All entries by this author

Even the white nationalist

Jan 10th, 2022 10:17 am | By

We’ve only spelled out our goals eleventy billion times.

Policy goals – not allowing trans ideology to erode women’s rights and women’s prizes, set-asides, honors and the like. I think we’ve been very clear and very forthcoming about it. Where’s he been?

The replies are uniformly nuts.

https://twitter.com/UltraVioletPod/status/1480566322438283268

“the genocidal” – yes sure, plus we’re vampires and that thing from Alien.… Read the rest



Why not take all of us?

Jan 10th, 2022 7:29 am | By

More brazen by the day.

https://twitter.com/firewomon/status/1480494789246210053

Glinner tells us which women missed out because a man won Best Actress.… Read the rest



Extensive contacts

Jan 10th, 2022 6:21 am | By

Creepy shirtsleeves guy defies the law:

The Ohio Republican Jim Jordan is the second sitting congressman to refuse a request for cooperation from the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.

In a Sunday night letter to the committee chair, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Trump ally accused the panel of “an outrageous abuse” of its authority.

Sure, it’s “outrageous” for the House to investigate a violent attack on the Capitol and Congress. BLM protests are of the devil, but actual violence inside the legislative building is fine.

In columns for the Guardian, the former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal has laid out Jordan’s extensive contacts with Trump before and on 6 January, throughout legalistic efforts to throw out results

Read the rest


First openly open

Jan 10th, 2022 5:48 am | By

Oh give it a REST.

Narcissist comes out as first openly self-involved twerp shock-surprise.

American figure skater Timothy LeDuc is set to become the first openly non-binary athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games.

They might as well say he’s the first openly breathing athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games. He’s the first openly two legs-having athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games. He’s the first openly anthropoid ape athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games.

Unfortunately he’s not the first person or athlete to seek extra attention by claiming to be the first ever something or other, even if the something or other is of absolutely no consequence or interest to anyone at Read the rest



Raising money for a women-only charity

Jan 10th, 2022 4:06 am | By

Our friend latsot has signed up for various wheelchair distance events in 2022 including the Leeds and Sheffield half marathons, the Middlesbrough 10k and (fingers crossed) the Great North Run.

He’s raising money for nia, a women-led, women-only, secular, rights-based registered charity which has been delivering services to women, girls and children who have been subjected to sexual and domestic violence and abuse, including prostitution, since 1975.

His crowdfunder for the Sheffield event (in March) is here.

He urges you to donate if you can and share the link if you like!… Read the rest



Walk the talk

Jan 9th, 2022 12:20 pm | By

Liberal shmiberal – union-busting at the NY Times:

Last April, 650 tech employees at the New York Times announced that they were unionizing. Rather than applauding them and proceeding to negotiate a contract, the company instead refused to voluntarily recognize the union. This is despite its own editorial board supporting a bill that would have made it legally binding for employers to voluntarily accept union requests when they are backed by a majority of the staff.

As the paper’s own editorial explained: “Under current law, an employer can reject the majority’s signatures and insist on a secret ballot. But in a disturbingly high number of cases, the employer uses the time before the vote to pressure employees to rethink

Read the rest


Because he was watching tv, duh

Jan 9th, 2022 11:03 am | By

The questions around Trump’s encouragement or otherwise of the insurrection are boiling down to: was he evil or just stupid? Did he deliberately delay telling the insurrectionists to go home, or was he just having too much fun watching them on tv to get off his ass?

Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois who sits on the committee, underlined the laser-like focus of the investigation on Trump’s potential complicity.

Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said the key question now was: “What did the president know about 6 January leading up to 6 January?”

Kinzinger added that the panel wanted to know why Trump failed to take any action for almost three hours while the violence at the

Read the rest


The Weimar shot in the arm

Jan 9th, 2022 10:14 am | By

Politifact has more on this Robert Malone fella:

Video of Spotify host Joe Rogan’s controversial interview with a doctor known for making false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines was removed from YouTube, just days after Twitter banned the doctor’s account for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.

Dr. Robert Malone, who gained hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers in recent months as he promoted anti-vaccine falsehoods, drew a comparison in the interview between COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the U.S. and the environment in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Nazi party rose to power.

I’m not seeing it. Not seeing the similarity between Weimar Germany and the effort to vaccinate populations against a dangerous virus. Also not … Read the rest



“Mass formation psychosis”

Jan 9th, 2022 9:23 am | By

Also in Y R people so dumb, a made-up mass delusion is made up.

An unfounded theory taking root online suggests millions of people have been “hypnotized” into believing mainstream ideas about COVID-19, including steps to combat it such as testing and vaccination.

In widely shared social media posts this week, efforts to combat the disease have been dismissed with just three words: “mass formation psychosis.”

Sounds technicalish and sciencey and psychologicalesque, doesn’t it. That was Freud’s way of bullshitting too.

