Saeedullah Safi in the Irish Times on the demolition of women’s rights in Afghanistan:

“My voice is now a crime,” says Mariam, a teacher from Kabul province. Speaking over a shaky WhatsApp connection, Mariam (whose name has been changed for her safety) describes her life as a woman under new Taliban rules. “I am terrified to leave my house,” she says. “Not because I fear the violence in the streets, but because I fear my own voice might betray me.”

Last week, the Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, approved new “vice and virtue” laws, which include a total ban on women’s voices in public and further restrictions on their presence outside the home.

Because, you see, if a man … Read the rest

Speaking up for the women of Afghanistan.

And still NZ have no issue playing male cricket against them. Sports boycotts only ever get enacted when it affects men! https://t.co/pL1bot73YX

— Sharron Davies MBE (@sharrond62) September 8, 2024

‘Ghosts in our own country’. A reminder, in a week when other atrocities have taken the spotlight off this one, that we need to keep pressing for this situation not to be normalized or forgotten about https://t.co/f4QDqeLP7D

— Debbie Cameron (@wordspinster) September 8, 2024

… Read the rest

Wow, what a funny joke.

https://twitter.com/ACBofficials/status/1832765832612520344 Bet you thought that was some stupid slag of a woman under there, didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU??… Read the rest

Trump issues threats:

Former President Donald Trump, who makes frequent false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen through rampant fraud, warned Saturday that he would attempt to imprison anyone who engages in “unscrupulous behavior” during the 2024 race results.

No he didn’t threaten to attempt to imprison, he said he would imprison. Trump never tempers what he says with an awareness of limitations on his power, he just issues the threatyest threats he can come up with.

The threat was issued in a post on Truth Social, his social media website, and repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, accusing Democrats of “rampant Cheating and Skullduggery.”

“The 2024 Election, where Votes have just started

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How sweet.

Notice anyone missing?

https://twitter.com/ACBofficials/status/1832666909562593733… Read the rest

Urrgghh I did not know this – Trump has been campaigning in sundown towns.

Howell, Michigan. LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Mosinee, Wisconsin.

These relatively small cities — spread across midwestern swing states and far from dense metropolitan areas — all have one thing in common: They are former “sundown” towns, where threats of Jim Crow-era violence enforced racial segregation.

After a series of rallies in major cities to kick off his general election campaign, the Republican presidential candidate zeroed in on a handful of cities with familiar pasts.

That’s really really really disgusting.

Viral criticism across social media has argued that Trump’s latest campaign stretch isn’t a coincidence but a “dogwhistle” to racist supporters. Vice President Kamala Harris’s

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Oliver Brown being sly in the Telegraph:

Valentina Petrillo, the Italian father-of-two who qualified on Friday for a second semi-final of these Paris Paralympics in women’s sprinting, has hit back at being called an “out-and-proud cheat” by author JK Rowling, saying: “I’ve never even read Harry Potter.”

Nicely done. The father-of-two in women’s sprinting, who retorts to criticism with a fatuous irrelevance.

Despite the backlash, Petrillo claimed: “There is so much transphobia in all this. The most important word in Olympic and Paralympic sports is inclusion.”

No it isn’t. Of course it isn’t. How could it be? Sports are about competition, which means there are losers along with winners, and in fact there are far more losers than … Read the rest

Trump zeroes in on the real cheating in elections.

It’s true that if height is a top issue this election, Trump has an edge pic.twitter.com/DFmpsh6I6L

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 7, 2024

He’s tall. That definitely means he should win.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Acolyte of Sagan on The most important word.

Two incidents from last week at the Paralympics.

Partially-sighted Australian runner, Jaryd Clifford, accidentally let go of the tether linking him to his guide 4998 metres into the 5000 metres final. He was the only runner in that race to use guides, i.e. the ‘most’ blind runner in the field, finished in third place but was disqualified from recieving the bronze. Essentially, letting go of the tether at any point in the race, whether intentionally or not, suggests that the guide isn’t really needed and therefore the runner is gaining an unfair advantage. Clifford was disqualified because he broke the rules, and cheats don’t deserve medals, right?… Read the rest

The march of stupidity continues.

A Victorian breastfeeding expert is facing legal action over a series of social media posts denying that transgender women can breastfeed.

Jasmine Sussex is being taken to Queensland’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal by a trans mother after labelling attempts by transwomen to breastfeed their children “experimental’’ and calling it a “dangerous fetish”.

Ms Sussex raised concerns about Queensland trans mother Jennifer Buckley – who was born male but later transitioned into a woman – taking hormones to grow breasts and induce lactation to breastfeed her newborn baby.

No he didn’t “transition into a woman” – there is no such thing. He later started to pretend to be a woman.

The Victorian woman is preparing

… Read the rest

The Irish Times:

A transgender woman, who was referred for gender-affirmation surgery in Germany, says she was unable to receive “basic healthcare” on her return to a Dublin hospital.

It wasn’t “basic” healthcare though. It was very specialized.

