All entries by this author

Mayday

Mar 26th, 2024 9:12 am | By

I was accidentally awake in the middle of the night, as I often am, so I saw that clip of the bridge disintegrating soon after it happened. It grabbed my attention rather. I live in a port city and see container ships chugging in and out all the time. Seattle is also a very bridge-having city, because of being so up and down, so seeing a massive bridge go from normal to in the water in pieces in a matter of seconds is a shocker.

CNN is updating:

The DALI container ship that struck Baltimore’s Key Bridge

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Because of concerns they would be seen as

Mar 26th, 2024 8:43 am | By

The BBC is so infuriating on this subject.

More than 100 elite British sportswomen have told the BBC they would be uncomfortable with transgender women competing in female categories in their sport.

That’s such a bad, stupid, misleading, unfair, sneery lede.

Yes, duh, elite sportswomen don’t want men competing in female categories in their sport. Why would they?! The issue, as always, is not being “transgender” but being male. But the Beeb just will not admit that, ever, so instead it solemnly reports that sportswomen are creepy nasty bigots for feeling “uncomfortable” about their darling trans sisters.

But many have expressed fears over sharing their opinion publicly because of concerns they would be seen as discriminatory.

Says the … Read the rest



Guest post: We don’t have the luxury of time

Mar 26th, 2024 1:34 am | By

Originally a comment by Artymorty at Miscellany Room.

The Trump appeals court reprieve really bothers me. Here’s a take by David Graham in The Atlantic, which argues that, even though Trump routinely exploits legal procedures to get out of justice, it’s right of the appeals court to lower his bond and grant him yet more extensions. It would be “unjust” for Trump to lose his ill-gotten assets if he succeeds in getting this case dismissed:

But then imagine that a few weeks from now, Trump won his appeal, convincing the court that Engoron’s finding was incorrect, or that the calculated amount of the penalty was unfair. Trump would have no way to recover the assets he’d been forced

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Wrong side of history

Mar 25th, 2024 3:25 pm | By

More from the women in sport front:

All this energy – conferences! more conferences! yet more conferences! – … Read the rest



Birth of a meme

Mar 25th, 2024 10:30 am | By

Bahahahahaha

Remember – from a few hours ago – the lanyard doctor? Who said “My work lanyard gets a lot of comments, and people spotting something on it and asking about it has started a lot of conversations over the years.”? Well, sometimes Twitter people step up.

https://twitter.com/ShowerAbsolute/status/1772252568451785185

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He’s just misunderstood

Mar 25th, 2024 9:27 am | By

SERIOUSLY??????

New York appeals court on Monday paused for 10 days a massive civil business fraud judgment against Donald Trump — and sharply reduced to $175 million the bond amount he will have to post to obtain a longer stay of that award.

The ruling came the same day that New York Attorney General Letitia James would have been allowed to start seizing the former president’s real estate assets and bank accounts to satisfy the $454 million-and-rising judgment after he failed to obtain an appeal bond.

James is prevented from doing so — for now — due to the order from the five-judge panel in Manhattan Supreme Court’s appellate division.

In its order Monday, the appeals court stayed

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“You’re women, you don’t count”

Mar 25th, 2024 9:13 am | By

What was that we were just saying about using honest language to talk about women and sports and men invading women’s sports?

https://twitter.com/runthinkwrite/status/1772239675979182192

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Because of concerns

Mar 25th, 2024 6:50 am | By

BBC Sport tells us, with a puzzled frown, that female athletes are not always entirely ecstatic to lose prizes to men who pretend to be women.

More than 100 elite British sportswomen have told the BBC they would be uncomfortable with transgender women competing in female categories in their sport.

Or to put it in ordinary language, more than 100 elite British sportswomen have told the BBC they don’t want men competing in their sport. Well duh: of course they don’t. Women’s sport is for women.

Over the past couple of years, a raft of sports have banned transgender women from competing in elite women’s sport because of concerns.

Because they are men. They have the male physical advantage, … Read the rest



In line with other similarly inclusive events

Mar 25th, 2024 6:28 am | By

Oooooooooh an all-female film festival!

Sheffield’s first all female film festival

Ok then! Mark your calendars: it’s November 24 at the Showroom Cinema.

Highlighting the work of women and women’s achievements in all incarnations of cinema. Inspired by events showcasing films made by women (such as Scotland’s Femspectives), we want to recentre the focus of film history and the future of the industry on projects creatively led by women. Sheffield has a rich cultural history and we hope to further develop the city’s reputation as a hub for excellence supporting diversity in film in the North of England.

The aim of FFStival is to provide an intersectional platform highlighting the work of women, female presenting and non binary people’s achievements

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Encrusted

Mar 25th, 2024 5:12 am | By

Primum non nocere: First do no harm.

