An interesting, teasing conundrum here. Is it possible to be insulting and ragey in public for hours every day while not actually being as insulting and ragey as that would seem?

Seen on Twitter today: “I’m not nearly as mean as I probably seem on Twitter.”

The tweeter, as you’ll have guessed, is someone who is insulting and ragey on Twitter for hours every day, so much so that that “probably seem” is laughable. Probably? Probably?

Anyway, is that possible? I’m not sure it is. I think if you act “mean” (i.e. sadistic and belligerent) a lot of the time then…well, you are sadistic and belligerent, aren’t you. Acting it is being it. “Seeming” it is being it. Doing it … Read the rest

Ah yes setting aside their differences.

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and her UPenn teammates set aside their differences over the last week to train for their final home meet of the season behind a cloak of secrecy.

It’s not really something the women can just set aside, is it. He’s intruding on them and stealing their chance to be first.

The twice-daily winter practice sessions passed without incident but the 41-strong team remains bitterly divided over Thomas’s record shattering feats as a newly-transitioned female, according to insiders.

They’re not actually “feats,” are they. He didn’t have any “feats” on the men’s team, so he’s not really racking up feats now that he’s competing with people who have multiple disadvantages … Read the rest

Who was it who instigated the attack on the Capitol?

Around the same time President Biden said former President Donald J. Trump encouraged the violence that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6, some of Mr. Trump’s most prominent supporters deflected blame for the attack during an appearance on a live online show.

It’s not a “show.” It’s a vanity project-insurrectionist plot.

On the show, hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, one of Mr. Trump’s top former advisers, Representatives Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene laid responsibility on Democrats, the Capitol Police, the federal government and others.

The socialists, the FBI, the Critical Race Theorists, the Pentagon, the feminists, the State Department. They’re all in it up to their eyeballs. … Read the rest

The circular belief system in action.

Trans people are not a threat to women or female spaces. All the trans women I know carry themselves with grace and respect for the goddess energy. If you don't like me having an opinion fuck off and don't follow me. Anyone who wants critical thinking please stick around.

— Boy George (@BoyGeorge) January 5, 2022

See, no women I know carry themselves with grace and respect for the goddess energy, nor would I want them to. I certainly don’t carry myself that way, and would be horrified if anyone accused me of it. Yuck. What women need to carry ourselves with is confidence that we have a place in the world just as … Read the rest

How dare ANYONE politicize a violent attempted insurrection in the form of physical invasion of the legislature complete with weapons and threats? Could there be anything more outrageous?

What brazen politicization of January 6 by President Biden.

I wonder if the Taliban who now rule Afghanistan with al-Qaeda elements present, contrary to President Biden’s beliefs, are allowing this speech to be carried?

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 6, 2022

Yeah, that Biden, man, politicizing something as obviously apolitical as an attempt to prevent him from taking office after he won an election. Brazen indeed – practically harlot-level brazen.… Read the rest

This seems fairly astounding.

The latest Stonewall accounts are out, showing their biggest funder to be,

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

They are followed by the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Welsh Government. 👀https://t.co/5bSvHnQDp1 pic.twitter.com/8JPJZlnz6W

— gender is harmful (@genderisharmful) January 6, 2022

Those numbers. Seven hundred sixty five thousand pounds to from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office??? For what?? It’s not as if they’re building anything or healing anyone or feeding anyone. Their “work” is telling people what to think – how is it possible to spend £765,061 on that? Plus £616 k on the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme, where you’d think the need for Stonewall’s views would be zero*. £256 k on all of the … Read the rest

Lord, I pray, take pity on this cardboard cutout of a deranged criminal.

Trump-loving evangelist Lance Wallnau lays hands on and prays over a cardboard cutout of Trump, then declares that Steve Bannon "has an apostolic grace on him" and "was probably called to be an apostle." pic.twitter.com/Gkiaa0eeG3

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) January 5, 2022

… Read the rest

And yet another follow-up to the story – Jon Stewart says with much emphasis that he’s not calling Rowling anti-Semitic and that Newsweek is full of shit for saying he is.

Newsweek et al, may eat my ass. pic.twitter.com/eRoYYeNRi1

— Jon Stewart (@jonstewart) January 5, 2022

That’s roughly where I am, except that I’m much less keen on Harry Potter, precisely because of the crude stereotypes and Manicheanism. … Read the rest

More on that theme.

In total fairness, goblin mythology as antisemitic tropes predates all of us, including JK Rowling. But across Harry Potter novels, JK uses her freedom to reinvent almost anything. But as Jon Stewart points out, the antisemitic tropes maintained.

— Rafael Shimunov (@rafaelshimunov) January 3, 2022

This is what it looks like to me – not that she did it deliberately, but that she drew on tropes without thinking about them. She didn’t have a subtle mind when she wrote the first Potter book; I’ve been surprised by the quality of her writing on the trans ideology wars.

I’m not overjoyed about saying this but it’s no good ignoring it or hiding it.… Read the rest

There’s a new front in the war on Rowling.

Jon Stewart has accused JK Rowling of antisemitism for her depiction of goblins in the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

A recent episode of the late-night show host’s podcast, The Problem with Jon Stewart, has begun making headlines for his takedown of the Gringotts Bank goblins, which he believes are depicted as Jewish “caricatures” in the series.

Stewart’s argument – that Rowling perpetuates anti-Jew stereotypes in Harry Potter – was based on the similarities between the books’ goblin creatures and an illustration from an antisemitic text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in 1903.

