Amsterdam is tired of being a tourist spot for disgusting people.

The local politician Sofyan Mbarki believes the major problem is Amsterdam’s image as a place where anything goes. With the quiz, he hopes to change the way visitors think about the city. But the truth is that a problematic image can’t be changed overnight. You will actually have to adjust reality too.

The mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, is aware of this. Five years ago, she boldly proposed closing the window brothels in the red light district – an audacious move considering that many local people still considered window prostitution an integral part of the city’s folklore. Gradually, more people are realising that what goes on in the

Originally a comment by Freeinder on The rights of mariners.

Sadly, this is not unusual. Even if the crew are issued shore passes, they may still be blocked from stepping ashore. Many ports in the USA are private property, and therefore declare crewmembers trespassers if they leave the ship. Many ports, globally, do not allow crew changes anymore, as they ban non-company vehicles from entering. This was common before 9/11, but afterwards it became virtually impossible in too many ports (here’s looking at you, Oakland, New York, Norfolk). Seattle, LA and San Francisco used to allow crew swaps, but then a mariner has just 24 (or in some cases 12) hours to leave US territory, on pain of arrest. … Read the rest

It’s like, like.

Serious students of language have a hard time knowing what to do with this all-too-familiar use of like. They call it “filler,” and it’s hard not to regard it as something bordering on the sublinguistic, an almost intolerable torturing of the magnificent instrument bequeathed to us by Shakespeare and his successors. For those of us who teach and spend a lot of our time talking to young people, the endless supply of self-interrupting likes that litter their speech and impede the flow of their thoughts can be very hard to take.

I’ve been noticing that lately – the way the filler-like has expanded to the point that it excludes other words almost entirely. How do … Read the rest

Horrors – I didn’t realize the crew of the ship that destroyed the Key Bridge in Baltimore are stuck on the damn ship.

As a controlled explosion rocked the Dali on Monday, nearly two dozen sailors remained on board, below deck in the massive ship’s hull. The simultaneous blasts sent pieces of Baltimore’s once iconic Francis Scott Key Bridge into the dark waters of Maryland’s Patapsco River, seven weeks after its collapse left six people on the bridge dead and the Dali marooned.

Authorities – and the crew – hope that the demolition will mark the beginning of the end of a long process that has left the 21 men on board trapped and cut off from the world,

Return to Gardencourt…not an obscure Henry James sequel but a new window into just how brazen the Stonewall bullying is.

“I trust that you will do what is right.” Aka “Nice little place you got here, would be a shame if something happened to it.”

Pdf of the full letter.… Read the rest

The usual incomplete evasive dishonest manipulative reporting:

Transgender golfer Hailey Davidson narrowly misses out on qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open

He’s not a “transgender golfer” – he’s a transgender man, aka a man who claims to be a woman. “Golfer” is not a gender.

This careful evasiveness seems to be universal in mainstream journalism, which is maddening. It’s not the job of news outlets to protect men who are working 24/7 to destroy the rights of women.

The caption under the photo at the top of the story is even more evasive:

Hailey Davidson, a winner earlier this year on the NXXT Tour, missed qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open by one spot.

Nothing even hints that he’s … Read the rest

The new homophobia in action:

We’ll be seeking an explanation from Anneliese’s office, as well as reassurances on the Labour leadership’s policy commitments to LGBT+ people – including Trans people – on hate crime, healthcare, conversion therapy, gender recognition reform and more. (2/2)

— LGBT+ Labour (@LGBTLabour) May 14, 2024

… Read the rest

I’m just catching up on the news about a teacher who was abruptly fired, apparently for teaching critical thinking. It seems the school also seized his personal laptop and is keeping it, which…how is that legal? It’s either that or he was writing a book on a school computer and not backing it up on a computer of his own, which…why tf would he do that?

7 days ago I was fired from my school after 4 years of teaching.
I recorded this the following day in order to share my perspective – honestly & in good faith – in order to move forward and put this experience behind me. I have no desire to cause complications or bring unwanted…

The NY Times reported several weeks ago that Republicans are hard at work purging voters.

A network of right-wing activists and allies of Donald J. Trump is quietly challenging thousands of voter registrations in critical presidential battleground states, an all-but-unnoticed effort that could have an impact in a close or contentious election.

Calling themselves election investigators, the activists have pressed local officials in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia to drop voters from the rolls en masse. They have at times targeted Democratic areas, relying on new data programs and novel legal theories to justify their push.

…

The groups have made mass voter challenges a top priority this election year, spurred on by a former Trump lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, and True

We are learning to Be Kinder.

Can everyone just start being a bit kinder, like India Willoughby please. pic.twitter.com/miXYoPo4kk

— Nicky Clark (@MrsNickyClark) May 14, 2024

… Read the rest

An interesting detail from Michael Cohen’s testimony yesterday:

He reported directly to Mr Trump, on “whatever concerned him, whatever he wanted”, Cohen said, calling his ex-boss a micromanager. “Everything required Mr Trump’s sign-off,” he said.

At the same time, Mr Trump was careful about paper trails, Cohen said. The Trump Organization founder never had an email address, telling Cohen that “emails are like written papers”.

“There are too many people who have gone down as a direct result of having emails that prosecutors can use in a case,” Cohen said Mr Trump once told him.

