All entries by this author

“Activists”

Oct 14th, 2022 4:55 am | By

This made me feel quite ill, but then I learned that the painting is behind glass. The National Gallery says there’s a little damage to the frame, but none to the painting.

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Pushing back

Oct 14th, 2022 4:46 am | By

Pelosi takes charge:… Read the rest



Put ‘er there, pal

Oct 13th, 2022 5:18 pm | By

There was a video going around today of King Choss dissing Liz Truss.

All very well, but what gets my pained attention is the protocol that dictates she has to bow to him. She does it twice, a quick little bob, but it’s still a mandatory cringe. It’s revolting. She’s doing an actual job, however badly, and he’s just a relic of the absurd institution of monarchy. People shouldn’t have to make propitiatory gestures to talentless firstborn sons who have some genes in common with Queen Victoria. It’s silly and it’s degrading.… Read the rest



Cookie Monster was it?

Oct 13th, 2022 3:45 pm | By

A “public order offense.”

What public order offense officers?

“You called someone a muppet.”

You can actually hear them saying that. With a straight face. Four cops.

Meanwhile rape is almost never prosecuted.… Read the rest



A stinging rebuke

Oct 13th, 2022 2:59 pm | By

SCOTUS to Trump: No.

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request from former President Donald J. Trump to intervene in the litigation over documents seized from his Florida estate.

I was wondering about that yesterday. Would even an extremely right-wing court with three out of nine members owing their places there to Trump really be on his side over theft of top secret documents, refusal to give them back, lying about them, threatening people over them? It seems not.

The court’s order, which was a sentence long, was a stinging rebuke to Mr. Trump. There were no noted dissents, and the court gave no reasons, saying only: “The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States

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Fool me 487 times…

Oct 13th, 2022 12:03 pm | By

Gee, I wonder why he did that.

Days before the New York attorney general filed a lawsuit accusing Donald J. Trump and his company of fraud and seeking to shut down some of their business in the state, Mr. Trump’s lawyers created a new company in Delaware.

The new company’s name had a familiar ring to it: the Trump Organization, the same name as his old company, now threatened by the lawsuit. And on Sept. 21, the day the suit was filed, the new Delaware company filed paperwork in New York, seeking to be recognized there as the Trump Organization II.

But it totally won’t be a place to stash all the money so that New York state can’t … Read the rest



The recent spate of bearded men

Oct 13th, 2022 10:54 am | By

Remember those first tweets of JKR’s on the subject? How hedged and cautious and hyper-polite they were?

Those days are over. Yaboosucks.

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Critical of “gender identity”

Oct 13th, 2022 9:14 am | By

The resistance is spreading. There’s a group called Evidence-Based Social Work Alliance.

As a coalition of qualified practitioners, academics and social work students, we came together in response to our individual concerns regarding the uncritical use of gender identity theory in social work and other professions. As a group we believe social workers have a responsibility in law, underpinned by professional ethics and values, to promote and uphold the safeguarding of children. Children and young people with gender dysphoria are presenting to the profession and we are being silenced in our attempts to understand and discuss the evidence-base approaches to exploring this phenomenon.

They have news today:

Social Work England to discontinue case against social worker for “offensive”

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Elon Chamberlain

Oct 13th, 2022 4:25 am | By

I missed this last week. Elon Musk tried to appoint himself “peacemaker” between Ukraine and Russia by telling Ukraine to give Putin what he wants. Ukraine told him to fuck right off. Who does he think he is?

Elon Musk drew backlash on Monday from Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his unsolicited advice on how to bring about “peace” amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.

Who is he to give advice? Who asked him? Who does he think he is?

In a Twitter poll, Musk suggested a path to “Ukraine-Russia Peace” that included re-doing elections “under UN supervision” in the regions of the country recently annexed illegally by Russia. The land grab, covering nearly a fifth of

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Celebrity politics

Oct 13th, 2022 3:16 am | By

UK news media are sycophantically promoting Eddie Izzard’s campaign to be elected a Labour MP for Sheffield. They’re not sycophantically promoting the campaign of Sheffield councillor Abtisam Mohamed. What is it that indicates Izzard would be a good MP? Experience, training, education? Anything?

Abtisam, who has represented Firth Park ward on the council for the Labour Party since 2016, will now seek to be nominated by city party branches.

Abtisam said why she wants to become an MP: “It’s about making sure that the local voice is heard at a national level, being able to challenge the current situation with decisions being made by the Conservatives and the impact that has on us as local communities and on

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$956 million

Oct 12th, 2022 4:34 pm | By

Nearly a billion.

Jurors ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Wednesday to pay nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims’ relatives and an FBI agent, who said he turned their loss and trauma into years of torment by promoting the lie that the rampage was a hoax.

The $956 million verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host for spreading the myth that the massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.

The verdict came in a defamation lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the 2012 shooting, plus an FBI

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Guest post: Biology has been dismissed at every turn

Oct 12th, 2022 11:29 am | By

Originally a comment by iknklast on You have to get water there.

This is my field, building and restoring ecosystems. Doing it on Earth we get it right less than 3% of the time. It is more than just water, and how likely are the lunar poles to provide enough water to keep more than a handful of humans for a short time? Who knows? There is research going on to determine how much water is on the moon…and other planets.

