Caitlyn Jenner says he is running for governor of California.

Why? Based on what? What relevant experience or education does he have? He appears to be woefully ignorant, plus he’s part of that whole nightmare Kardashian famous-for-nothing circus, plus he killed a woman with his car. What on earth makes him think he would be even a minimally competent governor of a state that’s bigger than many countries?

Olympic hero, reality TV personality and transgender rights activist Caitlyn Jenner announced Friday that she has filed paperwork to enter the race to become California’s next governor.

He’s not a hero. He’s a good swimmer athlete. That doesn’t make you a hero. Being a reality tv “personality” is a reason not… Read the rest

India is in trouble.

India’s healthcare system is buckling as a record surge in Covid-19 cases puts pressure on hospital beds and drains oxygen supplies.

Families are left pleading for their relatives who are desperately ill, with some patients left untreated for hours.

Crematoriums are organising mass funeral pyres.

On Friday India reported 332,730 new cases of coronavirus, setting a world record for a second day running. Deaths were numbered at 2,263 in 24 hours.

Not a per capita record though, I think.

This wave is worse than the first one.

On 10 February, at the start of the second wave, India confirmed 11,000 cases – and in the next 50 days, the daily average was around 22,000

… Read the rest

The shock, the outrage, the scandal – a gymnast actually wore clothing at a competition.

She did not break any rules, but Sarah Voss’s full-body suit at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Switzerland defied convention.

What convention is that exactly? Is there a convention that gymnasts compete naked?

Until now women and girls have only covered their legs in international competition for religious reasons.

Ohhhhh that convention – the one where men wear clothes and women wear bathing suits. Let’s not just rush ahead, let’s talk about that. Why is that a convention? Why does the same convention apply in figure skating competitions? Why do men wear clothes while women wear bathing suits? What the hell is that? … Read the rest

Mark Joseph Stern at Slate on the horrible ruling in Jones v Mississippi:

In an appalling 6–3 decision on Thursday, the Supreme Court effectively reinstated juvenile life without parole by shredding precedents that had sharply limited the sentence in every state. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s majority opinion in Jones v. Mississippi is one of the most dishonest and cynical decisions in recent memory: While pretending to follow precedent, Kavanaugh tore down judicial restrictions on JLWOP, ensuring that fully rehabilitated individuals who committed their crimes as children will die behind bars. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, pulls no punches in its biting rebuke of Kavanaugh’s duplicity and inhumanity. It doubles as an ominous warning

… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/LaborProject/status/1383879008899670028

And not only without the shame and stigma, but also with the confidence and sense of entitlement. Men are not raised (by the culture as well as parents) to be apologetic or assume their rights are secondary. Women are.

But, of course that couldn’t be allowed.

https://twitter.com/sadydoyle/status/1384145600455737350

No, men have not had miscarriages. You need a uterus to miscarry. You need a uterus with a fetus in it to miscarry. Men don’t have those. Women do. Men don’t.

In case anyone is following along and concerned: I report the misgendering, respond once, and mute transphobes. I have no desire to debate my existence, and hate isn't interesting. But I'm fine; this is an everyday sort of thing, and I

… Read the rest

Jones v Mississippi:

Holding: The Eighth Amendment does not require a finding that a juvenile is permanently incorrigible before imposing a sentence of life without parole.

Judgment: Affirmed, 6-3, in an opinion by Justice Kavanaugh on April 22, 2021. Justice Thomas filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Breyer and Kagan joined.

https://twitter.com/AdrienneLaw/status/1385234470865833989

Today's decision is a huge blow against the movement to end juvenile life without parole. As Sotomayor correctly notes in her dissent, the court "guts" precedents that had strictly limit JLWOP. This is a major defeat for JLWOP reform. https://t.co/XS5CPsa2In pic.twitter.com/fTczLRlYqN

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 22, 2021

This will be an extremely

… Read the rest

This happened:

Letter to the @AmericanHumanist Association from myself (AHA Humanist of the Year 2006) and Rebecca Goldstein (AHA Humanist of the Year 2011) @platobooktour protesting its withdrawal of Humanist of the Year award to @richarddawkins #richarddawkins pic.twitter.com/IVNjbmswHT

— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) April 21, 2021

I think there are some complications skipped over in the letter. I think “reason requires that a diverse range of ideas be expressed and debated openly, including ones that some people find unfamiliar or uncomfortable” is true in its way but it steps around some of those complications. I don’t think that reason requires diverse ideas such as “women are stupid” “Jews should be eradicated” “black people should be enslaved” “lesbians and gays are an … Read the rest

A giant of the House.

