All entries by this author

Witches made the Tories win

Dec 13th, 2019 9:35 am | By

At least we know whose fault it is that the Tories won.

https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/1205247088532963329

It was the Jews the Communists the Masons the feminists!!… Read the rest



Hard to reconcile

Dec 13th, 2019 9:28 am | By

Interesting point.

https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1205317470820687872

Mitch McConnell is going to have to swear an oath to be impartial.

Now, broadly speaking, it’s bound to be difficult to impossible to make an airtight case that X is not impartial, because we can’t see inside each other’s heads. But if X comes right out and says – on national tv at that – “There will be no difference between the President’s position and our position as to how to handle this,” then that’s your airtight case.

Not that I think it will matter. The criminals have seized the engine room and they are never giving it back.… Read the rest



Charlatan promises to “explain” an impossibility

Dec 12th, 2019 5:05 pm | By

I BEG you pardon?

For an encore how about he “explains” how he’ll pluck the moon out of the sky and use it for a lawn ornament.

Also note that “will be eligible.” Not so fast, sonny. It doesn’t become true just because you use the future tense.

Also note that ludicrous “eligible” as if he’s talking about some … Read the rest



Woman is not a costume

Dec 12th, 2019 1:22 pm | By

No thank you. No really, that’s ok, we’ve got this.

Empowered Trans Woman:

I think it’s super important for trans gals to learn about the feminist movement. Here’s Jude reminding us of the First Wave — the women’s suffrage movement. The Women’s Suffrage movement flourished concurrently in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Thanks to the efforts of such courageous women, the 19th Amendment, giving women the vote, passed in the U.S. in 1919, and got ratified in 1920.

Read the rest


Princesses can buy their own

Dec 12th, 2019 12:44 pm | By

Ah Princess Ivanka – she’s so sneaky.

https://twitter.com/Susan_Hennessey/status/1205216342330269696

If your family leave is paid for by your own Social Security then it’s not paid family leave. That’s not how we use the word “paid.” Paying for it ourselves isn’t “paid.” A job we pay ourselves for isn’t a paid job, and family leave we pay for from our Social Security isn’t paid leave.

https://twitter.com/Susan_Hennessey/status/1205217210979045376

Remember kids – if you pay for it yourself then that’s you paying for it yourself. Don’t be fooled.… Read the rest



During this private airing of grievances

Dec 12th, 2019 10:51 am | By

Another episode of Trump Behaving Badly:

In the days following the release of a viral video showing world leaders at the NATO meeting in London making fun of him, Donald Trump shot back at his counterparts. The famously sensitive American president lashed out during a closed-door meeting at the White House with more than a dozen ambassadors to the United Nations present, according to three sources with knowledge of the gathering.

Oh he’s not famously “sensitive.” He’s famously touchy, famously quick to go nuclear at any insult to him while freely insulting anyone and everyone else whenever he feels the urge. That’s quite another thing. “Sensitive” would include other people’s feelings as well as his own. Trump never, … Read the rest



Her “Anger Management problem”?

Dec 12th, 2019 10:24 am | By

Trump’s Twitter is an explosion this morning, not surprisingly – he must have 20 people or so assigned to posting Republican talking points, or screaming points rather.

But his personal sneer at Greta Thunberg stands out.

Yes how dare she be named Time’s person of the year instead of Trump.

The Guardian live comments:

As we await the impeachment hearing that starts at 9am ET today, the president has had a manic morning on Twitter so far.

Most of it does not need national and international

Read the rest


Bullying is NEVER acceptable

Dec 12th, 2019 9:29 am | By

Stone the crows. Green Party Women on Facebook:

On the day before a general election, Green Party Women are shocked and deeply saddened at the investigation by Fair Play for Women that discloses several Green Party prospective parliamentary candidates using a misogynist slur on public platforms.

Our campaign launch, to ‘Make Misogyny a Hate Crime’, feels very hollow when we cannot set an example within our own party.

