So much for “higher” education.

Academics have condemned the University and College Union’s decision to campaign against a widely praised independent review into NHS treatment for gender-questioning children, claiming its position is “anti-scientific” and could expose researchers to harassment.

The outcry follows the unanimous vote by the UCU’s national executive committee to adopt a motion which claims that the landmark Cass Review into gender identity services for young people, published in April, “falls short of the standard of rigorous and ethical research expected of research professionals” and “provides no evidence for the ‘new approach’ it recommends”.

Which being interpreted means “we don’t like it.”

The 388-page report by Hilary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child

… Read the rest

Consider carefully the malice. Seriously. Consider it very very very carefully. There’s a lot of it, and it’s persistent, and it targets mostly women. Get your considering boots on.

Sarah’s full tweet:

And as I have made very clear to the BSB, you need to consider carefully the malice behind much of this. This man requests anonymity – it is granted to the extent that I will not be informed of either complaint or response. Man then publishes entire thing to show that claimed fragility was bogus. If the BSB proceeded with this then presumably I would not be told the name of the accuser. I consider this unacceptable. Complainants must be named because – in my now considerable experience

… Read the rest

As Biden digs in…

Defiance has become as much a part of Joe Biden’s psychology as Delaware.

Well that’s one way of putting it. Another way is that Joe Biden is all for Joe Biden.

But as the president and his inner circle dig in following his disastrous debate performance last week, a growing number of Democratic leaders are saying they want him to step aside for the good of the party – and the country.

“Digging in” isn’t always a virtue.

“There’s a large and increasing group of House Democrats concerned about the president’s candidacy, representing a broad swath of the caucus,” another House Democratic lawmaker told CNN on condition of anonymity to speak candidly. “We are deeply

… Read the rest

BBC drools over guy who plays darts:

A transgender woman and darts player from Hull who has faced a wave of abuse and exclusion from competitions says she has been questioning her future within the game. Samantha Lewis’s passion for darts runs deep, and the sport has spanned generations in her family.

That is, his grandparents played darts and his father plays darts. Very generations-spanny, very newsworthy.

However, Ms Lewis, 28, has been left wondering if she should continue in the sport.

Here he is:

That arm, that wrist, that hand, those shoulders, that neck. Never mind darts, he could be wrestling bulls.

But oh dear, some people are saying men shouldn’t be playing in women’s darts competitions. Can … Read the rest

Oh interesting, Willoughby is now claiming to be persecuted and marginalized the way immigrants are.

Women aren’t countries India.

We’re people. pic.twitter.com/BAdND8c0Hi

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) July 2, 2024

Which is so fascinating because you’ll never guess how he’s talked about immigrants himself.

The things India Willoughby has said on here and about immigration and support for Nigel Farage are a thousand times worse than anything JK Rowling has said.

— Paul (@greasydunlop) November 28, 2022

Meanwhile, India Willoughby – missing out on ‘Humanitarian Of The Year, 2020’ – managed to disgust Daily Mail readers with her racism, and lose her job on This Morning because she wanted to see asylum-seekers drown in an icy grey sea. pic.twitter.com/a6hywiQoQ2

… Read the rest

Rock bottom.

This man is the lowest of the low. @IndiaWilloughby, you’re quite the sick fuck, aren’t you? pic.twitter.com/yOvATb3o5v

— Somebody Out There (@SirJackKubrick) July 2, 2024

… Read the rest

The Bookseller informs us:

Three of the biggest UK publishers’ Pride networks have responded to the launch of an anonymous gender critical network, releasing a joint statement saying “publishing should be a safe and inclusive space for all, including our trans and non-binary authors and colleagues”.

Also including our spinach-eating authors and colleagues and our sedentary authors and colleagues and our poker-playing authors and colleagues and our beer-drinking authors and colleagues…one could go on this way into infinity.

Who is saying publishing should not be a safe and inclusive space for anyone?

No one, of course. Not one damn person. You can search until your pith helmet is a mere rag but you won’t find anyone saying that.

And while … Read the rest

Another big surge forward on the road to hell.

The US supreme court’s decision on Monday to confer broad immunity to former presidents is likely to eviscerate numerous parts of the criminal prosecution against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In other words yes, the presidency is in effect a dictatorship.

Most crucially for the special counsel, Jack Smith, his prosecutors will not be able to introduce as evidence any acts deemed to be official, even as contextual information for jurors to show Trump’s intent.

“There’s such divinity doth hedge a king…”

The alleged illegal conduct came in five categories: Trump pressuring US justice department officials to open sham investigations into election

… Read the rest

The insults just keep rolling in.

There’s a new campaign to get teenage girls into sport. Called #strongisbeautiful it’s been kicked off by Team GB rugby players posing in lingerie.
Feels really regressive and sexist to me.
Maybe I’m old. pic.twitter.com/4LXYdZpoTp

— Nicole Lampert (@nicolelampert) July 2, 2024

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on How it happened.

One of the reasons Biden won in 2020 is that the Democrats had not cultivated any good alternatives to him.

