All entries by this author

If it circulates

Aug 10th, 2022 2:12 pm | By

Polio is back:

The UK Health Security Agency said that, since early February, 116 polioviruses had been identified in 19 sewage samples from boroughs in north-east and central London including Barnet, Camden, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest.

While a small number of polioviruses are detected in sewage in the UK each year, the large number detected over recent months is unusual, and appears to reflect transmission of the virus in the community.

Public health experts said it appeared such transmission was asymptomatic, and was likely to have been caused by an individual recently vaccinated with live oral polio vaccine (OPV) entering the UK. OPV generates excellent gut immunity against polio; however, people who have been recently

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Boston Children’s Hospital

Aug 10th, 2022 7:16 am | By

Wait what?

https://twitter.com/chilljat/status/1557317694722031616

Hysterectomies at a children’s hospital???

No joke.

Meet the Center for Gender Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital:

Gender dysphoria occurs when there is a conflict between the gender you were assigned at birth and the gender with which you identity. This can create significant distress, and you may feel uncomfortable in your body. The Center for Gender Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital offers gender affirmation surgery services to eligible adolescents and young adults who are ready to take this step in their journey. It is the first center of its kind in the U.S. in a major pediatric hospital setting.

Well isn’t that just lovely. Congratulations on your first.

As the first pediatric center in

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Delete all the women

Aug 9th, 2022 4:31 pm | By

The Huffington Post, or Alanna Vagianos who writes for it, or both, doesn’t/don’t know which people do the baby-having.

They know, of course, but they pretend not to.

Emphasis added:

[Kris] Kobach has continually called for the Supreme Court to repeal Roe v. Wade, and believes there should be no exceptions for abortion restrictions. In 2018, Kobach supported legislation to ban all abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected. In 2004, he was a proponent of a bill that requires people seeking an abortion to get an ultrasound and mandates the state to tell patients that an abortion will cause a fetus to feel pain — an often cited anti-choice talking point that has not been scientifically proven.

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Donny and Nige

Aug 9th, 2022 11:21 am | By

Marina Hyde on The Great Intrusion:

FBI raids on former presidents; filing stuff in the U-bend – another hugely uplifting 24 hours in politics. Not for the first time, much of the most unwittingly revealing commentary on it all comes from Trump himself, who says of the raid, “nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before”. Well quite.

Well quite, indeed. Why would that be? Oooh it’s a tough one…let me think hard for a second…oh I know, couldn’t it be because no president of the US has been such a determined criminal before? Not even Nixon?

The whole business has appalled freedom-loving anti-elitist Nigel Farage, who this morning announced himself to be

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A fallen hero

Aug 9th, 2022 10:57 am | By

Some gossip about the Conceptual James v Twitter quarrel:

Even if you’ve never heard of James Lindsay, you probably know a few of his hits.

He was part of that “grievance studies hoax” a few years back, where he and a couple of other anti-woke activists published a handful of ridiculous papers (the most headline-grabbing was arguably one about “rape culture” at Portland dog parks) in academic journals. It became known as the “Sokal Squared Hoax,” and to its admirers it was a devastating exposé of how far the humanities in higher education had sunk in service of identity politics.

The couple of other activists were Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose.

At the time, in

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Boxes of doxes

Aug 9th, 2022 9:56 am | By

Trump is using it to demand more money. Of course he is.

Donald Trump on Tuesday tried to turn the news of an FBI search of his Florida estate to his benefit, citing the investigation in text messages and emails soliciting political donations from his supporters.

“I’m a criminal, send $$$.”

“As they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories and see my dominance in all polls, they are trying to stop the Republican Party and me once more,” Trump said in a fundraising email on Tuesday. “The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt, must be exposed and stopped.”

Therefore, send $$$$$$$.

Eric Trump, one of Trump’s adult children, told Fox News on Monday the search concerned boxes of

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Neither a tent nor the Pentagon

Aug 9th, 2022 6:44 am | By

“Womanhood” is not a tent.

Womanhood is a tent big enough to accommodate Kim Kardashian and trans women, according to Val McDermid, the crime writer, who claims that concern about transgender rights is overblown.

No it’s not; it’s not any kind of tent, big or small. It’s not a tent and it’s not expandable in the sense that it can mean itself and also its opposite. If “woman” can mean “man” then it no longer means “woman,” so what use is it? We still need a word that means what “woman” used to mean, so why not just save ourselves the trouble and stick with the word we already have? If men who consider themselves woman-like want a word … Read the rest



Guest post: The feeling the audience craves

Aug 8th, 2022 5:36 pm | By

Originally a comment by Rob on You must tell the truth while you testify.

I’m sure Jones does know the difference between truth and bullshit. Even between the shades of truth that a complex world throws up. I don’t think he cares. Neither does Trump. Or anyone else in that broad camp. For that matter the same could be said for some on the activist left (TRA’s anybody?). The common thread for all these people with megaphones is that they are appealing to the emotions of their audiences. The words don’t have to be true (and usually are not). They have to evoke the feeling that the audience craves. It’s especially dangerous because it’s addictive, probably in a literal … Read the rest



Occupied

Aug 8th, 2022 4:41 pm | By

Interesting

Former US President Donald Trump has said his Florida home is being raided by the FBI.

Mr Trump said in a statement Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach was being “occupied by a large group of FBI agents”.

Neither the FBI or Department of Justice [has] commented on the reported raid. It is unclear what might have prompted any search warrant.

Maybe it was the story about torn-up papers in the White House toilets.

Updating to add:

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You must tell the truth while you testify

Aug 8th, 2022 10:43 am | By

The war between Alex Jones and truth:

The judge, Maya Guerra Gamble, scolded Jones, after he told untruths at least twice on the stand. “It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth when you testify, but here I am: you must tell the truth while you testify,” she said. “This is not your show.”

