Well…

Better than retweeting his words, if you want to honour Desmond Tutu, is following his advice. Act against those who abuse power, ally with the oppressed. Don't bystand.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) December 26, 2021

Unless the oppressed are women, of course. They don’t matter. Men who say they are women are the oppressed, but women, never.

Also, “those who abuse power” does not include Jolyon Maugham. Never mind the baseball bat, never mind the bullying of lesbians and gender critical feminists, those are not abuses of power. It’s women who say men are not women who abuse power.

Well…

2022. pic.twitter.com/ImMVlygvZW

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) December 25, 2021

Unless it’s women. Or foxes. Or the LGB Alliance. … Read the rest

The Guardian invited us to nominate a Person of the Year.

Time magazine has announced that Elon Musk will be their “2021 person of the year”, citing the billionaire Tesla boss’s influence “for good or ill” as a “clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman”. The choice has been criticised for Musk’s attitude to tax, opposition to unions and playing down the dangers of Covid.

With this in mind, we would like to hear about your own choices. Who would be your 2021 person of the year, and why?

A number of people said JK Rowling.

Maybe they just had enough, or…… Read the rest

Ah yes good old Al Jazeera. Qatar is notoriously queer-friendly right?

https://twitter.com/christineburns/status/1474421241243226117

Yes it’s a “trans panic” to think women shouldn’t be erased from the language and shoved aside by men pretending to be women.

https://twitter.com/Nancy_M_K/status/1474429308269695011

Oh damn, so sorry about all the bad faith arguments!

https://twitter.com/LGBT_INTL/status/1475147181841690635… Read the rest

What’s wrong with this lede?

Nearly 250 people incarcerated in California prisons — the vast majority of whom are transgender women — are waiting for their chance to transfer out of a men’s institution. The longer it takes, the greater the odds that they could be raped, beaten or killed.

One major thing wrong with it is that it frames the likelihood of being raped, beaten or killed as something to “transfer out of” as opposed to something to stop altogether. I daresay men who aren’t transgender women also don’t want to be raped, beaten, or killed.

But of course the more obvious thing wrong with it is the hidden assumption that men who “identify as” women get to transfer … Read the rest

When in doubt, pretend women don’t exist.

A BBC television doctor repeatedly referred to mothers-to-be as ‘pregnant people’ on the popular daytime show Morning Live.

Dr Xand van Tulleken was discussing the various groups who have so far declined to have the Covid jab when he said: ‘Pregnant people, for instance, early in the pandemic there were very mixed messages [on whether expectant mothers should be given a shot] so people didn’t get vaccinated when they were pregnant and they haven’t got it subsequently.

‘Pregnant people are not unreasonably nervous about putting things into their bodies.’ 

Whatever you do, don’t let on that it’s women who get pregnant, especially if you’re a doctor, even more especially if you’re a … Read the rest

“I can’t do this, I can’t support this,” she said. 1/8

USA Swimming Official Quits In Protest Of Lia Thomas: ‘Everything Fair About Swimming Is Being Destroyed’ https://t.co/njbrqU33a5

— LGB Alliance USA (@LGBAlliance_USA) December 25, 2021

“This is not right because by doing this, we’re supporting this,” Millen told the Times. “There are no swim meets if there are no officials.” 3/8

— LGB Alliance USA (@LGBAlliance_USA) December 25, 2021

“Their idea of ‘acceptance’ is to not give you a platform — by shaming or forcing you out if you have views that are too far from their own,” one student said. 5/8

— LGB Alliance USA (@LGBAlliance_USA) December 25, 2021

Why do they get to shame? Why isn’t it … Read the rest

Planned Parenthood with a new and exciting story about what doulas do for “people”:

Doulas support many different types of people going through a range of life experiences — including death, gender transition, birth, and abortion. Some doulas have a specific focus, while others provide a range of care. But all doulas advocate for and support their clients in situations where they may feel alone, ignored, or dismissed.

Oh yeah? The rest of the world seems to think they’re assistants to women giving birth. They’re not medically trained, so they’re not midwives, they just do the supporty helpy hand-holdy stuff – for women giving birth. Not “people” transitioning, not people dying, just women giving birth. PP is talking … Read the rest

It’s become a kind of religion.

In the year since the first shots began going into arms, opposition to vaccines has hardened from skepticism and wariness into something approaching an article of faith for the approximately 39 million American adults who have yet to get a single dose.

To be fair, there’s also a kind of faith involved in thinking people should get the shots. I don’t have any medical expertise, and most people who get vaxxed also have little or none. Why do I trust the people who say get vaxxed more than I trust people who say don’t? I guess largely because of the record – there’s a pretty long record now of vaccinations working. The choice … Read the rest

Sue the bastards.

Two election workers who counted votes for the 2020 presidential election filed a defamation lawsuit Thursday against the parent company of One America News, senior staff at the far-right TV network, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, who served as a personal lawyer to former president Donald Trump.

Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who worked in Fulton County, Ga., allege that One America News and Giuliani, who frequently appears on the network, knowingly spread misinformation about them, including falsehoods that they logged illegal ballots for Joe Biden in the election.

