Originally a comment by Papito on Can’t a guy get a sunburn in peace?

I see three things going on here:

Sound familiar? I definitely hear echoes of that old, regressive belief that sinister people are responsible for weird weather in today’s attempt to pin heatwaves on the rich or on coal-mining or on motorists. Environmentalism has rehabilitated in pseudo-scientific form the age-old instinct to find the witch or the sinner who is to blame for society’s misfortunes.

One part is just sticking his thumb in the liberals’ eye. This is a big part of why we got Trump in the US and you got Brexit in England. There’s no real calculation among these followers, just spite. I thought of … Read the rest

Brendan O’Neill’s empty formulaic “Look at the lefties making a big fuss about climate change which everyone knows isn’t a thing” piece:

Is anyone else tiring of all this green hysteria over the heatwave? There is something medieval about it. There is something creepily pre-modern in the idea that sinful mankind has brought heat and fire and floods upon himself with his wicked, hubristic behaviour. What next – plagues of locusts as a punishment for our failure to recycle?

Cute, but beside the point. Literary criticism isn’t the right tool for doing away with global warming. It really doesn’t matter whether or not Brendan O’Neill is bored by talk of climate change, what matters is that it’s happening and … Read the rest

That one weird trick of saying something self-involved and ridiculous, and then answering all questions with variations on “Why would you ask that?”

The thing about woke rainbow-haired queer neurodivergent genderwoo overeducated rootless anxious precarious chronically ill and/or cat-owning and/or geeky weirdo social justice snowflakes is that, well-

There are quite a lot of us.

And we matter, just as much as anyone else.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) July 19, 2022

“Overeducated.” Really? Any evidence for that? I’d have said under.

What makes you ask?

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) July 19, 2022

He asked in response to your absurd tweet!

No. What a strange thing to say. Why would I?

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) July 19, 2022

Because you’re not… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany Room 8.

We as a species are now taking part in a real life version of a particularly fiendish iteration of the “trolley problem,” in which we are pondering whether or not to throw the switch, riding in the trolley, and tied to the tracks all at the same time. We are the dinosaurs and the asteroid. Our current situation is an unprecedented superposition of disasters and catastrophes reinforcing each other and reverberating around the globe. The greatest threat to our way of life comes from our way of life. Climate, biodiversity, water, food, resources, war. The people who are in the position to control the situation (to the … Read the rest

Sure, kids, go play with the chainsaw, just wear a sunhat and you’ll be fine.

It was with some trepidation that I set off into the hills of Pyrenees Orientales on Saturday. The temperature was forecast to rise to 37°C by the afternoon – a level that is lethal, according to British news sites, even if you are sitting around in the garden. Apparently, today and tomorrow’s heatwave is going to kill thousands of Britons. 

Haw haw, aren’t people stupid for understanding that excessive heat kills.

Was I going to end up being recorded in the local French newspapers as the foolish Englishman who perished after going out in the midday sun? I needn’t have worried. I didn’t see

Researchers are investigating how humans deal with extreme heat.

One thing is for sure, scientists say: The heat waves of the past two decades are not good predictors of the risks that will confront us in the decades to come. Already, the link between greenhouse-gas emissions and sweltering temperatures is so clear that some researchers say there may soon no longer be any point trying to determine whether today’s most extreme heat waves could have happened two centuries ago, before humans started warming the planet. None of them could have.

…

When the mercury is high, we aren’t as effective at work. Our thinking and motor functions are impaired. Excessive heat is also associated with greater crime, anxiety,

Europe is getting it in the neck.

Scientists say the persistent extreme heat already this year is in keeping with a trend. Heat waves in Europe, they say, are increasing in frequency and intensity at a faster rate than almost any other part of the planet, including the Western United States.

Global warming plays a role, as it does in heat waves around the world, because temperatures are on average about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) higher than they were in the late 19th century, before emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases became widespread. So extreme heat takes off from a higher starting point.

But beyond that, there are other factors, some involving the circulation of

It occurs to me that “mother” and “father” (and their equivalents in other languages) must be the most emotionally loaded words in any language. We all have them and many of us grow up to be one or the other. We wouldn’t exist without the people behind the words. The words matter. Right? I’m not suggesting some weird incomprehensible notion, yeah?

Now this:

Attention women in Australia:

On the form to put our newborn baby on our Medicare card, we are referred to as “birthing parent”.

Enough is enough.

This absolute bullsh*t is exclusionary, alienating and derogatory towards every woman wants to be and is called “mother”. pic.twitter.com/li8vQSWGu6

— Sall Grover (@salltweets) July 19, 2022

A government bureaucracy pretends … Read the rest

Promoted on Facebook.

This important procedure – yes what could be more important than doing expensive surgery on the face of a man who wants to look like a woman. Prosthetic limbs for children who have stepped on mines in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, to name one category.… Read the rest

Another way the lunatic right is destroying everything:

Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America’s future battles against infectious diseases.

Because that’s what we want, right? To be helpless in the face of pandemics?

Galvanized by what they’ve characterized as an overreach of COVID-related health orders issued amid the pandemic, lawyers from the three overlapping spheres — conservative and libertarian think tanks, Republican state attorneys general, and religious liberty groups — are aggressively taking on public health mandates and the government agencies charged with protecting community health.

Because it’s bad to protect community health. What we … Read the rest

Battlefront France:

Western France is facing a “heat apocalypse”, experts have warned, as extreme temperatures continue to hit much of Europe.

Temperatures could reach record levels in 15 regions of the southwest, with firefighters battling wildfires and thousands forced to evacuate. Blazes in Spain, Portugal and Greece have forced thousands more to flee.

Record temperatures are also expected in parts of the UK, which has its first ever red extreme heat warning in place. Wildfires in France in recent days have forced over 24,000 people to flee, with emergency shelters set up for evacuees.

