This was a Facebook post yesterday because it’s just personal and kind of chit-chatty, but actually the subject matter is of broader interest so what the hell, I’m reposting it here. Everybody should know about Chuck Pilling.

For a few years in the late 80s and early 90s I lived in north Seattle, and in my neighborhood lived a guy I knew of from working at the zoo, a self-taught bird man, who had a pond with all kinds of ducks on his property. It was about a 20 minute walk from me and I went there often to admire the ducks and the world he’d made for them. Then I moved, and that was that.

Today I took Cooper … Read the rest

Add billions and egomania and what do you get? Egomaniacal billionaire paying part of the cost for a student dormitory in which most of the rooms have no windows.

The 11-story, 159-foot-tall Munger Hall dormitory was designed by 97-year-old billionaire Charles Munger, who donated $200 million toward the approximately $1.4 billion project under the condition that his designs would be followed exactly.

He’s not an architect. He’s not a designer.

Cramming thousands of students into a residence hall where only 6% of the rooms have windows to some seems like a social experiment, but a similar concept has been executed at the University of Michigan with the Munger Graduate Residences.

Munger Graduate Residences opened in 2015 at the University

… Read the rest

Janice Turner on the UK’s proposed ban on conversion therapy:

That young people were once tortured, raped, drugged and subjected to exorcism-like religious rites to make them heterosexual seems not just abhorrent but absurd. How could our hardwired desires be changed? Indeed, such practices in Britain are now, thankfully, vanishingly rare and, as the consultation states, “physical violence in the name of conversion therapy” is illegal already.

Yet the proposed ban applies to both sexuality and the more nebulous concept of gender identity. This has led to grave concerns, not from social conservatives but liberal, compassionate therapists, some LGBT themselves, who for a decade have noted a drastic rise in young female clients, typically same-sex attracted, mostly with profound

… Read the rest

This is fine, this is healthy. A woman who calls herself a man says radical feminists have no place in abortion rights.

https://twitter.com/KaraMailman/status/1466068896922972160

Men don’t have abortions; men don’t need abortions; men are not the sex that is oppressed and punished precisely because it is the sex that gestates humans.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on Any observable and consistent pattern?

So which other patterns exist in humans? Name one.

I copied this a while back:

Woman: “ A rich cultural artifact with many cues used to designate that aspect of their identity. Also: A complex, multi-dimensional and highly variable category. There isn’t one definition.” — PZMyers

I suppose we could use that a possible answer, but it’s still not specific. Suspiciously so. Because giving a list of those “cultural cues” would involve things like long hair, dresses, loving shopping and pretending to be shy. He wouldn’t want to imply that, though I don’t see how it could be avoided.

That second sentence looks to me like the transgender version … Read the rest

Urgh. The parents were asked to remove the kid from the school that day and they refused.

The parents of the teenager accused of killing four people in a Michigan high school shooting were taken into custody early Saturday after a manhunt, Detroit police said.

They tried to flee yesterday and it didn’t work out.

The county sheriff has said that James Crumbley purchased the gun used in the violence just days before the school shooting. McDonald said the pair were made aware of disturbing, violent images on the day of the shooting and were urged to get him counseling.

“James and Jennifer Crumbley resisted the idea of their son leaving the school at that time,” she said during a

… Read the rest

People have lost their fucking minds.

Chicago Public Schools just announced new bathroom rules and signage under Title IX.

All Chicago public schools will be required by December 1st to change bathroom signage to gender neutral terminology.

CPS says “all bathrooms are open for use by anyone who feels comfortable.” pic.twitter.com/Q2p878Q3jU

— Marie Oakes (@TheMarieOakes) December 2, 2021

“for anyone who feels comfortable” she says blithely – but of course no girls will “feel comfortable” in that arrangement.

Here is an example of the bathroom signage that will be required in all Chicago public schools by December 1st: pic.twitter.com/P25m3BFnll

— Marie Oakes (@TheMarieOakes) December 2, 2021

Lost their fucking minds.… Read the rest

Trans person explains why you are required to want to have sex with trans people.

So, how did we get here? How did not wanting to have sex with human beings from one community in particular become a legitimate preference?

By “one community in particular” they mean trans people. “Community” can mean anything though. It can mean “particularly smelly unwashed unsavory people.” It can mean rapists, murderers, Trump fans, anything. I think we should be free to not want to have sex with Trump fans or rapists. Hauling in the sacred word “community” doesn’t change that.

The othering of transgender people in sexual contexts is not only in the context of dating or intimacy. It’s systemic and as such

… Read the rest

When biologists clash:

I'm still waiting for the embryologist @pzmyers to clarify whether or not he thinks trans-women are females.

He seems reluctant to answer.

— Peter Morris – Available for C# contract work (@MrPeterLMorris) December 2, 2021

https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1466842959962423302

Trans eggs or cis eggs?

https://twitter.com/pzmyers/status/1466844121692180481 https://twitter.com/tryingattimes/status/1466870117988511746

What is amazing is that Emma is having to baby-step-walk a noted rationalist and alleged biologist through 'how do you make babies PZ' because trans ideology eats your fucking brains alive. https://t.co/0Ugw8je1ou

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) December 3, 2021

Yes but what are their pronouns?… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on You don’t get to.