But there are a myriad of things we depend on, many of which we might not even know about. Fungus. Bacteria. Plants. Animals. Protozoans. Water. Soil. Atmosphere.

A moon colony – or any other planet – would not … Read the rest



Speaking of “narratives”…

Oct 12th, 2022 11:18 am | By

The Independent tells us:

Transgender prisoners “with male genitalia” should no longer be held in women’s prisons, the justice secretary has announced.

That is, men should no longer be held in women’s prisons, even if they claim to be trans.

In a parliamentary statement, Brandon Lewis said he would bring forward a new policy on the issue later this year.

“Under the reforms, transgender prisoners with male genitalia should no longer be held in the general women’s estate,” he added.

“This will not be a blanket rule; exemptions to these new rules will be considered on a case-by-case basis. This will also apply to transgender women who have been convicted of a sex offence.”

What will? The rule, or … Read the rest



But are there really?

Oct 12th, 2022 10:20 am | By

I don’t think this claim is true:

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis has spoken out against violence against trans people in a revealing interview with Spain’s Cadena SER radio network. The 63-year-old performer explained how her trans daughter receives death threats, and expressed alarm about the “terrifying” rise in transphobia.

“I have a trans daughter. There are threats against her life just [for] her existence as a human being,” she told Cadena SER on Tuesday. “There are people that want to annihilate her and people like her. The level of hatred… [It’s] as if we haven’t learned from fascism, [as if] we haven’t learned what the result of that is: the extermination of human beings. That is terrifying.”

I … Read the rest



Middle-aged cisgender women

Oct 12th, 2022 6:32 am | By

About this “statement” of Munroe Bergdorf’s, which was apparently made on Instagram, which makes it a pain in the ass to quote or cite – it’s interesting that it starts with insulting women.

Note the disdain – “spurred on by a group of middle-aged cisgender women.” As if there’s something obviously contemptible and illegitimate about adult women having opinions and goals, and acting on them. He sounds like people ranting about “the Jews.” Yes, women are interested in this political movement, partly because it has such immense hostility and disdain toward women. Jews are interested in anti-Semitism and women are interested in men who claim to better women than women are.

Munroe Bergdorf is a man who performs “being a … Read the rest



Solidarity with the body-haters

Oct 12th, 2022 5:58 am | By

LGBT+ Labour @LGBTLabour is “The Labour Campaign for LGBT+ rights. Campaigning for equality since 1975. Affiliated to @UKLabour.” Yesterday it went all-in for Mermaids.

Team Urge Children to Destroy Their Bodies. Yay.… Read the rest



Statements in triplicate

Oct 12th, 2022 5:10 am | By

This seems a bit clumsy.

It’s not just a quick concise statement, either, but a long (to the point of tedium) detailed self-important little essay.

And why are random people issuing “statements” on the subject anyway, as if they were important or informed or otherwise relevant? Why is anyone supposed to care what Jameela Jamil thinks? Why are we consulting her about whether it’s ok to ruin teenagers’ bodies for the sake … Read the rest



Guest post: On earth nature will work hard

Oct 11th, 2022 9:25 am | By

Originally a comment by KB Player on You have to get water there.

All the effort to make something which on earth nature does it by itself even on unpromising sites.

This morning I walked past a piece of “waste” ground, a slab of concrete about two feet from the ground, about 100 yards long and 10 yards wide. It was put in as part of the tram works, probably around 10 years ago.

It is now covered with buddleia, which attracts insects in the summer. There’s a cotoneaster with berries. Soil is building up from the leaves that have fallen and rotted. I did a little guerrilla gardening the year before last and planted some daffodil bulbs, and … Read the rest



Refusal to acknowledge

Oct 11th, 2022 7:31 am | By

Talking about women’s rights is transphobic.

Teachers who discuss sex-based women’s rights with transgender colleagues would be considered “transphobic” under a policy proposed by members of Britain’s largest teaching union.

That is, feminist teachers who talk about feminism with colleagues who call themselves transgender will be branded evil by their own union. People who call themselves trans have all the rights and women have none.

The National Education Union’s trans and non-binary network has proposed that anyone who expects trans people “to participate in discussion or debate about their rights and/or identities” is transphobic.

I wouldn’t want to talk to trans people about it, frankly, because they wouldn’t listen. The trouble is it will probably come up, because … Read the rest



Canary in the bullshit mine

Oct 11th, 2022 6:07 am | By

How “skepticism” has fallen.

https://twitter.com/skepticCanary/status/1579552524344098816

You are what’s in your head, not what your body is. Could it be any more “spiritual” and religion-like? Thoughts determine physical reality; physical reality does not.

It’s all the more fatuous given the emphasis skepticism normally puts on how easy it is to fool ourselves, how difficult it is to see ourselves clearly, how prone we all are to flattering self and disparaging others (like “GC idiots” for instance). There’s all that, but on the other hand there’s also “if you like to fantasize about being a woman then you are a woman.” Puh-leeze.

If you are what’s in your head and not your body, then if you spend enough time fantasizing about being … Read the rest