All entries by this author

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself

Jan 3rd, 2020 11:57 am | By

Andy Lewis on what the trans “movement” has done to skepticism:

So, Rebecca Watson of @skepchicks has produced a video calling JK Rowling a ‘bigoted fuckface’. She comes to this conclusion because the Harry Potter author defended Maya Forstater after Maya lost an employment tribunal over her beliefs that sex is binary and immutable. 

Don’t go thinking that’s hyperbole. I haven’t watched the video because I value my sanity, but I skimmed the transcript, and “bigoted fuckface” is right there at the beginning.

JK Rowling, who you may know as the author of the theory that wizards don’t need indoor plumbing because they can just shit on the floor and then magic it away, has finally, officially come

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Unanswerable

Jan 3rd, 2020 11:06 am | By

But, hey, we’re in good hands. Serious, responsible, thoughtful, grown up.

… Read the rest

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Wagging

Jan 3rd, 2020 10:31 am | By

Trump’s cunning plan to avoid impeachment? Or just the normal reckless aggression and urge to smash everything not-self?

George Packer asks some questions:

But the main question about the strike isn’t moral or even legal—it’s strategic. Soleimani was a supremely powerful leader of a state apparatus, with his own cult of personality, but he was not a terror kingpin. His death doesn’t decapitate anything. He had the blood of tens of thousands of people—overwhelmingly fellow Muslims—on his hands, but he was only the agent of a government policy that preceded him and will continue without him. His deeds are beside the point; so is the display of American resolve. The only reason to kill Soleimani is to enter a new

… Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 6 comments


The role of a social worker is not to please bullying adults

Jan 2nd, 2020 5:59 pm | By

Talk about real world consequences.

https://twitter.com/athornehere/status/1211635972032598019 https://twitter.com/athornehere/status/1211635974654111752 https://twitter.com/athornehere/status/1211635976180838401… Read the rest

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Needs and wants: discuss

Jan 2nd, 2020 5:32 pm | By

Rachel Veronica has the new year spirit.

https://twitter.com/SportIsARight/status/1212553176764813312

Again – so sloppy for a philosopher.

Who is “you”?

Why is a generalized population supposed to care what Rachel Veronica needs?

What business is it of Rachel Veronica’s what a generalized population is willing to do?

What are transphobes?

What business is it of Rachel Veronica’s what friends other people have?

What benefit of the doubt is he talking about?

And the last item is just classic male bullying.

All in all pretty gruesome for a working tenured philosopher.… Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 5 comments


In redacted form until now

Jan 2nd, 2020 12:47 pm | By

Kate Brannen has a long and hair-raising explanation of exactly what happened between the White House and the Pentagon during the struggle over getting the Congressionally approved funding for Ukraine released.

The basic story: the Pentagon tried like hell to get the OMB to release the money and the OMB refused and also blew smoke about what it was doing, and the Justice Department redacted the most damning evidence, not for reasons of national security or national anything else but to cover Trump’s ass.

Lemme repeat that.

The Justice Department redacted the most damning evidence not for reasons of national security or national anything else but to cover Trump’s ass.

“Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold.”

This is

… Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 2 comments


Felt like the apocalypse

Jan 2nd, 2020 11:20 am | By
https://twitter.com/mattabbottphoto/status/1212229960573677569

https://twitter.com/OliviaMesser/status/1212777731303362561 … Read the rest

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Carbon

Jan 2nd, 2020 10:43 am | By

Some say the world will end in fire.

… Read the rest

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Reasoned?

Jan 2nd, 2020 10:24 am | By

The unpleasant Dawn formerly Don Ennis, managing editor of OutSports, posted a New Year’s message to TERFS, starting with admitting he was name-calling.

The subhead tells us what to think in advance.

Outsports Managing Editor Dawn Ennis offers this reasoned response to hateful messages targeting trans women athletes and all transgender people.

We’ll decide for ourselves whether it’s reasoned or not, thanks. Talk of “hateful messages” and “targeting” in the subhead is not a good start if you want us to think the response is “reasoned.”

Dear TERFs, anti-trans activists and transphobes:

Again: not a good start.

It’s a new year, and I’m using this occasion to address you directly.

I know, you’re not keen on being called “TERFs”

… Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 11 comments


110 fires

Jan 1st, 2020 4:57 pm | By

More.

Benjamin Graham reports:

Tens of thousands of people are fleeing NSW’s south coast, where a ‘humanitarian crisis’ is developing. In many towns there’s no fuel, no food and no power, as dangerous bushfire conditions are

… Read the rest

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It’s all about friendship

Jan 1st, 2020 4:31 pm | By

Oh about that North Korea thing…

Q    Mr. President, can you — what is your message tonight for — what is your message tonight for North Korea?

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we’ll see.  I have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.  I know he’s sending out certain messages about Christmas presents, and I hope his Christmas present is a beautiful vase.  That’s what I’d like — a vase —

Cute. I love it when he makes jokes about nuclear war.

Q    Do you think it will be, sir?