This reprehensible behaviour by a handful of candidates does not represent the values of the wider Green Party membership, nor the Party’s core values, and is completely unacceptable. Green Party Women are raising formal complaints against all party members involved.

We will never convince others to reach consensus in the fight

Read the rest


The important thing

Dec 12th, 2019 8:27 am | By

The bit of Twitter that I see is not impressed with Owen Jones this morning.

https://twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1205031764319711232 https://twitter.com/HJoyceGender/status/1205061036644143105

Just two of many.

OJ’s tweet:

Read the rest



A low need for cognition

Dec 11th, 2019 5:40 pm | By

The Washington Post makes an important point:

Our research finds that Trump has attracted a disproportionate (and unprecedented) number of ‘low-information voters’ to his campaign. Furthermore, these voters are more likely to respond to emotional appeals — whether about the economy, immigration, Muslims, racial relations, sexism, and even hostility to the first African American U.S. president, Barack Obama. They are the ideal constituency for a candidate like Trump.

We define low-information voters as those who do not know certain basic facts about government and lack what psychologists call a ‘need for cognition.’ Those with a high need for cognition have a positive attitude toward tasks that require reasoning and effortful thinking and are, therefore, more likely to invest the

Read the rest


AA was a mandatory component

Dec 11th, 2019 4:06 pm | By

More on the AA Doesn’t Work story:

Wood was working as a registered nurse on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside when he was diagnosed with substance use disorder after a psychotic break in the fall of 2013.

His professional college was informed, along with his union and Vancouver Coastal Health, his employer at the time.

He was referred to a doctor specializing in addictions, who created a plan that Wood would need to follow if he wanted to return to work. AA was a mandatory component.

As an atheist, Wood suggested alternatives to the 12-step program, including secular support groups like SMART Recovery and LifeRing Secular Recovery, but his doctor rejected them, according to emails Wood provided to CBC News.

He … Read the rest



A former paediatric and PICU nurse

Dec 11th, 2019 2:57 pm | By

Boris Johnson did what now?

Labour has accused Boris Johnson’s campaign of “lying and cheating” to try to distract attention from the prime minister’s insensitive reaction to a sick four-year-old boy forced to sleep on a hospital floor.

With just days to go until polling day, the Tories suffered one of their worst days of the campaign as Johnson refused on camera to look at a picture of the poorly child and pocketed the phone of the reporter who tried to show it to him.

But wait, there’s more.

https://twitter.com/demarionunn/status/1204190151041269765

Bots sending out identically-worded fake tweets saying the photo of the child on the floor was FAKE NEWS.

https://twitter.com/Awarddas1349/status/1204363398999412736

Isn’t it funny how Joe Tulip and Tim Curtis have the … Read the rest



A win

Dec 11th, 2019 12:24 pm | By

Religious programs intended to cure or manage addiction should never be forced on anyone, because they are religious (and religion should never be forced on anyone). One small step in that direction:

Health-care professionals who work in Vancouver-area hospitals and medical clinics will no longer be required to attend 12-step programs if they want to keep their jobs after being diagnosed with addiction.

The change comes as a result of a settlement between public health authority Vancouver Coastal Health and former nurse Byron Wood, who filed a human rights complaint alleging he was discriminated against as an atheist when he was fired for quitting Alcoholics Anonymous.

The settlement doesn’t allow him to talk about all the details.

But he

Read the rest


Causing firestorms again

Dec 11th, 2019 11:35 am | By

Local tv news station – not the Sinclair one – reports on the outburst of stupid over the WoLF event at the library.

The not at all tendentious or well-poisoning headline:

Event at Seattle Public Library causes firestorm, group accused of being ‘hate group’

Aka Trans activists lose their shit because feminists meet to discuss what we mean by “gender.” The event isn’t causing any firestorm, stupid angry unreasonable people are creating a firestorm out of nothing. Group is accused of being a hate group by stupid angry unreasonable people who are stupid and unreasonable. Group is not a hate group. People protesting group are much more like a hate group than group is.