Paige Behan (26) from Ballyfermot, Dublin, felt “humiliated” and “devastated” when neither the urology, gynaecology nor plastics teams would treat her at St James’s Hospital – the largest acute academic teaching hospital in the State – last month, despite her being referred by her GP for a worsening wound infection at the site of her surgery.

What was his surgery? A “neo-vagina” – which is not basic healthcare, and is arguably not healthcare at all.

Instead she was advised to travel

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Janice Turner on the Taliban’s gender apartheid:

The Afghan men’s cricket team is one of 12 Test match sides. The limited-overs team competed in last year’s World Cup — with prestigious victories over Pakistan and England — and on Monday in India the Test side will play New Zealand. Why? The only possible answer is that the international community cares not a damn for Afghan women.

Why isn’t there a global boycott?

The Taliban is certainly thorough. First it stopped girls attending school and university, removed women from most jobs and demanded they cover themselves in chadors head to toe. Then it pondered other female pleasures, barring women from gyms, beauty salons, hairdressers and public parks, and making shopping

… Read the rest

Liz Cheney endorsed Harris for president the other day. She also had some thoughts on the other candidate.

The former Republican Wyoming representative spoke with Atlantic writer Mark Leibovich in Texas on Friday, following her endorsement of Harris for president this week. In her conversation, she shared words of wisdom for Harris—and a brutally honest condemnation of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

Well there’s no point in being gently dishonest about those two, is there. They want to destroy everything. They’re bad men. They have to be stopped.

When asked how Harris should approach Tuesday’s presidential debate against Trump, Cheney responded by saying that Harris should relish the fact that this is an “opportunity [where] Donald Trump gets to

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Trump is throwing hissy fits.

Former President Donald Trump, frustrated by the state of the race and his continued legal troubles, on Friday sought to claim the spotlight for himself.

Wedging a hastily called press conference into an otherwise packed day of campaign events and court-related issues, he angrily complained to reporters inside the lobby of Trump Tower about his appeal in a sex abuse and defamation case. He criticized his legal team’s performance. Trump accused the moderators of the upcoming ABC debate of being unfair — and slammed Harris for not addressing reporters as often as he has.

In other words, wah wah wah wah wah wah wah.

Very edifying.

“This is a disgraceful case and disgraceful, in

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It turns out you have to have expertise in “gender” to be able to say that men are not women.

The vast majority of those who don't believe in Santa Claus have no history of, qualifications related to, or professional expertise in, anything to do with reindeer or workshops at the North Pole. pic.twitter.com/fuGgNcmcil

— Progressive Misogyny (@JustMisogyny) September 6, 2024

It’s a very complicated, difficult, technical subject. You can’t just rock up and say that man is not a woman. You need to have, at least, read a book by Sally Hines first.… Read the rest

Vance thinks mass shootings are just a fact of life, like the weather. Nothing we can do about it, folks!

Vance’s comments – in the wake of the latest deadly shooting, at Apalachee High School in Georgia – ignited a political row after Democrats depicted them as evidence of a lack of empathy while Republicans claimed the remarks had been taken out of context.

Vance called for more security measures in schools without mentioning gun control, while Democrats including Kamala Harris and the US president, Joe Biden, want a ban on assault-style rifles, more background checks, and other gun safety action.

Asked about the Georgia shooting while speaking at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday evening, Vance

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Aw yeah, Donald Trump as the guy who “isn’t stodgy, who likes to have some fun, and likes to tell some jokes” about women and other inferiors.

It’s telling that Vance’s notion of a freewheeling, lighthearted campaign involves disparaging political opponents with baseless slander and sexist screeds.

For example, Vance took a typically cheap shot at Harris prior to her interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. He posted a 2007 clip of Miss South Carolina Teen USA Caitlin Upton bombing an answer to a question about why Americans couldn’t find their own country on a map. He wrote: “BREAKING: I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview.”

Vance’s “joke” was lousy politics that distracted from any actual gaffes

… Read the rest

Massive collective cringe.

https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1831808799767965995

Daily Kos sweetly transcribed the incoherent jabber, but for the full effect it’s necessary to watch him jabbering. It’s as if he’s been wound up like a clock and has to make a noise until he winds down. His only concern is to keep saying words, so he does keep saying words, without any meaning or connection to each other at all.

Question: If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable?

And if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?

Trump’s Answer:

Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down, you know, I was somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka

… Read the rest

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What no leprechauns?

The schoolbook publisher, The Educational Company of Ireland (Edco), has apologised for some content in one of its Junior Cycle curriculum books, adding that upon “closer inspection”, it will remove it.

In a section entitled “All Different, All Equal”, an Aran-jumper wearing Irish family is described as eating bacon, cabbage and potatoes every day and not liking change or difference, while a mixed-race family is depicted as eating more varied foods and travelling internationally.

In other words the Irish family are boring bigoted hicks while the “mixed-race” family are fascinating and cosmopolitan. No doubt there are plenty of families who fit both descriptions, but didactic tales about them can…shall we say, go wrong.

The publisher issued a

… Read the rest