Pliny’s latest:… Read the rest

Where that “being offensive is a crime” billboard came from:

So apparently they parked outside an Asda with their police state billboard, and had rewarding chats positive discussion with the shoppers – the essential shoppers. I suppose by “essential shoppers” they mean people who were at the shop for essential goods only, not anything frivolous – like having a chat about the illegality of being offensive.

Mostly just women, probably, essential shopping at Asda to pick up the beans on toast, the tea, the chip butties, the Weetabix. That’s good, because women are the people who don’t matter when it comes to being offensive, and the people who need to be punished when anyone says a man is not … Read the rest

This one had me holding my breath for a bit as I read. A council took funding away from a domestic violence shelter to give it to one “that caters for the needs of people with all the protected characteristics.” Sorry, wimz, you don’t have enough protected characteristics, bye!

Brighton and Hove City Council has defended the decision that cost a Brighton domestic violence charity a £5 million contract.

Senior councillors shared their shock when the situation was raised at a budget meeting.

And they promised to look into the decision that will lead to RISE being replaced by Victim Support and the social housing provider Stonewater.

RISE has run refuge and helpline services in Brighton and Hove for the

Speaking of the police…

There’s a lot to notice about that. First there’s the fact that women are excluded from the list, I guess because women are never the target of hatred or violence. Then there’s the muddle of starting with a set of people and then instantly switching to a list of categories. Then there’s the fact that pimps are sex workers so what kind of “crime against” pimps do Merseyside Police have in mind? Then there’s belief – what is a “crime against” belief?

The other side isn’t great either. “BEING OFFENSIVE IS AN OFFENCE.” Really? All “being offensive” is a police matter? Have they thought this through?

I don’t know. The cops have never cared this much … Read the rest

When the police are in on the scam…

Gender isn’t limited to boys and girls, so it’s time to break the habit of assuming people must be one or the other. The best place to start? Teaching the right concepts to our children. https://t.co/NPxM0deZ5M

— Parents (@parents) February 20, 2021

Ah yes the “habit” of thinking there are two genders and we know which is which. It’s just a silly frivolous thoughtless habit, like dropping your coat on the floor or whistling.

Hooray that we’re so enlightened now we’ve broken the habit, and are in a position to teach children “the right concepts” – that you’re a girl if you feel like a girl and if you don’t feel like a girl you’re a boy or nonbinary or … Read the rest

More “include trans women in EVERYTHING” from Nora Imlau:

I'm not making a trans issue out of #fgm. I'm merely pointing out that it's never okay to not include trans women in the definition of women.

— Nora Imlau noraimlau@mas.to (@NoraImlau) February 19, 2021

Damn that’s a huge claim. Even if you think trans women should be “included” in the definition most of the time you can still think there’s no need to “include” them in discussion of bluntly physical matters like pregnancy and childbirth and genital mutilation.

It’s so officious, this interrupting of women to shout “INCLUDE MEN WHO CALL THEMSELVES WOMEN” any time anyone has the temerity to talk about women. Who made Nora Imlau, or … Read the rest

Norm Allen on the Black Church:

Henry Louis Gates’ two-part, 4-hour documentary on the Black Church was featured on PBS February 16–17, 2021. It focused on the Black Church’s role in combating racism. While it is clear that churches (or rather, church people) have always had some positive aspects, the bottom line is that theistic churches have at their center the belief in a perfect God.

So the question that instantly comes to my mind – as it did every time I saw a teaser for Gates’s doc on PBS – is why this perfect God allowed slavery, or any kind of race-based hierarchy, or any kind of hierarchy period.

For all of the talk of the role of

I can’t vouch for the truth of this, couldn’t find anything else about it, but just in case it is true…

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Just like.

What a vast amount of time and attention and energy people are squandering on this absurd caricature of social justice, when they could be doing something useful.

The fact that women are forced to respond to this bullshit when they could be directing their efforts towards other necessary projects instead of having to fight rearguard actions to protect rights they thought they’d won already. Just like firefighters, whose job is already difficult and dangerous enough without the added distraction of false alarms and arson.

Or, to put it in a cruder way, TRAs are pissed off at campaigns against genital mutilation because that’s how you get trans people.

But…

The problem is not that she's centering women in her work and words. The problem is that she excludes trans women from it. 'I'm a woman. Get over it.' is what trans women say too. If everyone accepted that trans women are women just like cis women, no one would take issue.

— Nora Imlau noraimlau@mas.to (@NoraImlau) February 19, 2021

But.

But why should a woman who campaigns against female genital mutilation have to “include” men who identify as women? However they identify, they can’t possibly experience FGM, so why should Hibo Wardere include them in her work? Her work is not personally relevant to them (even if they do have enough concern for others to care about the … Read the rest

Billy Bragg, defender of the downtrodden.

You can’t claim JK Rowling is not powerful. And Susan Moore has the platform of a Conservative national newspaper from which to express her views

— Billy Bragg (@billybragg) February 18, 2021

I did. Apologies Suzanne. Were you not referring to the issue of trans rights, in which both have taken a stance and claimed that they have been 'cancelled'?