It was like that in this part of the world a year ago. The town of Litton in British Columbia burned to the ground. … Read the rest

More on religious interference with medical treatment in Washington state:

For years, religiously affiliated hospitals have merged with secular health care systems, often with disruptions to services like reproductive health care. About half of health care systems in Washington are affiliated with religious organizations, which means that even with state-level and national protections for abortion, hospitals in Washington can deny or restrict reproductive health care based on religious protocols. The result is a patchwork of reproductive health policies that vary by hospital, and can leave patients confused or without care altogether.

It’s bizarre. It’s also evil and infuriating, but the bizarreness is puzzling. I don’t understand why they’re allowed to do this. I don’t think engineers get to design … Read the rest

It’s not just the Supreme Court ruling though.

Washington is just one of a handful of states in which more than 40% of hospital beds are controlled by Catholic doctrine. This shift became more acute with the 2021 merger of Virginia Mason and CHI Franciscan, creating Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, which operates 11 hospitals and 300 sites of care. With that merger, Virginia Mason said it would “not become Catholic,” according to reporting by The News Tribune, but it also would no longer provide “elective” abortions or participate in the state’s Death with Dignity process.

A distinction without a difference. Nobody gives a shit whether Virginia Mason is playing with rosary beads or not, the point is that it … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Who stole the dino emoji?

As far as “ownership” of dinosaurs goes, the “genderqueer community” are at the end of a very, very long line of other people and institutions that got there first. Waterhouse Hawkins’ Crystal Palace dinosaurs (which outlasted the Crystal Palace itself) were unveiled in 1854, just a little more than a dozen years after Richard Owen’s coinage of the word “dinosaur” itself.

They’ve been up for grabs ever since, used by everyone from museums, gas companies (Sinclair), toy manufacturers, to movie studios, to make money. If the trans/queer paleoart community wants to make some sort of IP claim, they’ll have their work work cut out for them. … Read the rest

The BBC Radio 4 program The Moral Maze discussed abortion yesterday. Unfortunately the head of Abortion Rights UK, Kerry Abel, had to weaken and muddle her own argument by doing the usual. Starting at about 11 minutes:

Anne McElvoy: “You believe very strongly in bodily autonomy, because it’s a woman’s body, am I correct?”

Kerry Abel: “Women n pregnant people, yup.”

AM: “That there is bodily autonomy and – so far it is women who have babies isn’t it?”

KA: “It depends if they refer to themselves as a woman [inaudible]”

AM: “That is a different show, but let’s” – she asks about fetal viability and the moral issue, whether there is one.

KA… Read the rest

There literally are Savita Halappanavar cases happening in the US now. Lindsey Tanner at the Associated Press reports:

Even in medical emergencies, doctors are sometimes declining immediate treatment. In the past week, an Ohio abortion clinic received calls from two women with ectopic pregnancies — when an embryo grows outside the uterus and can’t be saved — who said their doctors wouldn’t treat them. Ectopic pregnancies often become life-threatening emergencies and abortion clinics aren’t set up to treat them.

In an ectopic pregnancy the fetus is doomed no matter what, so deciding to wait until the woman is hemorrhaging is futile as well as murderous.

Dr. Jessian Munoz, an OBGYN in San Antonio, Texas, who treats high-risk pregnancies, said medical

The Boston public radio station WBUR did a conversational show several months ago about dinosaur emojis.

Emoji might not be 66 million years old, but they are pretty much everywhere. Join Ben and Amory as they explore the history of dinosaur emoji in LGBTQ+ communities and their more recent use as an online dog-whistle for anti-trans activists. What happens when one symbol is used for conflicting reasons? And can the dinosaur emoji avoid redefinition — or extinction?

…

Ben: So I want us to explore this. This specific thing that is happening with this specific set of emoji that’s really become this heated debate involving who gets to own the meaning of symbols, specifically the symbols that we all

When satire is all too much like reality. The Babylon Bee:

Cigarette maker Marlboro has announced that they have added puberty blockers to cigarettes to make them legal for kids.

“Now that our smooth Marlboro cigarettes can block puberty, 13 and 14-year-old kids should be able to use them legally, without parental consent,” said a spokesperson for the company. 

Cited as “lung-affirming care,” the cigarette manufacturer’s decision to supplement their products with puberty blockers has caused progressives to praise Marlboro as a true advocate for children’s health.

…

Critics have pointed out the cigarette manufacturer’s sordid history of using deceptive marketing tactics to make young, susceptible populations think cigarettes were cool. But these critics were quickly and violently silenced

The utter patronizing stupidity of these people.

It's time to update your protest signs.

We know change isn't easy, but we're going to explain a few key messages that will make your signs more effective and inclusive for your next protest! 🧵

— REPRO Rising Virginia (@REPRORising_VA) July 14, 2022

Of course by “inclusive” they don’t mean what sane people mean by “inclusive.” Of course they mean exclude women by talking about people instead of women.

1. Use gender inclusive language!

It is exclusionary to only center cisgender women in pro-abortion messaging. Not all people who can get pregnant identify as women.

It's an easy fix! Just put "people" instead of "women" when making your next sign pic.twitter.com/Pik0IVT9nk

— REPRO

For your reading enjoyment, a comment by philospher Daniel Kaufman in reply to a comment on a guest post at his blog Electric Agora:

Let me just be very clear, since I keep getting pulled into this imbecile conversation with the Manne Fan.

1. If you think that the abortion catastrophe we just experienced calls for referring to women as ‘impregnables’, you are either batshit crazy or too stupid to count your toes.

2. If you think this is a good idea politically; that it will strengthen the pro choice coalition, you are a fool and should be kept far away from politics if the Democrats are to have a chance of winning.

3. Telling your elders and betters