Gone down, eh? As in, been exposed as criminals? If Trump did say that it tells us he knows he’s a crook and takes … Read the rest

Many many people, especially women, are asking why the BBC keeps promoting drag and why it doesn’t equally promote blackface. It’s a fair question.

Amir Dean, also known as Lady Bushra, is one of the UK's most well-known British Asian drag artists.

Since debuting Lady Bushra four years ago, Amir has travelled the world performing with the hope of encouraging people to "be more like Bushra" pic.twitter.com/KL7lZjRSOJ

— BBC World Service (@bbcworldservice) May 14, 2024

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Arty Morty on True Selves.

His “true self” being the woman he is not. His fake true self, his pretend true self, his fantasy true self. Back in the before times a true self meant something along the lines of a self not repressed and stifled by convention. It didn’t mean childish fantasy. Adults didn’t prance around saying their true selves were birds or race cars or space travelers or Nobel laureates or ponies. Fantasy and delusion are now what’s real, so I guess truth and sanity are fake.

How are we supposed to even try to show compassion for people who may or may not have debilitating dysphoria when so many of the most … Read the rest

That’s embarrassing. She’s a lawyer and a journalist and that’s her reading comprehension level?

Probably not, most of the time. Probably it’s an excess of anger that caused her to miss the point so thoroughly. Let that be a lesson to us all: when in a rage, slow down and read carefully before you rush to denounce. Otherwise you’re gonna look like a damn fool in front of all those sages and wits on social meeja.

Motown and cornrows. That’s what this dizzy bitch thinks being Black is about.

Motown and cornrows. https://t.co/lOJYLgyjM2

— Imani Gandy (Orca’s Version) ⚓️ (@AngryBlackLady) May 13, 2024

… Read the rest

“A terf, a bullet, social justice”

« Une TERF, une balle, justice sociale » : des appels au meurtre envers @Margueritestern et moi, en plein paris, devant la police, devant l’université ASSAS à Paris où l’on s’apprêtait à donner une conférence sur notre livre #TRANSMANIA.

La police ne les embarque pas. Pas de… pic.twitter.com/FKp6rWCvsv

— Dora Moutot (@doramoutot) May 7, 2024

The cop who escorts Moutot seems to be laughing.… Read the rest

An amusing bit in a Bloomberg piece by Timothy O’Brien:

Cohen, a lawyer, didn’t work for Trump because he was a deft attorney, a skillful accountant or a brilliant money manager. He worked for him because he knew just enough about the law, accounting and greed to help Trump engineer end runs and cover-ups. “I know where the skeletons are buried because I was the one who buried them,” Cohen wrote in Disloyal, a memoir of his Trump years. “I wasn’t just a witness to the President’s rise — I was an active and eager participant.”

“Apart from his wife and children, I knew Trump better than anyone else did,” Cohen wrote. “In some ways, I knew him

Ridiculous man thinks it’s personal.

So JK, Posie, Glinner and the rest of you out there hating on my community and myself guess what IDGAF…you keep hating and I will keep on smiling and living my best life. Maybe you should all give it a try eh

— Lucy Clark. (@lucyclarkref) May 11, 2024

Dude. It’s not about you the person. It’s about this ridiculous destructive ideology, and the myriad ways it harms women (and children, and lesbians and gay men, and confused people). We don’t want you to live your worst life, we just don’t want you demolishing our rights.… Read the rest

The FA did a puff piece on “Lucy” Clark in February 2019.

February is LGBT History Month and Wembley Stadium hosted the Just A Ball Game #StrongerTogether conference on Tuesday 5 February. One of the guest speakers was Lucy Clark, who became English football’s first transgender referee at the start of the 2018-19 season. Here, she tells her story and how the campaign has gone so far…

Notice how they avoid spelling it out, as the media and organizations so regularly do. Just “transgender,” not trans which gender.

The game has always been my outlet throughout life. As a child, a teenager and an adult, my life always revolved around football, whether I was a player, a manager or

Oh what do you know, it turns out that “Lucy” Clark, who is being hailed as the first “trans football referee,” is not some random fella who just happened to be the star of this story, he’s a Celebrity Personality with multiple masks.

They do? They are?

Why yes.

Careful now, Clark doesn't like ladies who tweet. https://t.co/vzusCYS97z

— SaintCirce (@SaintCirce) May 11, 2024

The Victoria Derbyshire chat was March 2019. This guy didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

It’s ironic how you changed your gender (RG) to sell your books while someone who goes through a traumatic process to make their lives a bit better are the problem for you.

— Rohan Choksi (@Rohan_Choksi) May 13,

Yet another guy tries to tell JKR how to bee nither to the nithe men thtealing all our thtuff.

By me for @spectator: "The quote-Tweet is possibly the most brutal weapon that exists on social media … Anything an opponent says can be captured and broadcast to your audience. Sarcasm, ridicule, or downright abuse then set the tone for the mob"https://t.co/NDVMoxcsOJ

— Dr Debbie Hayton (@DebbieHayton) May 13, 2024

She’s not playing. None of us are playing.

Whether you agree with Rowling or not, her tone is remarkably different to the essay she wrote in 2020 when she set out her reasons for speaking out on sex and gender

✍️ Debbie Haytonhttps://t.co/xWuYTHC2r2

— The Spectator (@spectator) May