I’m reading an Atlantic piece by Robert Draper from October 2022 and got distracted wondering about one claim near the beginning.

In March of 2020, I sat in a federal courtroom in Utah and watched a man stand before the judge and murmur through sobs, “This wasn’t me. This wasn’t me.”

The defendant, a 55-year-old health-insurance salesman named Scott Brian Haven, wasn’t protesting his innocence. He openly acknowledged that over the two-year period before his arrest in the summer of 2019, he had placed 3,950 calls to the Washington offices of various Democratic members of Congress, spewing profanities and threatening violence against them.

But as the prosecutor listed a sampling of Haven’s vile threats in the courtroom, the defendant—a devout

Following up on the last one, in which the BBC quoted “Cade Hatton, co-chair of the LGBTQIA+ Greens group” talking about “the most vulnerable” by which of course he didn’t mean the W or the L or the G but rather the T. Is Cade Hatton among The Most Vulnerable xirself I wondered?

Cade has a page at LGBTQIA+ Greens. The complete written content of the page:

Cade is a disabled, queer, trans nerd who spends most of their time either playing video games or sewing.

They joined the GPEW at sixteen, over ten years ago.

They’re passionate about climate justice, LGBTIQA+ rights, and their dog Gizmo, and cat Booker.

If Cade really spends most of xir time … Read the rest

The BBC on Shahrar Ali’s win:

The Green Party discriminated against former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali during a row over his gender critical beliefs, a court has ruled.

The court found the Green Party had improperly dismissed Dr Ali as a party spokesperson because it had failed to identify any misconduct.

Sigh. No. It didn’t dismiss him because it found no misconduct. Its dismissal of him was improper because it found no misconduct. Clarity in writing is important!

Dr Ali called the result a “landmark case”.

He called the result the latest in a “series of judgments” supporting gender critical beliefs, since the High Court ruled Maya Forstater’s belief people cannot change their biological sex was protected under

Lefties (or people who think they’re lefties) cheering for theocracy. News flash: theocrats are not big fans of lefties. Theocracies are not socialist utopias.

Self proclaimed Human rights advocates in Leeds University support those that will happily kill real liberals.
We are leaving in troubling times pic.twitter.com/ifnk7fOntD

— Avi Nir-Feldklein (@avraham_nir) February 9, 2024

… Read the rest

Belief belief belief, but it’s not a “belief”; it’s reality.

Sure, it’s a “belief” in a silly narrow sense, but it’s not a “belief” in the sense of being tentative or contrary to fact. It’s not like a religious belief, because religious beliefs can be anything at all and are subject to no checks.

The BBC leans heavily on the b word:

The Green Party discriminated against former deputy leader Dr Shahrar Ali during a row over his gender critical beliefs, a court has ruled.

But “gender critical beliefs” aren’t beliefs as commonly understood. It’s not a “belief” to know that humans are not cats, it’s not a belief to know that turnips are not chainsaws, it’s not a belief … Read the rest

Worthy of respect!

♀️ JUDGMENT ⚖️ has landed! WE WON!! Wow! Just Wow! This is HUGE!! Our Gender Critical beliefs Are Worthy of Respect in A Political Party!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! 🙏💚♀️💚♀️💚 #AliVsGPEW Please Tell the World 📣 pic.twitter.com/fAwmnT11fq

— Shahrar Ali (@ShahrarAli) February 9, 2024

… Read the rest

Just what the world needs: Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin.

For much of it, Carlson sat in silence as Putin expounded his dubious historical theories about Ukraine, aired his grievances, and pushed MAGA talking points designed to appeal to Carlson’s core audience.

…

Putin has used these theories to justify his brutal invasion of Ukraine, where, according to the UN Human Rights Council, Russia has used mass killings, rape, and torture in an attempt to subjugate the country. Putin even published an essay on the theories just ahead of the invasion.