She just admitted that she hasn't read the bill she's been complaining about…forever. "All 14 pages" pic.twitter.com/Wn2YetyydM

— @fionataylor@writing.exchange (@fionaleslie) April 22, 2021

All 14 pages. My god the sacrifices people are expected to make just to do their jobs as legislators. They’re actually expected to read the bills before voting on them. It’s inhuman.

(Actually, they’re not, at least not by themselves and their higher ups, not all the time, because we’ve seen those genuinely massive (i.e. more than 14 pages) bills whiz from introduction to passage in a few hours when McConnell is cracking the whip.)

Thoughts and prayers to Rep. Greene in these trying hours.… Read the rest

News from Hartlepool:

A registered sex offender has been confirmed as a candidate in the upcoming Hartlepool by-elections.

Christopher Killick, who is on the ballot for the May 6 vote, was sentenced for voyeurism last year for filming a naked woman in a hotel room while she was asleep.

“Sex offender” doesn’t even cover it. That offends privacy, safety, women’s ability to leave the house and exist in public space, the ability to feel like a person among other persons – it turns a woman into a masturbation prop for men, a thing, an object, a tool. It’s funny how the purported feelings of men who say they are women are all-important while the unavoidable feelings of violated women … Read the rest

Leya makes a point I wish people would make more often, and much louder.

https://twitter.com/Leyanelle/status/1384819420413968384

See, identities are so much more fun than wages and benefits and hours. So much more sexy, so much more ersatz-clever, so much more about dressing up and haircuts.

Leya goes on:

It is a politics of privilege. It is wholly lacking any reality based analysis re changes that would make a difference to the lives of those facing real hardships & injustices.

The only structural changes arising from woke politics is that institutions can ignore addressing the hard issues in practical & informed ways, & instead perform the right language & forms of signalling & pretend this is making progress.

It is how we

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on In understanding and analyzing any claim.

I think TRAs have kind of weaponised a lot of the shortcut memes which the rest of the left didn’t realise were bad ideas at the time.

I mean “JAQing off”, was originally a criticism of anti-feminists wasting everyone’s time, by asking questions which were unproductive and which had been answered repeatedly over a course of decades.

I think what we didn’t realise was that we had created an ideology which had this neat out from having to answer those questions at all, where asking those questions was an immediate marker of an enemy.

To JAQ off should be to ask questions without reading the basic … Read the rest

Another one.

https://twitter.com/womeninitawards/status/1384066092117598209

They say “to view the full category criteria” but they don’t mean it – if you follow the link you don’t find the full category criteria. You have to ask – if you ask they admit it: they don’t mean women.

They haven’t specified any criteria. I emailed to ask an this is the response. pic.twitter.com/fWvfWSF5qU

— wringthonk (@BeavyBee) April 21, 2021

So not an award for women after all.… Read the rest

One of my very good friends who is from the United States has just messaged me to ask if I wish the soap off dishes after washing them, because apparently Americans think that British people don't do that.

I knew about the bad teeth thing, but do they really think we eat soap?

— Hannah Al-Othman (@HannahAlOthman) April 21, 2021

But apparently many do.

Do YOU eat soap?!https://t.co/FmQhTqfpRp

— Hannah Al-Othman (@HannahAlOthman) April 21, 2021

https://twitter.com/HannahAlOthman/status/1384928453129027588

Ew. You hafta rinse them.

You don't rinse them under the tap after they come out of the bowl?