Now you could ask if there’s any reason to think she was … Read the rest

Stephen Marche tells us it’s not if but when – the US is going to be dealing with a second civil war. One reason is to do with the people who go into policing and security.

The right is preparing for a breakdown of law and order, but they are also overtaking the forces of law and order. Hard right organizations have now infiltrated so many police forces – the connections number in the hundreds – that they have become unreliable allies in the struggle against domestic terrorism.

Michael German, a former FBI agent who worked undercover against domestic terrorists during the 1990s, knows that the white power sympathies within police departments hamper domestic terrorism cases. “The 2015 FBI

Andreia Nobre and Anna Slatz at 4w tell us:

The Brazilian edition of Marie Claire magazine has named a trans-identified male convicted of pimping and accused of facilitating child sexual exploitation as one of the country’s top inspirational women’s rights activists.

A pimp. I feel inspired already.

While the list profiles brave female advocates such as Joênia Wapixana – the first Indigenous woman in Brazil to become a lawyer – and Maria da Penha – an abuse survivor who fought to increase legal penalties for domestic violence – one name stands out.

Indianara Siqueira, a biological male prostitute who identifies as a woman, was featured on the list as the magazine’s 6th pick.

Between 2007 and 2010, Siqueira served

Officially celibate religious boss says it’s selfish not to have children.

The Pope’s comments came as he was discussing parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican in Rome.

Hey if you want to know about parenthood, who better to ask than a prelate whose religion forbids him to be a parent?

“Today … we see a form of selfishness,” he told the audience. “We see that some people do not want to have a child.”

That’s not selfish though. It’s not as if there’s a child sitting there, wanting to be had. What he means by having a child is actually making a child where no child was before. It’s not selfish not to do that. It’s particularly … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Michael Haubrich on Belatedly hearing the voices.

There are a great many issues that can never be fixed when it comes to indigenous poeple in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Obviously the bells can’t be unrung, no matter how many land trusts are bought up and donated to tribal governments. The economies of the people before us have been disrupted, and they long ago began adapting to the new ways.

But what we can do is learn and understand who they were and who they are. The idea that indigenous people were savages that we civilized is not only patronizing, it is wrong. There were some advanced civilzations that waxed and waned over … Read the rest

“Well then I just won’t hold a press conference, so there. That’ll show them. They’ll be sorry.”

Former President Donald Trump has canceled a press conference at Mar-a-Lago scheduled for Jan. 6, the one-year anniversary of his supporters’ insurrection. Trump now says he will discuss the Capitol riot during a rally in Arizona on Jan. 15 instead. The press conference, he said in a statement, was canceled over the work of the House Select Committee investigating the violent mob’s attack. “In light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media, I am canceling the January 6th Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and instead will

They want to ask Sean Hannity some questions.

The 6 January committee is seeking information from Fox News’s Sean Hannity, the group’s chair Bennie Thompson and vice-chair Liz Cheney have announced.

In a letter to Hannity, they wrote:

The Select Committee now has information in its possession, as outlined in part below, indicating that you had advance knowledge regarding President Trump’s and his legal team’s planning for January 6th. It also appears that you were expressing concerns and providing advice to the President and certain White House staff regarding that planning. You also had relevant communications while the riot was underway, and in the days thereafter. These communications make you a fact witness in our investigation.

The House select

Originally a comment by Pliny on Risks.

As a retired surgeon I can offer a couple of thoughts. When I was teaching residents I used to tell them that we didn’t have a healthcare system but rather a methodology for treating middle-aged white guys. Much of the medical literature of my formative years described signs in symptoms in men predominantly. One of my proudest moments was when an AI system I was developing identified a variant presentation of a deadly condition in a woman because it recognized the significance of sex and ethnicity in disease and injury presentation.

I also told the residents that if men had to carry a fetus to term our species would be long extinct. … Read the rest

One of these is not like the others.

She’s a barrister, who specializes in women’s rights, including FGM cases, so she can’t actually be stupid, but…come on. Being literally [the thing that makes you not-privileged in the first place] can’t possibly be a form of privilege! Being literally Black as opposed to being another Rachel Dolezal is not a form of privilege. Obviously. Everybody knows this…except, suddenly, when it’s women. Then somehow everything becomes its own opposite and we rapidly lose track of where we are. Is that the sky over there, or is it the water?

Rich women have privilege compared to poor women, for sure. Able-bodied women over disabled women, same again. Education, location, health, … Read the rest

This is startling:

Women who are operated on by a male surgeon are much more likely to die, experience complications and be readmitted to hospital than when a woman performs the procedure, research reveals.

Women are 15% more liable to suffer a bad outcome, and 32% more likely to die, when a man rather than a woman carries out the surgery, according to a study of 1.3 million patients.

Yikes. I wonder what would even explain that.

The findings have sparked a debate about the fact that surgery in the UK remains a hugely male-dominated area of medicine and claims that “implicit sex biases” among male surgeons may help explain why women are at such greater risk when

From Reporters Without Borders:

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by the suspended prison sentences passed yesterday on two Nigerien journalists who published an international report about drug trafficking and corruption in Niger. These totally unjustified sentences send a shocking signal about the state of justice and the fight against corruption in this country, RSF says.

In a terrible start to the year for journalists in Niger, L’Événement news website editor Moussa Aksar was given a two-month suspended jail sentence and freelance reporter Samira Sabou got a one-month suspended jail sentence for publishing a report by the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) in May.

Describing Niger as a “nerve centre” of regional drug trafficking, the GI-TOC