That plus the frenzied messaging. I would feel extremely uneasy with all that hectoring from a doctor. I think I would feel that way whether I agreed with the content or not, because it’s so…all about Dr Opinions instead of about what Dr Opinions is supposed to be doing.

Here is the lovely man talking lovingly about himself.

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Hands up for Kylie!

Mar 24th, 2024 3:42 pm | By

Oh yay, another dude wins a women’s race, how heartwarming.

https://twitter.com/i_heart__bikes/status/1771707388350939572

Congratulations Kylie Not All That Small!… Read the rest



Guest post: That body is not a shell or a husk

Mar 24th, 2024 11:16 am | By

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Seen using a loud hailer.

To be fair, events like the one “Dr.” Ikharia* was protesting do indeed represent a threat; a threat to her credibility and livelihood. Not that anyone claiming to be “trans, nonbinary” should have much credibility left to defend, let alone a “doctor.” But she is right to see this conference as a direct rebuke of what she’s doing. If the tide is indeed turning, then “gender affirming” clinicians are at risk of being left high and dry, without the institutional support to which they have grown accustomed.

Dr Ronx, 40, presents alongside twin doctors Chris and Xand van Tulleken on the popular children’s health show

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Oh no, not The Look

Mar 24th, 2024 10:24 am | By

Willoughby sees what isn’t there.

https://twitter.com/Phoebe2403/status/1771939539923226643

It would be funny if it weren’t so disgusting. A bunch of smiling women, and loony man who hates women sees “psycho coldness.”… Read the rest



The real suicide figures were discussed inside

Mar 24th, 2024 9:57 am | By

The people behind yesterday’s conference:

The “show more” is just the source: (Dhejne 2011).

But wait.

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That’s pragmatism?

Mar 24th, 2024 9:28 am | By

Labour continues to be confused about what the word “woman” means.

And while a proud socialist, [Angela Rayner] is clear that first and foremost she’s a pragmatist. “Ideology never put food on my table,” is one of her top lines. Another: “We can’t fix everything overnight.” She has also said she is “hardline” on law and order, and pro-security (her brother served in Iraq). When I ask how Labour will handle the accusation from Tories that “Keir doesn’t know what a woman is”, she says, without acknowledging any shift, “Yeah, sure. We have biological women and we have trans women. And they’re both women: one is a biological woman through sex, and one is a trans woman who has transitioned.

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Seen using a loud hailer

Mar 24th, 2024 6:07 am | By

The binder-promoting doctor (Dr Ronx Ikharia) was at the aggressive “protest” yesterday. The Daily Mail is the source:

A CBBC presenter has been accused of leading a transgender rights mob that yesterday set off smoke bombs and tried to storm a conference on gender issues.

Dr Ronx Ikharia, who presents Operation Ouch!, was seen using a loud hailer outside a meeting of doctors and academics at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London.

Police and security staff clashed with dozens of activists who set off smoke bombs and tried to get into the building, but no arrests were made.

Just imagine if the people inside had been holding a trans conference and the people outside had been gender … Read the rest



BBC Three cheering for binders

Mar 24th, 2024 5:43 am | By

Oh, your ribs are popping out and you can’t breathe? Well try this other binder.

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Turn the suspicion inward, buddy

Mar 24th, 2024 5:04 am | By

The campaign to make everyone stupider continues.

The “disproportionate representation” of William Shakespeare in the theatre has propagated “white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender male narratives”, according to researchers in an £800,000 taxpayer-funded project.

Funny how they never mention class, isn’t it. Could that be because they are all, to a person, bourgeois as fuck?

But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that Shakespeare is not “disproportionately” represented. His representation is proportionate, because he was better than anyone else. He just was; sorry if that hurts the feelings of people who aren’t as good at their jobs as Shakespeare was at his.

The researchers want to challenge the “normative trend” in “classical theatre” arising from “

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Failing to mention

Mar 23rd, 2024 4:11 pm | By

Oh really. Two women? Are you sure about that?

Nope they’re not women.

Not women.… Read the rest



Guest post: The communal belief system cannot suffer the heretic

Mar 23rd, 2024 1:38 pm | By

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on We’re not confused or misinformed, we’re not believers.

I just listened to an old TEDx talk, and an observation stuck out: “When you start to humanize your enemy, you in turn may be dehumanized by your community.” When you start to treat the enemy (i.e., gender skeptics) as humans having potentially reasonable concerns and moral perspectives (i.e., as humans rather than transphobic demons), you lose status within your own group.

It’s the same phenomenon that leads to purity spirals, witch trials, and heretics’ exiles. It’s why apostasy is the gravest sin. To admit the possibility that the enemy is merely an opponent and not The Adversary signals to the group that … Read the rest