THE PRESIDENT:  — as opposed to something else.  I don’t know.  I — look, he likes me; I like him.  We get along.  He’s representing his country.  I’m representing my

… Read the rest

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Energized

Jan 1st, 2020 3:49 pm | By

In case you were feeling any impulse to think Princess Ivanka isn’t as bad as her rotting-from-the-head father, watching this will cure you.

All they could have been getting done were it not for the impeachment.… Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 5 comments


The escalating bushfires threaten to trap them

Jan 1st, 2020 3:15 pm | By

Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald reported on the danger of being trapped by fires on the coast.

Thousands of holidaymakers between Ulladulla and Culburra Beach including Jervis Bay on the NSW South Coast have been warned that the escalating bushfires threaten to trap them.

NSW Rural Fire Service is warning that spot fires from stray embers could impact the Broulee and Batemans Bay regions further south. Following intensifying bushfires overnight, on Tuesday the Princes Highway was closed in multiple locations. The Kings Highway has already been closed for sometime.

When Paradise California burned up there were, I think, only three roads out. They were choked with traffic and then engulfed in flames. People died in their cars.

The BBC … Read the rest

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Behold the majestic smoke-filled valleys

Jan 1st, 2020 2:43 pm | By

A climate scientist visiting the Blue Mountains in New South Wales points out that climate change is here and this is it.

I did not see vast expanses of rainforest framed by distant blue-tinged mountain ranges. Instead I looked out into smoke-filled valleys, with only the faintest ghosts of distant ridges and peaks in the background. The iconic blue tint (which derives from a haze formed from “terpenes” emitted by the Eucalyptus trees that are so plentiful here) was replaced by a brown haze. The blue sky, too, had been replaced by that brown haze.

Been there – not the Blue Mountains, but the blue mountains turned brown experience. Summer 2018 here on the western edge of the US: … Read the rest

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Women are to be colonised, erased, silenced and put at risk

Jan 1st, 2020 12:27 pm | By

Graham Linehan on JK Rowling and The Outrage:

The response to Rowling’s statement demonstrates what women with less power, but just as much compassion and sense, have been trying to tell us for a number of years. Namely, that gender ideology is bad for women. That it erases them and insults them and endangers them, and when they dare to discuss this issue—and ONLY this issue—they are subject to disproportionately severe penalties. Maya Forstater lost her job, remember.

…

Rowling chose her words carefully. The first four sentences are almost an apology for speaking out at all, because she knows how her support for Maya will be received. She front loads the statement with mollifying phrases to protect

… Read the rest

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Because

Jan 1st, 2020 8:24 am | By

Dawn Ennis, trans woman and Managing Editor of http://Outsports.com, explains why trans woman CeCé Telfer was such a slam dunk choice for athlete of the year:

They chose a man who “identifies as” a woman as female athlete of the year because it’s such an excellent poke in the eye to all female athletes, and because they’re all about the male entitlement, and because they like… Read the rest

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HNY

Jan 1st, 2020 8:07 am | By

… Read the rest

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A smoke screen for her underlying bigotry

Dec 31st, 2019 4:49 pm | By

Katelyn Burns explains the Maya Forstater ruling for readers of The New Republic:

But a closer look at the case reveals that it doesn’t have much to do with a belief that “there are only two sexes in human beings … male and female,” as Forstater claims (and growing bodies of science dispute). In practice, Forstater was seeking legal cover to disregard the already established rights of trans people in the U.K.

What rights? What rights of trans people was Maya “seeking legal cover to disregard”?

Hers was a familiar argument—one that for too long has dominated mainstream coverage of trans rights.

What rights are those though?

A passage from employment judge James Tayler’s ruling explained it perfectly: “The claimant

… Read the rest

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Golfing while Palm Beach burns

Dec 31st, 2019 3:56 pm | By

Trump spends a very hefty percentage of his time on the golf course – hefty as in around 20%.

In one way that’s a good thing, because while he’s golfing he’s not shit-tweeting or Putin-kissing or world-destroying. In another way it’s contemptible, because he decided to take on this formidable job and he’s not even giving it his full attention. (An even heftier percentage of his time is taken up with watching Fox News.)

CNN has collected some figures.

According to CNN’s tally, he has spent at least 252 days at a Trump golf club and 333 days at a Trump property as President.

This year alone, he spent at least 86 days at a golf club, despite a

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A terrible choice on so many levels

Dec 31st, 2019 11:37 am | By

Oddly enough women don’t see Ivanka Trump as a diversity hire.

CES, the eading consumer-electronics trade show, is facing criticism after picking Ivanka Trump to serve as its keynote speaker next month in Las Vegas, after years of being accused of overlooking the role of women in technology.

I find that pretty disgusting and I’m not even a woman in technology.

She has no knowledge or experience or credentials in the field, and she also has no knowledge or experience or credentials in any other field. All she’s ever done is parlay her corrupt father’s celebrity and money into money and celebrity for herself.

“This is a terrible choice on so many levels but also – what an insult

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