The idea of Schrödinger’s Rapist is a funny old one, at least in its implications for logical consistency. The premises are undoubtedly true, as far as it goes — other things equal, asking a vulnerable person to treat the unknown as benign is asking for them to become a victim of some kind of predator. That is likely the very reason fear evolved in animals in the first place, possibly even in single-celled organisms, for an organism that feels no fear is an organism that will be eaten before its fearful brethren.

One of the things I find interesting about some of those who initially championed the concept … Read the rest

Big protest in Salford:

“We expect the BBC to misrepresent us, we expect the BBC to misunderstand us, we expect the BBC to make factual errors: harm us.”— Trans protesters go to #salford Media City, to rise their voices and speak out of their misrepresentation on news media.https://t.co/2JKWUfr9LC pic.twitter.com/uyHo0AzL9X

— Mel Cionco (@MACionco) December 2, 2021

So a…fly is their mascot? A fly? What, because flies are so unpleasant, especially in large numbers? Because flies are attracted by rot? Because they have iridescent wings?

Anyway they done riz up.… Read the rest

We’re way more like the Axis than we are like the Allies.

The parents of Michigan school shooting suspect Ethan Crumbley have each been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter connected to the horrific Nov. 30 attack that left four teens dead and seven people injured, including a teacher.

It’s unusual to hold parents of “school shooters” (how lovely that we have a file name for it) responsible; there are reasons.

“Any individual that had the opportunity to stop this tragedy should have done so. The question is what did they know, and when did they know it,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Friday.

McDonald said that on Nov. 21, a teacher at Oxford High observed Ethan

… Read the rest

Solidarity with those creepy guys on the subway and the bus and next to you at the movies and in a doorway and in a quiet corner of the library and all the other places they frequent! Visible dicks for the people! Get ’em out boys!

https://twitter.com/Bethpresswood/status/1466457172951322631… Read the rest

Andrew Tettenborn at The Critic tells us about a significant ruling at the ECHR on Tuesday:

Rita Pal is an ex-NHS psychiatrist, activist and journalist writing mainly on medical matters for the leftish press, such as the Huffington Post; for a time she also ran her own online paper, the World Medical Times. About ten years ago she had an argument with barrister and ex-journalist Andrew Bousfield, a supporter of Patients First (another NHS pressure group) and sometime Private Eye stringer who on occasion questioned her accuracy and objectivity.

The result was a bitter e-mail exchange. Bousfield went to the police alleging harassment, and in 2011 the Met sent Pal a so-called “prevention of harassment letter”, essentially

… Read the rest

Mississippi’s Attorney General Lynn Fitch pretends to think that overturning Roe v Wade will “empower” women.

In the opening brief she submitted in July, Fitch asked the Supreme Court to use Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade. She argued that abortion prevents women from reaching their full potential. When Roe was decided in 1973, she wrote, the justices maintained that an unwanted pregnancy would doom women to “a distressful life and future.” But nearly 50 years later, Fitch claims “sweeping policy advances” now allow women to fully pursue motherhood and a career, stamping out the need for abortion.

One, like hell they do, but even if they did, it doesn’t follow that there … Read the rest

Dillahunty is turning out to be quite a rich source of fatuities. Sinister fatuities.

Trans women are women. They aren't a threat. You don't get to treat them as if they are… even if you call them 'males'.

In fact, you don't get to treat men that way either.

You have no right to exclude someone because of their genitals – or know what those genitals are.

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) December 1, 2021

We “don’t get” to treat men as a [potential] threat, so that means we don’t get to have any kind of refuge away from men at all, no matter the circumstances or history. We “don’t get” to be aware of the statistics, we “don’t get” to … Read the rest

Very Lewis Carroll, this one.

Then you're not paying attention.

Some people with penises are women.
Some people with penises aren't.

If it's a women's space, those women with penises should be included.

— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) November 30, 2021

Pay attention, willya?… Read the rest

Exciting.

Penn’s Lia Thomas blasted the number one 200 free time and the second-fastest 500 free time in the nation on Saturday, breaking Penn program records in both events. She swept the 100-200-500 free individual events and contributed to the first-place 400 free relay in a tri-meet against Princeton and Cornell in her home pool. Penn split for the day, beating Cornell 219 to 81 but losing to Princeton, 106 to 194.

Second fastest in the nation!! There’s glory for you.

There’s just one tiny detail…

A University of Pennsylvania “women’s” swimmer named Lia Thomas, who used to go by Will as a member of the men’s swimming team, is smashing records and has many wondering if Olympic

… Read the rest

On the one hand it’s grotesque that they did this. On the other hand it’s good that they’re not defending it and they are fixing it.

One stone at a time.

Updating to include action tweet:

https://twitter.com/MidwivesRCM/status/1466345898569576448… Read the rest

lol

https://twitter.com/hatpinwoman/status/1466451219346505730… Read the rest