The term gained attention after it was floated by Dr. Robert Malone on “The Joe Rogan Experience” Dec. 31 podcast. Malone is a scientist who once researched mRNA technology but is now a vocal skeptic of the COVID-19

Read the rest


Steep slopes & water

Jan 9th, 2022 8:35 am | By

Back in 2014 local public radio did a story on The Little Street at the Bottom of a Landslide-prone Bluff aka Y R people so dumb?

It’s no secret that Western Washington is prone to landslides. The combination of glacial soils, steep slopes and water creates a risk that’s greater than in other parts of the U.S.

And it’s not just river valleys like the one near Oso: The region’s coastal bluffs are also danger zones that have experienced large landslides in recent decades.

But that still doesn’t deter people from living in those slide-prone areas.

Because people are just that dumb.

Ruth Trail has lived in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle for 23 years.

She said she loves it

Read the rest


Landslide zone

Jan 8th, 2022 4:43 pm | By

Just a little local story of no particular significance for once, simply because I saw some of it. I was out for a walk with a dog friend (or dog client, or something), on a boulevard that runs along the top of high bluffs at the western edge of Seattle, where Elliott Bay meets Puget Sound, and we came to a place with a lot of yellow tape between the sidewalk and the edge of the bluff. Part of the bluff there had collapsed recently, I’d noticed it some weeks or months back when walking the dog there, but it wasn’t yellow-taped then. Clearly this was new collapse, which was completely unsurprising given the record rains we’ve just had, and … Read the rest



The great skeptical mind

Jan 8th, 2022 11:37 am | By

Heh.

https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1479859700103618561

Read the rest



Listen to dudes talking about themselves

Jan 8th, 2022 9:17 am | By

A new treat for your schedule:

https://twitter.com/V_Lundsten/status/1479788989846597640

“Feminist Gender Equality” – starring three men and Sally Hines talking about feminism. It doesn’t get much more equality than that.… Read the rest



Therefore not an offence

Jan 8th, 2022 8:46 am | By

Vandalism or termination of a hate crime?

THE Attorney General is considering referring the case in which four people were cleared of tearing down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston to the Court of Appeal.

Suella Braverman said the verdict is causing “confusion” and she is “carefully considering” whether to use powers which allow her to seek a review so senior judges have the chance to “clarify the law for future cases”.

The verdict prompted a debate about the criminal justice system after the defendants – dubbed the Colston Four – opted to stand trial in front of a jury and did not deny involvement in the incident, instead claiming the presence of the statue was a hate

Read the rest


What Jolyon found hardest to take

Jan 8th, 2022 7:54 am | By

He’s unhappy about the Wes Streeting interview.

When’s the last time Jolyon Maugham “interrogated” the proposition that trans dogma takes nothing from women at all whatsoever in the least? My rough estimate is that would be never.

Read the rest


Guest post: Empathy cannot fix a cry bully

Jan 8th, 2022 5:43 am | By

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on More emp and und.

There was an essay on Forbes the other day about gatekeeping in fandoms, which I actually think is kind of relevant.

…the accusations of gatekeeping are being used to leverage access to effectively run each fandom and acquire power as a result.

I think there is a lot of truth in the complaints fans of various properties have about “wokeness” invading their spaces. A lot of the time, the issue keeping people out of specific hobbies isn’t that the hobbyists are saying “This isn’t for you” – it’s that the hobby just isn’t the “excluded” person’s bag.

Which is fine. You’re not being excluded if the thing isn’t … Read the rest



To be their authentic selves

Jan 7th, 2022 3:24 pm | By

The Women’s Sports Foundation? Are they sure about that?

The Women’s Sports Foundation says we need to create sport environments that allow athletes to be their authentic selves – by which they mean we need to let men pretend to be women so that they can steal all the prizes. What a peculiar thing for a Women’s Sports Foundation to mean. You’d think they’d be cheering on women rather than men who … Read the rest



More emp and und

Jan 7th, 2022 11:52 am | By

Progress, but…

On both sides? I don’t think they’re equivalent. I don’t think you see as much testosteroney rage on the feminist side of the argument.

Still. It’s a step.… Read the rest



The choice

Jan 7th, 2022 10:03 am | By

What are we talking about when we talk about ideology?

Joe Biden marked the first anniversary of 6 January with a powerful, ideological speech about the choice between democracy and autocracy.

Is the choice between democracy and autocracy really a matter of ideology? I think of it as more basic than that. Do you want someone like Trump making all the rules, or do you prefer a system where more people get a say?

Every major news network opted for somber programming and roundtable discussions about the fragile nature of American democracy.

Except for one.

Fox News’s primetime lineup of rightwing hosts used rock guitar licks to introduce a different narrative: one of hysterical Democrats “jilling up noise” and crying

Read the rest


Be sure to uSe randoM caps

Jan 7th, 2022 9:15 am | By

Trump issued a “statement” (i.e. a rambling incoherent page of words) in response to Biden’s speech yesterday.

As reasonable and responsible as ever.… Read the rest