Another disaster:

There’s never a good time for an oil spill. But the most recent ones — in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Ida last month, and then this past weekend, in the ocean off Huntington Beach, Calif. — have come right in the heart of the fall migration of hundreds of millions of birds.

…

These journeys are perilous, even in the best of times. Flying thousands of miles requires vast amounts of food and protected habitats. But more and more of the wetlands, marshes, forests and fields needed to support migrating birds have been filled in, cut down and paved over. As a result, the remaining refuges are few and far between, overcrowded and vulnerable to

… Read the rest

Trump identifies as not broke, but…

Former President Donald Trump provided “misleading information about the financial situation” of his hotel in Washington while he was in office, according to the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

The committee, which recently obtained documents from the General Services Administration, found that Trump reported his hotel in downtown D.C. brought in $150 million in income while he served in the White House, but the hotel actually incurred more than $70 million in losses.

It depends on who’s asking. If it’s the IRS, losses losses losses. If it’s potential dupes, profits profits profits.

“By filing these misleading public disclosures, President Trump grossly exaggerated the financial health of the Trump Hotel,” the committee said Friday

… Read the rest

Now there’s an easy challenge.

Yes I believe that men who identify as women are "not really" women.

Women means adult human female.

Organisations that try to get people fired, or make work life hostile for people saying this have no place advising employers in the UK. pic.twitter.com/E9p2TUqVO5

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) October 8, 2021

Yes, of course I believe that trans women are not really women, because that’s what “trans women” means. I’ve been coming out and saying it for years. This is not “like” lesbians and women of other marginalized groups, because those women are all women, but trans women are (by definition) men.

There’s no need to beg, no need to say please, I’m perfectly happy … Read the rest

As another citizen of Twitter said, well done those women.

Walking to Labour HQ#HearMeRoar pic.twitter.com/ujLrMNGsHd

— Let Women Speak Official (@StandingforXX) October 8, 2021

… Read the rest

Also in Trans Activists Hell Bent On Expelling Everyone Who Fails To Endorse The Dogma:

Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special is facing a wave of intense backlash after the comedian once again made jokes directed toward the LGBTQ+ community and defended the author JK Rowling, who has been previously accused of transphobia.

“Who has been previously accused,” says Maya Yang sanctimoniously.

Journalism needs to do a better job on this. Lots of people have been “previously accused of transphobia,” because journalists and others don’t hold these accusers to account. They don’t insist on a clear and exact definition of “transphobia,” so what they get is just 17 trillion venomous accusations which don’t mean anything. We’re all accused of “transphobia” as … Read the rest

Oh yes, of course there’s another aspect to this business of Trump’s determination to stop people testifying and producing evidence now that he’s out of office. What is that aspect? Four little words.

that would be obstruction

— Jen "get knocked down, get back up " Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) October 7, 2021

Ohhh right! Obstruction of justice! That’s what he’s doing, and it’s a no-no. Witness tampering: no no, not allowed, put the phone down.

Of course that means nothing if the Justice Department looks the other way out of politeness or some such shit.… Read the rest

Dennis Kavanagh says the tide has turned.

https://twitter.com/Jebadoo2/status/1446155798657310722

Note the “empathy, compassion.” Not for the likes of Kathleen Stock of course.

3/ Francesco here this morning posted a three tweet thread explicitly NOT calling for Professor Stock's sacking in the same way the Kray twins aren't explicitly saying they will burn your shop down when they say "Nice business you got here, shame if anything were to happen to it"

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) October 7, 2021

But it didn’t work out the way he expected.

9/ He must have wondered at that point how he had come to misjudge this so badly. Surely beardy pronoun thugs just need to attack prominent lesbians and they go through hell while

… Read the rest

Some “women’s officer.”

So for anyone who doesn't know… I'm the Women's Officer at Uni of Sussex Student's Union. I do not stand by this statement made by the University in response to the actions on campus. #shameonsussex https://t.co/1QhRENVjzQ

— Lucy Evans @biolucy@mas.to (@lucy_evzz) October 7, 2021

… Read the rest

Trump’s goons plan to ignore the subpoenas, because he told them to. Telling them to equals telling them to invite prosecution and conviction and a sentence, but whatevs, that’s their problem.

All four Trump aides targeted by the select committee – [Mark] Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel – are expected to resist the orders because Trump is preparing to direct them to do so, the source said.

It’s not clear how Trump can “direct” them to do anything. He’s not their boss and he’s not god of the universe. They don’t have to do what he tells them to do.

But increasingly concerned with the far-reaching nature of

… Read the rest

Brighton and Hove News reports:

A targeted campaign against a philosophy professor accused of transphobia has been condemned as harassment by the University of Sussex.

Posters demanding the university fire Kathleen Stock appeared on campus this morning, and smoke bombs were set off as a masked protester held a banner saying Stock Out at the entrance to campus.

The protesters say Professor Stock seeks to exclude and endanger trans people by, for example, supporting female-only spaces and sport and questioning the safety of puberty blocking drugs prescribed to minors.

In other words she seeks to support the safety of women and of minors who want to harm themselves by halting puberty. She doesn’t seek to endanger anyone, and she … Read the rest

yatakalam has been reading the ruling so that we don’t have to. It’s quite remarkable.

https://twitter.com/yatakalam/status/1445876701649686533

Nelson says she gets “misgendered” when she gets coffee or goes to the grocery store. Nonsense. Commercial transactions don’t work that way. The only pronoun likely to come up is “you.” Nelson seems to be a bit of a liar on top of everything else.

https://twitter.com/yatakalam/status/1445882128533647360

These clips are sickening to read.… Read the rest

More pronoun gibberish from the BC human rights tribunal:

A former server at a Gibsons, B.C. restaurant has been awarded $30,000 after a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal decision found they were unfairly terminated for asking managers and co-workers to call them by their proper pronouns.