Jones tried to interject, saying he had only said what he believed to be the truth.

“You believe everything you say is true, but it isn’t. Your beliefs do not make something true. That is what we’re doing here,” the judge said.

But if he really believes everything he says is true how is he to know it’s not true?… Read the rest



His version of history

Aug 8th, 2022 9:45 am | By

Remember when Trump went to visit Macron for Bastille Day and was all excited about the parade with all the toys and wanted “his” generals to do the same next year?

The generals, to his bewilderment, reacted with disgust. “I’d rather swallow acid,” his Defense Secretary, James Mattis, said. Struggling to dissuade Trump, officials pointed out that the parade would cost millions of dollars and tear up the streets of the capital.

And would be a weirdly militaristic thing to do.

An Air Force general later spelled it out for him.

“So, what do you think of the parade?” Trump asked Selva. Instead of telling Trump what he wanted to hear, Selva was forthright.

“I didn’t grow up in the

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Trump is not toilet-trained

Aug 8th, 2022 9:19 am | By

Say you’re Trump and you want to get rid of certain telltale notes – what do you do? You stuff them down the toilet, of course, flush once and walk away.

Remember our toilet scoop in Axios AM earlier this year? Maggie Haberman’s forthcoming book about former President Trump will report that White House residence staff periodically found wads of paper clogging a toilet — and believed the former president, a notorious destroyer of Oval Office documents, was the flusher.

For the compelling reason that nobody else would be that stupid.

Haberman — who obtained the photos recently — shared them with us ahead of the Oct. 4 publication of her book, “Confidence Man: The Making of

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The representation of all of humanity

Aug 8th, 2022 8:44 am | By

Thought for the day:

By making the term “man” subsume “woman” and arrogate to itself the representation of all of humanity, men have built a conceptual error of vast proportion into all of their thought. By taking the half for the whole, they have not only missed the essence of whatever they are describing, but they have distorted it in such a fashion that they cannot see it correctly. As long as men believed the earth to be flat, they could not understand its reality, its function, and its actual relationship to other bodies in the universe. As long as men believe their experiences, their viewpoint, and their ideas represent all of human experience and all of human thought, they

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Just a tiny bit mixed

Aug 8th, 2022 4:02 am | By

That’s not how it works.

An Irish “LGBTQ+ Inclusive” football team beat out the female competition in the 2022 Junior J Shield Final, claiming a significant margin of victory in every placing that many attribute to the fact a biological male was on the team.

Silly many, what difference would that make?

Na Gaeil Aeracha, which bills itself as Ireland’s “first explicitly LGBTQ+ inclusive” football club was forced to lock down its social media accounts following backlash as sport fans noticed one of the players appeared to be an older man.

Giulia Valentino, a male who identifies as a transgender woman, was playing against young women and girls in the Ladies Gaelic Football Junior J Shield tournament

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Comments against the community

Aug 7th, 2022 4:25 pm | By

A heavy foot on the scale again:

A Tasmania-based lesbian woman and supporter of the anti-trans group LGB Alliance, is raising funds to take her battle to ban trans women and men from her drag shows, to the High Court. 

The LGB Alliance is not “anti-trans.” Journalists get away with such flagrant lies when reporting on trans-related stories. Lies and libel.

That’s the first paragraph; the second is:

Trigger Warning: This story discusses comments against the transgender community, which might be distressing to some readers. For 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For Australia-wide LGBTQI peer support call QLife on 1800 184 527 or webchat.

There’s no such trigger warning for … Read the rest



Sterilizing kids

Aug 7th, 2022 4:06 pm | By

Glinner knocks it out of the park for 15 minutes, starting at 30 minutes.… Read the rest



Lesbians will be breaking the law if

Aug 7th, 2022 2:40 pm | By

That led me to this from a year ago, which I think I missed at the time:

Seriously??

According to The Australian, yes:

Lesbians will be breaking the law if they exclude biological males who are transgender from social events, after a controversial discrimination ruling set to become a national test case.

Lesbians will be breaking the law if they exclude biological males who are transgender from social events, after a controversial discrimination ruling set to become a national test case. … Read the rest



No you without me

Aug 7th, 2022 2:15 pm | By

It seems the slogan “No LGB without the T” is not as popular as it once was.

https://twitter.com/BraddockBessie/status/1555963440962981892 https://twitter.com/dinahbrand2/status/1556293889044221961

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From aggressor to victim

Aug 7th, 2022 11:25 am | By

Amnesty is Thorry You Were Offen-ded.

Amnesty International has said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused after it alleged that Ukrainian forces were flouting international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire.

We deeply regret your feefees but you’re wrong to have them.

Amnesty sparked outrage in Ukraine with the publication of a report on Thursday that accused the military of endangering civilians by establishing bases in schools and hospitals, and launching counterattacks from heavily populated areas.

The head of Amnesty’s Ukraine office resigned in protest, accusing the rights organisation of parroting Kremlin propaganda.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the group had tried to “shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim”.

We see a lot … Read the rest



The increasing thirst of the atmosphere

Aug 7th, 2022 10:37 am | By

You don’t like the drought? Ok have a flood.

Photographer John Sirlin was in a canyon in the northeast part of Death Valley National Park late Thursday to shoot lightning in an expected thunderstorm.

Then the lightning petered out and the storm became a nonstop torrential downpour that lasted for hours, bringing near-record rainfall to one of the hottest, driest places on Earth.

Which isn’t what you want in drought conditions. You want slow steady non-torrential rain that has time to soak in, not a blast that washes away all the topsoil.

More analysis will be needed to determine whether climate change helped drive the storm’s intensity. But its extreme nature is consistent with what can be expected as

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