Maybe it’s the name.

In October, Donald Trump announced he was planning to launch a revolutionary technology company.

“I created Truth Social… to stand up to the tyranny of big tech,” he said.

By which he meant a Twitter clone that would let him tell any lies and scream any insults he wanted to.

The app launched on Presidents’ Day, 21 February, but six weeks later is beset by problems. A waiting list of nearly 1.5 million are unable to use it.

Truth Social looks a lot like Twitter, which banned Mr Trump from posting on the platform after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol on 6 January, 2021. Twitter contended that Donald Trump, by making false

Hahahahahahaha I love it when that happens.

It happened to me once. I was arguing with some guy in comments at Crooked Timber (this was a long time ago) and he told me I would benefit from reading this amusing satirical guide to rhetoric on a website called Butterflies and Wheels. That was fun.… Read the rest

Hey what’s the deal with people having names that are spelled funny? Huh? What are they trying to do? Are they crazy or something?

Three days into his first term as a Republican congressman, Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer, then just 33, pulled on a smoke hood and fled the Capitol as rioters invaded the House chamber on January 6. He later voted to certify the election results and ended up being one of nine Republicans to vote to impeach President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the insurrection. Since then, Meijer has suffered death threats, a Trump-endorsed primary challenge, and now the indignity of having Trump make fun of his last name at a political rally in his home

Speaking of the American right and how it’s not accurate or fair to translate it to “conservatives,” take just this one item from Trump’s Event yesterday:

Representative Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican, claimed on Saturday that former President Donald Trump “caught” former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

McClain, who first entered Congress during the 2020 election with Trump’s endorsement, made the comment as she spoke ahead of the former president during a rally in Washington Township, Michigan. The GOP congresswoman lamented how she and many others view the country to be worse off under President Joe Biden than it was under Trump.

“While President Trump was

The Times article on Emily Bridges part 3:

The current version of the article has been amended. Fair Play for Women pointed out an error 9 hours ago.

Inaccurate reporting by Chief Sports Correspondent @Lawton_Times at @thetimes today.

Simply wrong /1

“If the UCI does not issue a ban, British Cycling may be forced to select Bridges as a female rider as a legal requirement under the Equality Act” https://t.co/ZwqJ0tlEaY

— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen) April 3, 2022

That sentence has been deleted.

The U.K. Sports Councils report on trans inclusion in sport is very clear

“It is lawful to offer sex categories in sport through the provisions in the Equality Act in respect of gender-affected sport.” /3https://t.co/qYI5HEoySl

— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen)

The Times article on Emily Bridges part 2:

It was considered a short-term issue, one that the UCI would soon process, but senior figures in the sport believe the organisation has it within its power to continue excluding Bridges under regulations updated in 2020.

While British Cycling rules demand only that a transgender cyclist falls below a set testosterone threshold for a period of 12 months — indeed Bridges has been registered for the women’s events by the national governing body for the Nations Cup in Glasgow later this month — the UCI rules go further by referencing the need to “preserve the safety, fairness and integrity of the sport, for the benefit of all of its participants and stakeholders”

The Times reports:

The transgender cyclist prevented from participating in a national track event this weekend could be the subject of an indefinite ban under rules introduced by the Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body.

That’s a slightly misleading paragraph if you don’t already know the story. Why would anyone ban a cyclist from an event just because the cyclist is transgender?!! What shocking bigotry!

In other words Matt Lawton, Chief Sports Correspondent for the Times, buried the lede.

It’s not a “transgender cyclist” who was “prevented from participating in a national track event,” it’s a male cyclist who was prevented from participating in a women’s national track event. Omitting the sex from both the cyclist and the … Read the rest

Paula Radcliffe joins in:

Absolutely serious. The entire premise for women’s sport is to create a fair competition space where women can win, because it physically isn’t possible against men. Open the door for male physiological advantages & potentially every female competing in sport is affected.

— Paula Radcliffe (@paulajradcliffe) April 3, 2022

… Read the rest

Margaret Atwood won the Hitchens prize. The Atlantic shares her speech, in which she pointed out an important distinction:

I expect Hitch would join me in a distinction I have been making lately: that between belief and truth. It’s a comment on our special times that I’d even feel I have to make this distinction. A belief cannot be either proved or disproved. If you wish to believe that invisible flower spirits are causing your string beans to grow, there is no point in my trying to dissuade you, because these entities are invisible and immaterial. Something proposed as a truth can, however, be put to the test. In recent years, people have confused beliefs with truths. From this

Originally a comment by G on Captured.

The American right’s weaponized anti-trans politics — which genuinely is about generating and capitalizing on fear and hatred, not about protecting children, and even more clearly not about opposition to patriarchy and misogyny — practically guarantees that what passes for the left in the U.S. will embrace trans rights in the most knee-jerk and thought-free manner possible. And, I strongly suspect, there are some strategists on the right who fully realize this, and hope it will hurt the left with an American voting public that is, on average, distinctly uncomfortable with gender non-conformity in all forms.