— Billy Bragg (@billybragg) February 18, 2021

How dare women take a stance? Their taking a stance proves that they are powerful and not downtrodden in any way. Bitches.

Hardly the context of 'the powerful' is it?

— Grace Hawthorn Poundshop Prefect (@grace_hawthorn) February 18, 2021

Selina Todd who was on Newsnight last night

Why?

Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has said flags in the state will fly at half-staff for Rush Limbaugh, the hard-right talk radio host who died this week aged 70.

Is that a thing? Lowering flags for random entertainers?

DeSantis, a controversial governor known to some as a “mini-Trump” and widely thought to have presidential ambitions, called Limbaugh a friend.

What’s that got to do with anything? Do governors usually get to lower flags for their friends? I thought flag-lowering was meant to be an exceptional thing with some connection to public service.

Appearing with James Golden, longtime producer to the leading “shock jock”, the governor told reporters: “When there’s things of this magnitude, once the date of

While he has a minute.

This dude is the mayor of Colorado City, Texas.

Good fucking god they're fucked. pic.twitter.com/kMDkYAFqEd

— Michael Paulauski (@mike10010100) February 16, 2021

It’s not a “handout” though to get electricity and water that you pay for. Public utilities aren’t “handouts,” they’re what it says on the tin. Water, sewer systems, garbage removal, recycling, electricity – we pay for them.

I also wonder how he thinks people are supposed to “think outside the box” to “supply water” on their own. Outside the box is likely to kill you, especially when you can’t boil anything because the power is out.

Word is he has decided to stop being mayor of Colorado City, Texas.… Read the rest

Well that was fun – the power went out in the neighborhood yesterday morning a few minutes past 7 and was out ALL DAY.

This was the third time in the last 8 months.

I can report that reading by flashlight while freezing cold is not very pleasant.… Read the rest

He’s sorry though.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has offered a stunning explanation for flying out to Cancun on Wednesday night as his home state literally froze to death: He was being a good dad.

“Whether the decision to go was tone-deaf, look, it was obviously a mistake, and in hindsight I wouldn’t have done it. I was trying to be a dad,” Cruz told reporters late Thursday after returning home to a crowd of protesters chanting “Resign!”

That “in hindsight” is hilarious. What hindsight would that be? It’s not as if he didn’t know about the cold, the snow, the power outages. What does he know now that he didn’t know then? Hm, hm, hm. Oh I know – … Read the rest

Touchdown!

Here goes! Lighting the engines on my “jetpack” for final descent. Wheels down in less than a minute.#CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/AQKPEBGr0o

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021

Note: is animation.

Not animation:

And another look behind me. Welcome to Jezero Crater. #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/dbU3dhm6VZ

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021

I’ve come nearly 300 million miles, and I’m just getting started. Hear from the team about my picture-perfect landing and what comes next.

LIVE at 2:30 p.m. PST (5:30 p.m. EST/20:30 UTC) https://t.co/fciqGe8GpC pic.twitter.com/5XgclFaGtB

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021

We get real pictures – movies even – of the descent tomorrow. I look forward to that. It still blows my mind … Read the rest

Oxford graduate student has major meltdown because one person has a different view.

We'd tried to put robust safeguarding in place to prevent anti-trans interference. As organisers, we know from experience that UK trans academic events are often subject to harassment and shut down.

This was not taken seriously or anticipated by the history faculty.

— Jack Doyle (@JackRaoul) February 18, 2021

I think by “robust safeguarding” he means not letting Enemies attend, and by “anti-trans interference” he means Enemies attending.

This may sound extreme, but this guy is an influential policymaker with a history of harassing trans women + singling out individual staff members and students. There's been no institutional accountability for this behaviour.

— Jack Doyle (@JackRaoul) February

No, that’s not right.

I’ll say it again, if you hold obnoxious views people have the right not to want to speak with you. That’s as true in universities as elsewhere in life. This is ‘freedom’ – the freedom of no speech and no debate. People cannot be made to speak to those who do not respect them. https://t.co/DmWylw8pyD

— Sally Hines (@sally_hines) February 17, 2021

It’s really not true that it’s “as true in universities as elsewhere in life.” She works at a university, as an academic (as opposed to an accountant or maintenance engineer), so you’d think she would know this. Universities do in fact have a particular duty to keep speech (and writing and teaching) as open … Read the rest

Another entry in the Big Book of Guy Snaps, Kills Nearest Woman:

A man has been found not guilty of murdering his wife, just days into the first national Covid lockdown.

That is, the not-murder happened just days into the lockdown. The verdict was three days ago.

Anthony Williams, 70, said he “just flipped” and strangled his wife Ruth at their home in Cwmbran, Torfaen.

Williams, of Brynglas, Hollybush, denied murdering the 67-year-old in March 2020, but admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

It was the merest chance that he was home at the time. He could have been miles away, in which case he might have “just flipped” at a burly young man, and been slapped instead of accidentally … Read the rest