Sigh. This is just dense. Thick. Dumb. Uncomprehending. Point-missing. Reality-ignoring.

Biden says:

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said abandoning his reelection campaign and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, as the Democratic candidate was the best way to unite the country and save democracy, despite his ambition to win a second term.

Biden’s announcement to end his presidential bid on Sunday followed a disastrous June debate with Donald Trump, which exacerbated questions about his ability to defeat the Republican candidate, or to serve another four years if he succeeded.

In his address to the nation from the Oval Office, the 81-year-old president said he believed he deserved to be reelected based on his record during his first term.

!!!… Read the rest

A drag queen and another man do the Olympics torch thing, and now this.

In elections, clothes matter. Kamala Harris needs to ditch the forgettable fashion and seize the spotlight.

Women in politics can’t win, fashionwise. But Harris’s boring esthetic isn’t right for these unprecedented times. #Opinion https://t.co/FB45uc3d7c

— Toronto Star (@TorontoStar) July 24, 2024

Women don’t exist or if they do exist they don’t matter, and by the way, if they’re running for high office be sure to tell them how to dress.… Read the rest

A piece of advice. Don’t go for a hike in extremely hot weather. If you do, take as much water as you can carry and don’t go far. If you don’t take much water and you do go far…well, you won’t come back.

A 56-year-old woman died while hiking near a state park in southwestern Utah over the weekend after running out of water on a sweltering day, police said.

Emergency crews responded near Quail Creek State Park on Sunday to a report of a hiker “in distress due to not having enough water and the temperature being 106 degrees,” the Hurricane City Police Department said in a statement.

Too hot. If you don’t have enough water, turn back … Read the rest

Prosecutor v felon:

Vice President Harris vowed to reprise her role as a prosecutor on the campaign trail while running against former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee and a convicted felon.

Those are all one person. Clumsy writing makes it look as if Harris is running against three people, but no, Trump is the nominee and the convicted felon.

Harris, too, quickly pivoted to the kind of rhetoric she said to expect from her on the campaign trail — that of a seasoned attorney, who before she was elected as vice president and a United States senator from California served as that state’s elected attorney general and before that, a courtroom prosecutor.

“In those roles, I took

Goddy terrorism in the news:

The Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary has been found guilty of directing the terrorist group al-Muhajiroun (ALM) and drumming up cross-border support for the banned organisation online.

After a trial at Woolwich crown court in south London, Choudary was convicted of having a “caretaker role” in directing ALM.

Choudary came as close to becoming a household name as an extremist can get in the UK through his media appearances and controversial actions such as protesting at UK soldiers’ funerals. Security experts have claimed Choudary influenced dozens of British jihadists.

But the trained solicitor’s apparent ability to act just within the bounds of the law ended in 2016 when he was convicted of supporting Islamic State

Two men.

Zero women.

Women erased again.

Women barely exist. Women are at home mopping the floor. Women are passive blobs who don’t do anything. Men are the people who matter; women are the machines for making more men.

Two men arriving with the Olympic flame. The erasure of women in all spheres of public life continues. pic.twitter.com/LYyM3YaPEG

— Kate Barker-Mawjee (@KateBMwriting) July 24, 2024

… Read the rest

Oh good, the struggling royals get to have more money. That’s a relief.

The monarchy is to get an extra £45m due to soaring profits from the Crown Estate. The income boost comes from a surge in profits from the estate, due to six new offshore wind farms.

Profits from the Crown Estate have increased to £1.1bn, which in turn will lead to a rise in the Sovereign Grant, which pays for the Royal Family’s running costs. The grant will rise from £86.3m in 2024/25 to to £132m in 2025/2026 – which will help pay for the last stages of renovating Buckingham Palace, officials said.

How lovely for them. Might be able to afford an occasional night out, as … Read the rest

Drat.

Firstly, the judgment gives permission for organisations like Stonewall to procure the withdrawal of employment from people whose protected characteristics they disagree with, if this can be framed as a “protest”. This seems to go directly against the terms of the Equality Act.…

— Allison Bailey (@BluskyeAllison) July 24, 2024

Thirdly, the judgment relies on the concept of “fair or reasonable or just”. This is surprising because the judge heard no submissions on this from either party in the 2-day Appeal, and it didn’t feature at all in the 117-page employment appeal judgment or the 23-day employment…

— Allison Bailey (@BluskyeAllison) July 24, 2024

Fifthly, my case is about direct discrimination, but the judgment also considers indirect discrimination. There,

Use your damn brain, will you?

Biologically male competitors should be allowed to take part alongside women, says Labour’s Lisa Nandy

Of course they shouldn’t, because they have physical advantages. It’s not fair to women to let men invade their sports. Don’t be unfair to women. Don’t be stupid. Don’t fall for the manipulation and bullying. Act like a grownup.

Lisa Nandy said it should be up to individual sports to decide whether to let biological males compete against women in their respective fields, arguing “most” sports had got the balance right.

Balance shmalance! What balance?! Never mind balance, just don’t let men ruin women’s sports. It’s not that complicated.

… Read the rest

I don’t know who made this, but good job whoever you are.

Via Gnu Atheism… Read the rest

Dude longs to punish women for not wanting him in their sports.

His vindictiveness is very telling…

Keep MEN out of Women's Sports and Women Only places… pic.twitter.com/i9bFj2TPLy

— Jonny Bell (@Jonnywsbell) July 23, 2024

The [male] transgender athlete said “My dreams were taken away from me once again, so I plan on going back to New England, hitting up all the indoor competitions, and taking all the names, all the records, and everything.”