An event is causing backlash at

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He dunno if it’s true

Dec 11th, 2019 9:45 am | By

Trump breaking yet more new ground in Repulsion Farm:

Not long after Donald Trump took to the stage at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night, the president launched into one of his biggest crowd-pleasers: pillorying the “deep state,” particularly by performing fan-fic-style dialogue between the “FBI lovers” Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.

It’s a routine that he’s been honing on the re-election campaign trail for months, perhaps most famously during an October campaign event in Minneapolis, where he appeared to make orgasmic, panting noises—much to the audience’s delight—while doing a mock-dialogue between the two “lovers” about how much they “love” each other and hate that “son of a bitch” Trump.

And that, in turn, … Read the rest



Seryozha returns

Dec 11th, 2019 8:54 am | By

Trump and Lavrov had a reunion.

Donald Trump held a closed-door meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, at the White House on Tuesday, but the two men gave diverging accounts of what was discussed, on a day articles of impeachment were announced against the US president.

Maddow pointed out the scorching ironies of having a closed-door meeting with Lavrov of all people on the day articles of impeachment were announced. Last time Trump met privately with Lavrov was that time he blabbed top security secrets to Lavrov and Kisliyak. The secrets were so top and Trump’s blabbing them was so horrifying that the US intel people were forced to extract their best source from Russia. What does … Read the rest



The dead future

Dec 11th, 2019 6:51 am | By

Life in Sydney right now:

I can’t breathe. They say something like 100 bush and grass fires are raging across the state. The city I live in feels like a scene from Blade Runner 2049 come to life in 2019. There is no other way to see it: our dead future is here.

The mornings are smoky and grey. The afternoons distinctly eerie with the sun a shrunken disc that is by turns eggishly sick, bright pink, or burning orange in the seemingly permanent haze.

Seattle was like that for a couple of weeks in August 2018. We had, literally, the worst air in the world for a few days. It was forest fires rather than bush fires, but … Read the rest



Deplorable

Dec 10th, 2019 5:20 pm | By

Jennifer Rubin is pissed at William Barr.

William P. Barr’s Tuesday interview with NBC News was certainly the most dishonest, frightful and deplorable given by an attorney general in modern times. He attacked the just-released inspector general report and excoriated the FBI for a “travesty” in investigating Russian manipulation of our 2016 election. His false — deliberately false — assertions were jaw-dropping:

Barr claimed, “From day one, it generated exculpatory information and nothing that substantiated any kind of collusion.” False. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III found substantial evidence of interaction but did not pursue the noncriminal charge of “collusion.” He could not prove criminal conspiracy. Since then, at the Roger Stone trial, evidence has arisen confirming

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Can we have rights too?

Dec 10th, 2019 4:41 pm | By

The Australian reports:

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has banned a women’s group from office facilities made available to community organisations because of its “exclusionary” views on transgender issues.

The federal member for Clark allows community groups to use his taxpayer-funded photocopying facilities in Hobart. Until recently this included feminist group Women Speak Tasmania.

WST has in recent years clashed with transgender activists over law reform, with the group concerned about the sanctity and safety of female-only services and places. Mr Wilkie has now banned the group from using the facilities, telling The Weekend Australian he sees its views as “discriminatory” and “exclusionary”.

WST is furious over the ban, accusing Mr Wilkie of discriminating against the group, while allowing

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Guest post: If acceptance is only skin-deep

Dec 10th, 2019 3:45 pm | By

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Advanced well-poisoning.

sexist & homophobic & transphobic

There it is again. That word, homophobic, as always, right at transpbobia’s side. It makes me increasingly uncomfortable to see it there. Upset even. I’ve been trying to collect my thoughts on why that is. It’s something like this:

Is this how they felt about gay rights? Is this how they felt about us? It scares me a little.

I thought society came to accept gays because they thought hard and came to truly understand in a deep sense what homosexuality is: namely, an immutable trait, not a choice, not a danger to society, etc.

But the way people are reacting to the trans agenda, and … Read the rest