— Hannah Al-Othman (@HannahAlOthman) April 21, 2021

pic.twitter.com/Z3OJLoSrrP

— indefatigable (margaret) (@Indefatigabl_) April 21, 2021

Ew.… Read the rest

Darkly interesting.

I think of that grim relationship between Trump and sickness as I read the latest stories about how so many Republicans continue to refuse COVID vaccines. 2/xhttps://t.co/Lg7kVsAuwh pic.twitter.com/kKbgvUnbp6

— David Frum (@davidfrum) April 21, 2021

… there's an issue of personal responsibility here too. A heroic scientific effort – achieved at huge cost – has delivered vaccines that are astonishingly effective at protecting life from COVID. So effective that we may not need to worry about herd immunity. If so … 5/x

— David Frum (@davidfrum) April 21, 2021

Trump and the Fox leadership have vaccinated themselves of course. But they have a different message for their followers. They have persuaded them that it's a test of

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sackbut in Miscellany Room 6.

The various discussions about transracialism and transgender ideology spurred some thoughts that I couldn’t quite fit anywhere, so I thought I’d put them here. It’s possible I’ve already related this story before, but it came to mind again.

My father was black, my mother was white, and I am one of those light-skinned people who might be considered black by the One Drop Rule. When I was in high school, decades ago, before all this “identity politics” and postmodern Critical Theory stuff became current, I was considering applying for an Achievement Scholarship, an award from the same outfit that does the National Merit Scholarship, but reserved for black students. The … Read the rest

The AHA statement about Dawkins rejects the interpretation that he was pointing to an apparent inconsistency in the current norms of political correctness, while simultaneously providing an example of precisely the confused thinking that he claims he was pointing out. Discuss.

— Daniel Dennett (@danieldennett) April 21, 2021

My Discuss: of course they do, because they can’t do anything else, because the confused thinking is baked in, because the whole idea is confused and absurd and solipsistic.

Or maybe not? Maybe it’s all just gloriously simple.

Comparing a lady pretending to be black is not the same as someone asking to be identified as man/woman. He’s needs to unequivocally say that those are not the same. He hasn’t done

… Read the rest

Scottish Women’s Aid is recruiting:

Do you want to get involved in making Scotland a happier, safer place for young women? Are you interested in learning more about feminist research? Would you like to a shape an exciting national digital campaign? If yes, this advisory panel opportunity is for you!

We want to understand where young women and girls look for support and advice when they are faced with abuse from someone they are in an intimate relationship with, and how Women’s Aid can help them in that situation.

And by “abuse from someone they are in an intimate relationship with” they mostly mean someone male. Lesbians can be abusive too, of course, but the power dynamics are different, … Read the rest

He burned them.

Professor Richard Dawkins has been stripped of an award by the American Humanist Association, after the organisation said his statements on transgender rights “demean marginalised groups”.

Voting to withdraw a 1996 “humanist of the year award”, the AHA said that the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion was no longer “an exemplar of humanist values” after his tweets appeared to question whether people can choose their gender.

Or, rather, their sex.

Dawkins, 80, claimed that the loss of the award would have little practical effect on him because he had never used it. “Apparently the honour hadn’t meant enough to me to be worth recording in my CV,” he said.

That’s the burn. Not … Read the rest

That’s a relief, anyway.

Derek Chauvin found guilty on all charges. https://t.co/RdYLvfcKDu pic.twitter.com/xOSPF9KECa

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 20, 2021

Guilty on all counts. Right result.

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) April 20, 2021

Relief is all it is. The horror remains.… Read the rest

Heh this one is funny to me if no one else.

Serial trolling from 2014: pic.twitter.com/x8U9pxuKA5

— Peter Aldhous (@paldhous) April 20, 2021

I had to look up the dates to make sure: that July 28 1914 2014 pair is the one he perpetrated two days after he co-signed with me that truce-thing saying let’s agree to disagree without abusing each other. He co-signed it with me and posted it on his blog. I wrote it and asked him to co-sign it with me because a hell of a lot of aggressively misogynist men had been exercising their aggression on women and a lot of those men were big fans of his. I had to laugh when he tweeted … Read the rest