Taking them from women, he means. Punishing women for not wanting him to trash their sport, by trashing their sport. What a nice reasonable not at all misogynist man.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on A national emergency.

Remind me again of the number of abusers and murderers of UK women who were/are UK Police.

Unfortunately, here in the Great Land Downunder, we don’t fare much better. Male violence against women and girls is rising and too much leniency is still shown.

Narsen Moffat, 31, was jailed for three years for several brutal attacks on unsuspecting people, including one where he told a female employee he wasn’t afraid to hit a woman.

During sentencing on Thursday, the Adelaide Magistrates Court heard Moffat collected Irene McHugh from her home in April 2023.

Moffat then punched her multiple times to the head before locking the car doors.

“She

Men take top three prizes in women’s race:

Transgender athletes swept the board in a 1-2-3 at a prestigious women’s cycle race over the weekend, infuriating fans and leaving female competitors in the shade.

Male transgender athletes that is. I wish journalism would learn to be clear about this, because confusion is one of the ways trans ideology has managed to steal so much from women already.

Every medalist in the elite women’s Madison at Washington’s Marymore Grand Prix on Friday had a trans athlete on the two–person team, marking the first time trans women are known to have had a place on every podium spot in a race.

Race venue the Jerry Baker Memorial Velodrome in Redmond warns

Trump calls Harris what now?

Vice President Kamala Harris framed her likely upcoming fight against Donald Trump as one between a prosecutor and a criminal — describing, from her new campaign headquarters Monday, her experience taking on “predators,” “fraudsters” and “cheaters.”

Trump around the same time, meanwhile, took to Truth Social to call Harris “Dumb as a Rock.”

Hmm. I’d have thought the rockish quality would be more with Trump. Granted he has plenty of feral cunning, but he’s not overall intelligent in the way Harris is.

Trump, who during a rally in Michigan Saturday night called Harris “crazy,” “nuts,” and “Laughing Kamala,” is likely to turn to ad hominem attacks against her, while Harris is expected to lean into

Aw, sad, Trump is having second thoughts about picking the dangerous crazy guy.

Much of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, including the decision to tap Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, was structured around attacks on President Joe Biden. But then Biden announced Sunday that he was withdrawing from the presidential race altogether.

Haha! Fakeout!

Trump campaign officials acknowledged that Trump selected the inexperienced Vance, charged with all his techno-authoritarian ideas, to boost support among their own base, not extend a hand to swing voters, according to The Atlantic. Vance was a symbol of the Trump team’s assuredness that they would win in 2024. Come Sunday, that assuredness appears to be shrinking.

“Most striking thing I

Violence against women a ‘national emergency’ in England and Wales, police say

Two million women are estimated to be victims of violence perpetrated by men each year in an epidemic so serious it amounts to a “national emergency”, police chiefs have warned.

Crimes including stalking, harassment, sexual assault and domestic violence affect one in 12 women in England and Wales, with the number of recorded offences growing by 37% in the past five years and the perpetrators getting younger.

Really? Oh well, never mind. Now let’s talk about the persecution of our trans sisters.

The NPCC report, which analysed official data, said:

•  One in six homicides in England and Wales are linked to domestic abuse, or 100 out of the

Seen in journalism explains this new thing where the BBC puts men pretending to be women in the center of stories that aren’t specific to women or trans-everything.

The number of trans-identified men used as contributors on apparently random BBC stories has generated interest.

The BBC has its own contacts database but one resource it uses for stories/contributors is a company called NEON.
>
https://t.co/qUD5rMGPW0

— SEENinJournalism (@JournalismSEEN) July 22, 2024

Emails from NEON will open with ‘we have five guests available today to discuss (insert story here)’.

As an example, they offer ‘social justice’ activists like Cleo Madeleine, a trans-identified male from Gendered Intelligence, who’s had airtime on the BBC several times.
>

— SEENinJournalism (@JournalismSEEN) July 22, 2024

NPR wants women to conceal their slutty hair.

When the 2024 Olympics start this week, France won’t allow its athletes to wear headscarves during the games – seemingly in contrast with the Olympic charter’s calls for respect of religion and protection of human rights.

Rules about what competitors can wear are secular and impartial. Religion is simply beside the point.

A recent report from Amnesty International calls France’s restrictions on religious attire blatant discrimination and a researcher for the human rights nonprofit told NPR’s Morning Edition that, beyond being unfair, the move could cause systemic issues for women athletes in France.

The bans have a wider impact on women in sports, dashing the hopes of female athletes in France,

Normally, I think I wouldn’t be very keen on a prosecutor as the Dem candidate. They’re necessary of course, but the whole law & order lock ’em up crack down on the hoodlums thing tends to be vindictive right-wing racist dog-whistling. Normally. But given Trump’s flagrant criminality and hostility to all norms that don’t favor him, having a prosecutor up against him seems oddly reassuring.

Now that Biden has stepped aside — and with even more of her potential opponents planning to endorse her by the end of the day Monday — over a dozen advisers and close allies told CNN they think her candidacy will lean heavily on her background as a district attorney, attorney general and cross examiner in Senate hearings.

It is

BBC: cost of living.

At the top: a big glam photo of Emma Harris in a puffy-sleeves dress with flowing blonde hair. Caption: “Emma Harris says the fact that she can’t save for a deposit to buy a house makes her want to cry”

Only one in eight renters can afford to buy in the area in which they live, research suggests. High rent, bills and house prices mean it is more difficult for renters to buy their first home than it is for existing owners to move on, according to Skipton Group. Its new index, compiled by Oxford Economics, claims renters are four times less likely to be able to buy than homeowners.

Software engineer Emma Harris earns