The two women “have become objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment … because of a campaign of malicious lies,” their attorneys wrote in the

… Read the rest

Eight minutes to launch:

Watch live: The James Webb Telescope is launching into space and could unlock mysteries of the universe and our place in it.

Live updates: https://t.co/RtXxjW8fbX https://t.co/XVBIlWgXZa

— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 25, 2021

… Read the rest

Janice Turner prefers brave goats to placid sheep.

How must it feel to have your name airbrushed from the $8 billion film franchise born of your scribbling in a coffee shop, penniless, while your baby napped? Or to watch the trio of child actors you chose and nurtured 20 years ago recall the stories which made them many times richer and more celebrated than their ho-hum talents deserve, yet not once uttering your name? Or have fools who run around with broomsticks up their backsides in college leagues change the name of quidditch, the sport you invented for wizards?

That’s putting aside the threats. Just search for JK Rowling on Twitter and see the stream of invective, the gun

… Read the rest

Charming.

After speaking to Crouch End we understand someone called for copies, was told that what stock they had was reserved, with apology. No mention of values. It is unfair and inaccurate to characterise otherwise, although we appreciate it may promote your book.

— WaterstonesHelp (@WstonesHelp) December 24, 2021

The rudeness of it takes my breath away. Do all institutions and chain stores hand their social media over to rude angry teenagers?

“We understand” – that perhaps an employee wasn’t entirely truthful about what happened because it wouldn’t look very responsible or adult of the employee?

And that taunt at the end – what the hell?

LOL, so you’re calling me a liar? I really hope there were no witnesses…

… Read the rest

There’s this

And then there’s this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGmRh7HOwM

Now…has Cleese become a Muggeridge or Stockwood? Or is he still Cleese while the interviewer is a credulous point-missing inquisitor?… Read the rest

When Michael met Malcolm.

There’s bit where Cleese says he knew Palin was steaming. I like that because I’ve heard Palin talking about how furious he was – he did a book talk and signing here a couple of decades ago, and someone must have asked about the Muggeridge encounter: he became quite energetic about how foul Muggeridge was and how angry it made him.… Read the rest

John Dickson is a historian, an actual practicing working credentialed historian, with a PhD in Ancient History from Macquarie University and a visiting scholar gig at Oxford, yet he wrote this absurdity.

A survey found that only 49% of Australians say “Jesus was a real person who actually lived.” You mean 51% don’t?! The horror!

But, frankly, this new survey is also bad news for historical literacy. This reported majority view is not shared by the overwhelming consensus of university historians specialising in the Roman and Jewish worlds of the first century. If Jesus is a “mythical or fictional character”, that news has not yet reached the standard compendiums of secular historical scholarship.

Take the famous single-volume Oxford Classical

… Read the rest

Festivities.

https://twitter.com/heterodorx/status/1474101636540907527

Idn that sweet.

More pix of us @heterodorx skulking around a business where we’re explicitly excluded. pic.twitter.com/ap3T11G1mr

— Nina Paley (@ninapaley) December 23, 2021

No terfs allowed in the coop.… Read the rest

Rex Murphy on The Uninvited:

Who was not invited to participate in the Harry Potter 20th anniversary special? Why, the very woman, who in the most difficult of circumstances, and by the power of her own will and invention, brought the entire phenomenon into existence. She was effectively blacklisted from the celebration of what she created while three pretentious and above all blasphemously ungrateful actors held the spotlight, and further — I’m looking for an elegant verb — dumped on the woman who made them. Made them, almost as completely as she made Harry Potter.

…

Last year when certain authorities began promoting the phrase “people who menstruate” as a replacement for a term familiar since the birth of

… Read the rest

Now there’s a headline.

Tesla, bowing to pressure, stops allowing drivers to play video games while driving

Great god almighty. As if people don’t already drive insanely enough.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the company will send out a software update over the internet so the function called “Passenger Play” will be locked and won’t work while vehicles are in motion.

Meaning that currently drivers can play video games while tailgating people going the speed limit in a downpour on a dark winter afternoon. Fabulous.

“The Vehicle Safety Act prohibits manufacturers from selling vehicles with defects posing unreasonable risks to safety, including technologies that distract drivers from driving safely,” NHTSA’s statement said.

But haha manufacturers pay no attention … Read the rest

https://twitter.com/NationalNOW/status/1472963266985013258

No [clap] No [clap] No [clap]

Meanwhile the National Organization for Women, like other national and global organizations for women, should be doing its job and focusing on women, not men who call themselves women and not trans people and not “non-binary” people. You don’t see labor unions dropping all their labor issues to say Respect [clap] the [clap] bosses [clap]. Why is it that women’s organizations are so eager to throw women overboard and “center” the concerns of male people instead?… Read the rest

Tory MP Caroline Nokes just wants to make the Gender Recognition Act kinder.

In order for an individual to have their acquired gender recognised, a person has to prove to a panel of strangers that they will never meet – the gender recognition panel – that they are either feminine or masculine. It has caused a great deal of concern in the transgender community that the panel, in effect, sits in judgment upon them and their transition. Who is anyone to decide whether someone is feminine or masculine enough?

Well, since you ask, why should whether someone is “feminine” or “masculine” be a matter for government at all? Why should it be officially “recognised”? Why should it even be … Read the rest