid. He also ended security details for his former National Security Advisor John Bolton and his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both of whom have been targeted by Iran because they worked to advance Trump’s hard-line policies during his first term.

Bolton of course is an outspoken Trump critic, but Pompeo campaigned for his former boss

Reuters tells us

California on Tuesday denied President Donald Trump’s claim that the U.S. military entered the state to release more water in the wake of deadly wildfires.

In a Truth Social post late on Monday, Trump wrote: “The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond.” California’s Department of Water Resources responded hours later.

“The military did not enter California. The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful,” the agency said early on Tuesday in an X post.

On Sunday, he ordered the federal government

Wut?

The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water,…

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) January 28, 2025

Wtf is that even supposed to mean? Is there a giant faucet in Redding or somewhere that a couple of majors “turned on” to send all the water here to LA County?

No, so what’s he babbling about?

Also it’s not a Fake Environmental argument that the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades gets more rain than LA County, it’s just reality. LA … Read the rest

Trump’s revenge:

The Justice Department said Monday that it fired several career lawyers involved in prosecuting Donald Trump, escalating the president’s campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies.

The employees worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation that led to now-dismissed indictments against Trump over his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Two extremely serious crimes that he committed basically in front of our faces, especially the attempted theft of the election.

As a country we’re rolling around in the mire like a herd of hyperactive pigs.

“Today, Acting Attorney General James McHenry terminated the employment of a number of

Trump is not messing around: he’s already bullying Denmark to underline his rude demands that it give him Greenland.

Donald Trump had a fiery phone call with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen over his demands to buy Greenland, according to senior European officials.

Speaking to the Financial Times, officials said that Trump, then still president-elect, spoke with Frederiksen for 45 minutes last week, during which he was described [as] aggressive and confrontational about Frederiksen’s refusal to sell Greenland to the US.

He doesn’t get to order any head of state to give the state to him. Who does he think he is?

The Financial Times reports that according to five current and former senior European officials who were briefed