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris. None of them looked like reasonable choices for President to me, and surely to many other Americans, too. I’m all for youthful “energetic grassroots” lefty mojo, but at the Presidential level, I want nation-leadership and world-leadership qualities, too. Big-picture compromise, shrewdness in global geopolitics, that kind of thing. Especially so, as progressivism has begun spiralling into absurd extremism at home, and the threats from abroad have gotten more severe.

The Dems have had four years to start building up-and-coming talent, and they’ve … Read the rest

The Times on how we got here:

In April 2019, Mr. Biden embarked on his third, and given his age, almost certainly his last, bid for the White House. After Mr. Obama’s two terms and Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 campaign, many younger Democrats, the energetic grass roots of the party, were hungering for new talent.

Mr. Biden appeared to struggle on debate stages crowded with more progressive rivals, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as well as younger and more engaging competitors, such as Mr. Buttigieg, then the mayor of South Bend, Ind., Ms. Harris and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey among them. He finished poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But

… Read the rest

Oh ffs.

Nick Ferrari: Can a woman have a penis?@EdwardJDavey: pic.twitter.com/jp15tMB3MK

— What Is A Woman Campaign (@WhatIsAWomanUK) July 1, 2024

We need to debate this with a bit more compassion, he says.

Yes but can a woman have a penis?

Listen, he says, I’ve made it really clear, he says, the vast majority of people will have the same gender as their biological sex but a small number won’t, he says.

So a woman can have a penis? the host says. Wull, quite clearly, SIR Ed Davies says, with a touch of contempt.… Read the rest

Supreme Court says yes sure a president is above the law, no problem.

The Supreme Court’s liberal bloc issued blistering dissents in the Trump immunity ruling, arguing that the decision “reshapes the institution of the presidency” and “makes a mockery” of the constitutional principle that no man is above the law.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reading her dissent from the bench, said that “relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom … the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”

Generosity is a virtue.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on ideological lines that former President Donald Trump has immunity for some of his conduct as president but not unofficial acts in the federal

… Read the rest

Oh go to hell all of you – the police the BBC all of you.

Transgender woman guilty of rape after night out

Man. Man man man man man. Women don’t rape; women can’t rape. Women are the targets of rape, not the perps.

A transgender woman has been found guilty of rape following a night out. Lexi Secker, 35, of Lowbourne, near Melksham, was living as a man when she attacked a woman in Blunsdon, Wiltshire, on 23 April 2023.

Don’t be so ridiculous. The man wasn’t “living as a man”; the man was a man.

Swindon Crown Court was told Secker would be tried as a woman and she was found guilty of one count of rape on

… Read the rest

So the important thing is Biden and his career and his everything – when it should be everyone else.

President Joe Biden waged an intense weekend battle to save his reelection bid following his disastrous debate performance but has been unable to dismiss existential questions about his candidacy that are more glaring than ever.

But maybe just maybe the important thing isn’t his career but the cliff we’re racing towards.

The Democratic damage control strategy of arguing that one bad night does not detract from Biden’s past successes ignores the critical question with which many voters have wrestled for months: Is Biden simply too physically and cognitively diminished to serve another four years?

That’ll be because the arrow of time … Read the rest

I saw this guy’s (disgusting) tweet this morning, but I didn’t realize he’s a PR honcho for the police.

https://twitter.com/sharper76/status/1806721504782012421

The eight nurses who don’t want to undress in front of a man are the bad people here, for “humiliating” him. He’s not the bad guy for humiliating them, no, they’re the bad people for trying to make him stop humiliating them. And yet here we are.

https://twitter.com/coccinellanovem/status/1807446842335965669

PR honcho for the police.… Read the rest

I’m so pleased to find out at last what asexuality looks like.

https://twitter.com/theyasminbenoit/status/1807123591906942983… Read the rest

Yeah good luck with that “damage control” thing.

With countless calls and a rush of campaign events, the president’s team began a damage-control effort to pressure and plead with anxious Democratic lawmakers, surrogates, activists and donors.

But pressure and pleading aren’t going to turn back the clock. They’re not going to make Biden any younger or sharper or more robust.

Later on Friday, top White House aides worked the phones, with Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, calling the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, to check in, according to a person familiar with the call. And by the afternoon, the Biden campaign had transformed its weekly all-staff call into a virtual pep talk to dispel any

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Yet again, for the umpty-billionth time, a smug man reveals how entirely indifferent he is to women and their need for safety from predatory men.

https://twitter.com/sharper76/status/1806721504782012421

Gee yes how dare women object to being forced to take their clothes off in front of men? Who do they think they are, real people???… Read the rest

The Telegraph did a little stir the pot story on an academic article accusing Dolly Parton of all the phobias because of her project to send books to children who need them.

Dolly Parton has been accused of “white saviourism” for giving millions of free books to poor children.

The reading scheme, called Imagination Library, was launched by the country and western star in the US more than three decades ago. It now operates in the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia, and has been lauded for helping to drive up literacy rates.

It gives disadvantaged pupils the same access to books as their middle-class peers by sending high-quality titles directly to the homes of under-fives.

That’s already a very over-simplified … Read the rest