This is part of an established historical pattern: When thoughtful feminist criticism of a social practice … Read the rest

Janice Turner on the theft of women’s sport:

Inclusion in sport matters but not more than the truth. In recent weeks I’ve read thousands of words justifying why the American trans swimmer Lia Thomas, 22, should compete in the women’s NCAA college games. Thomas was compared with black women or lesbian athletes who were also judged “unwomanly”. It was argued that sex categories in sport are out of step with “evolving science”. So much sophistry. The simple, inescapable fact is that as a man Thomas barely made the top 500 and never qualified for the NCAAs but as a woman came 1st, 5th and 8th.

Female swimmers were not asked for their views.

Silence was also imposed on British

Is everyone drunk?

Family doctors are to be paid for prescribing hormones to transgender patients, in the first scheme of its kind in the UK.

I don’t think family doctors work for free in the UK, so this “being paid” seems to amount to a sweetener for one particular kind of prescription. Kind of like a bribe. Is that really a good idea?

Under the programme, which was launched yesterday, GPs in Sussex will get £178 a year for every adult to whom they prescribe “cross sex hormone therapy”. They will also be able to claim an extra £91 a year for providing an annual health check to a transgender, non-binary or intersex (TNBI) patient.

“Extra” – so the £178 … Read the rest

Georgia Senate passes bill that limits how schools can teach about race.

House Bill 1084, the “Protect Students First Act”, was approved by the Georgia senate. The measure requires local school boards and administrators to ban discrimination on the “basis of race” by limiting how race can be discussed in classrooms.

Under the bill, discussion topics that would be banned include teaching that “one race is inherently superior to another race” or that the US is “fundamentally racist”, reported CNN.

“We can teach US history, the good, the bad and the ugly, without dividing children along racial lines,” said the Georgia senate president pro tem, Butch Miller, of the bill that passed 32-21.

Can we though? Maybe it’s not … Read the rest

The whistleblower is Dr David Bell. The clip is valuable…and in fact humanist, the real kind.

History will judge whether Dr David Bell was a hateful transphobe or trying to alert people to a medical scandal, but he's far from the only health professional raising these concerns (and I have the letters and emails to prove it.) https://t.co/siTOdD6CGC

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2022

… Read the rest

Peak humanism.

Me: shares video of experienced psychiatrist who turned whistleblower, expressing his deep concern at high numbers of autistic children and children with internalised homophobia presenting at gender clinics.

Them: pic.twitter.com/WsjyLJCOUB

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 2, 2022

“You’re a repulsive bigot,” says guy who calls himself The Humanist Report. “Go fuck yourself, transphobic trash.” Nine words total, for two coarse insults and a coarse command. I’m not seeing the humanism.… Read the rest

Has Biden ever talked this way about women or Black people or workers or immigrants? Biden who chaired the all-male committee that blew off Anita Hill’s testimony about Clarence Thomas? Biden who loves to go all “bipartisan” on unions and feminists and racial justice activists?… Read the rest

Emily (formerly Zack) Bridges has issued A Statement:

“I am an athlete, and I just want to race competitively,” he says, skipping lightly over the fact that he just wants to race competitively against people who are systematically smaller and less muscular than he is.

“No one should have to choose between who they are, and participating in the sport they love.”

But it isn’t who he is, it’s who he isn’t. Who he is is a man, with a massive physical advantage over the women he wants to race against. Yes he should have to choose, because it’s grossly unfair to the women if he doesn’t.

“I’ve been relentlessly harassed and demonised by those who have a specific … Read the rest

Perhaps the concerns are real concerns.

History will judge whether Dr David Bell was a hateful transphobe or trying to alert people to a medical scandal, but he's far from the only health professional raising these concerns (and I have the letters and emails to prove it.) https://t.co/siTOdD6CGC

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2022

A genuinely gender dysphoric person writes… pic.twitter.com/6nuVH625Pi

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2022

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1509954059737997316 … Read the rest

How the experts got Russian military prowess so wrong:

The resilience of Ukrainian resistance is embarrassing for a Western think-tank and military community that had confidently predicted that the Russians would conquer Ukraine in a matter of days. For years, Western “experts” prattled on about the Russian military’s expensive, high-tech “modernization.” The Russians, we were told, had the better tanks and aircraft, including cutting-edge SU-34 fighter bombers and T-90 tanks, with some of the finest technical specifications in the world. The Russians had also ostensibly reorganized their army into a more professional, mostly voluntary force. They had rethought their offensive doctrine and created battalion tactical groups, flexible, heavily armored formations that were meant to be key to overwhelming the

The Guardian had a column called How to eat, which is now reaching an end. It sounds entertaining; I’ll have to browse the back catalogue. The idea originated in irritation at the pompous posh brand of food column.

Would there be mileage, we wondered, in sending up such high-handed advice in a clearly tongue-in-cheek, OTT way? But by flipping the subject matter and talking enthusiastically about everyday foods – beans on toast, lasagne, pesto, Magnums, pasties, hummus – in a way that would generate engaged, friendly debate below the line (BTL)? Note: the bottom half of the internet was less toxic then.

Sounds interesting but wait a second – pesto and hummus and lasagne and beans on toast? One … Read the rest