That’s the lede and already we’re in the woods. Who were unfairly terminated? The tribunal? The restaurant? One of the advantages of non-customized pronouns is that they convey information – that’s what they’re for. They don’t always convey all the necessary information, for instance when there is more than one she or he involved, but they’re better than a vague “they” that could refer to anything, including a group of objects.

The whole article … Read the rest

No, “preferred pronouns” are not a human right. A Canadian human rights tribunal thinks they are though.

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favor of Jessie Nelson, a British Columbia restaurant server who is biologically female but identifies as nonbinary. Nelson, who asked colleagues to use “they” and “them” pronouns, was repeatedly called “she” and “her” by former colleague Brian Gobelle, who also called Nelson nicknames such as “sweetheart,” “honey,” and “pinky,” the tribunal’s ruling said. After Nelson unsuccessfully asked Gobelle to stop, the employee went to management, who declined to intervene right away, the court said. Nelson and Gobelle then got into a heated discussion about the issue, and Nelson was fired four days later for

… Read the rest

First, a news item from the Toronto Star August 21 [warning: graphic violence]:

Rhoderie Estrada went to sleep likely around 10 p.m. after folding laundry, watching Korean dramas and putting her three young daughters to bed in their two-storey East York home.

In the early hours of May 26, 2018, her husband came home to a nightmare — Estrada lying bloodied on their bed with head injuries too severe for him to perform CPR.

Now, after five days of deliberations, a jury has found Yostin Murillo and David Beak guilty of the first-degree murder and sexual assault of Estrada, a 41-year-old long-time dialysis nurse at St. Joseph’s hospital who adored — and was fiercely protective — of her children.

Fast … Read the rest

No, his shirt needed no improvement.

Abortion Access Front explained:

No matter who you are, if you have a uterus, abortion is only and always YOUR choice. We are sure @DaveBautista will approve of our fix to his shirt! #AbortionAF

No matter who you are, if you have a uterus, you are a woman or girl. It’s women who get pregnant, not people in general. Women are subordinated and dominated and denied basic rights for exactly that reason, so no, it’s not a generic “you” who needs abortion rights, it’s women.

H/t Sackbut… Read the rest

Rewire News is also avoiding the word “women” when it reports on abortion and the campaign to make it illegal again.

“Even though the legal question doesn’t have to do with abortion, the stakes here are still incredibly high, especially for people in Kentucky,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, who will argue the case on October 12.

But Kolbi-Molinas doesn’t mean people in Kentucky, she means women in Kentucky.

If Cameron is able to intervene and the law gets upheld, it could effectively ban abortion after 15 weeks in a state that has just two clinics and multiple restrictions, including a 24-hour waiting period and bans on insurance coverage

… Read the rest

On both sides.

Dominic Raab has rejected the idea that misogyny should become a hate crime in the wake of the Sarah Everard murder, but then appeared confused about its meaning as he suggested it could apply to abuse against either women or men.

You can’t make misogyny itself a hate crime – that’s just stupid. You can point it out and fulminate against it and try hard to convince people to get rid of it, but you can’t make it a crime. It would be like making atheism a crime, or theism, or belief in reincarnation, or not liking grapefruit.

Perhaps the idea is to make it an aggravating factor in crimes against women? That would make … Read the rest

Graham Linehan tells us that David Lammy told a whopper about the silence of his constituents on the trans issue. It’s quite a startling whopper.

Speaking to Rachel Burden on Radio 5 Live, 29th September, Lammy criticised the BBC for focusing on  “identity issues” and denied that voters are concerned about gender ideology, saying to Burden “you have chosen to ask me about an issue that has never, ever been raised on the doorstep”.

He took an almost identical line while talking to Nick Robinson of BBC’s Today programme on the same day. “Nick you are deliberately asking me about an issue which you know does not come up on the doorstep. It’s a bit of a trap to get

… Read the rest

Apparently the hospital situation is as bad as ever.

NHS trusts are “gaslighting” patients over the inclusion of transgender patients on single-sex wards, a whistle-blower nurse has warned.

Dr Sinead Helyar said that in at least one trust if patients question why there is a male-bodied person on a female-only ward, medics have been told to “reiterate… that there are no men present”.

I don’t know why the Telegraph calls her a nurse and then a doctor, but anyway, we’ve heard this story before, and it’s pretty sick-making that it hasn’t been fixed.

Official NHS trust policy documents also compare patients who ask for single-sex spaces to racists and label them “transphobes”, “offenders” and “perpetrators”, she said.

Staff who

… Read the rest

The Catholic church knew and did it anyway, Facebook knew and did it anyway.

Facebook’s internal research found that Instagram, which it acquired in 2012 for $1 billion, makes eating disorders and thoughts of suicide worse in teenage girls, whistleblower Frances Haugen said in a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday.

Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook, gathered internal documents as she grew frustrated by the company’s prioritization of growth and user engagement over its negative impacts, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to internal studies retrieved by Haugen, Facebook found that 13.5% of teen girls say Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse, and 17% of teen girls say Instagram makes eating disorders worse.

Well, look at it … Read the rest