It matters because Putin is seeking to erode support for Ukraine among the GOP voters who form Carlson’s core audience, as congressional Republicans continue to block a $66 billion

More ugly behavior:

Ireland women’s basketball team refused to shake hands with Israel before their EuroBasket 2025 qualifier in Riga.

Israel player Dor Saar said on Wednesday that the Ireland team is “quite anti-Semitic”. Basketball Ireland said the comments were “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate”.

Ireland players also lined up for their anthem beside the team’s bench rather than the centre of the court before the game, which Israel won 87-57.

But it’s the Israel players who are being “inflammatory.” I see.… Read the rest

Climate change can’t be stopped, the male takeover of everything that belongs to women can’t be stopped, Trump can’t be stopped.

The Supreme Court seems poised to reject attempts to kick former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot.

A definitive ruling for Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president, would largely end efforts in Colorado, Maine and elsewhere to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot.

Conservative and liberal justices alike questioned during arguments Thursday whether Trump can be disqualified from being president again because of his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, ending with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

His “efforts to undo … Read the rest

A whole year.

For the first time, global warming has exceeded 1.5C across an entire year, according to the EU’s climate service. World leaders promised in 2015 to try to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5C, which is seen as crucial to help avoid the most damaging impacts. This first year-long breach doesn’t break that landmark Paris agreement, but it does bring the world closer to doing so in the long-term.

Urgent action to cut carbon emissions can still slow warming, scientists say.

But urgent action is not happening and is not going to happen.

El Niño is part of the picture, but the picture remains grim anyway.

An end to El Niño conditions is expected in a

The knots get tighter and tighter.

Transgender Irish dancers can compete in categories that match their gender identity, An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) has decided. Irish dancing’s governing body made the ruling following legal advice and weeks of debate.

Late last year a teenage transgender girl based in the US qualified to compete in this year’s upcoming world championship. The success of the dancer, who is understood to have previously competed in a male category, prompted some complaints from parents and discussion within the world of Irish dancing.

I don’t know enough about Irish dancing to know if being male makes much of a difference in competitions, but even aside from that…what is the point of adding a … Read the rest

Parkrun deletes everything.

Parkrun has abruptly removed all gender, course and age records from its websites after rejecting a campaign to compel transgender runners to record their sex at birth.

With backing from former Olympic athletes such as swimmer Sharron Davies and marathon runner Mara Yamauchi, groups including Women in Sport and the Policy Exchange have been urging Parkrun to stop allowing entrants to self-identify their gender, accusing event organisers of “sex discrimination”.

What kind of sex discrimination? The kind where you allow, indeed encourage, men to infiltrate women’s sports and thus ruin the sports for women. That kind.

The Policy Exchange found that at least three Parkrun female records were held by transgender women and campaigners said

When will the trendies learn to stop giving material to the Daily Mail?

The British countryside is a ‘racist, colonial’ white space, wildlife charities have insisted in a report to MPs. The claim was made by Wildlife and Countryside Link, a group with 80 members including WWF, the RSPCA and National Trust.

…

The group said ‘our policy recommendations ensure that all people have the right to a healthy natural environment – all people must have access to nature’. But it added: ‘Racist colonial legacies continue to frame nature in the UK as a ”white space” and people of colour as ”out of place” in these spaces and environmental sector.’

Do they? Where? How?

It continued: ‘Cultural barriers

Originally a comment by Artymorty on The T is not the LGB.

Tatchell’s wrong, of course, about bisexuality.

Sexual orientation is not culture-bound, and it doesn’t change with the political tides. There doesn’t appear to be all that much variation in the amount of same-sex sexual behaviour across times and cultures (despite what the artsy elites of ancient Greece and Rome wanted us to believe). There are two instinctual factors in sexual behavour: sexual attraction and sexual aversion, and both are almost universally polarized along the sex axis.

The vast majority of people exhibit a very strong preference for the opposite sex, and a moderate-to-significant aversion to the same sex. A tiny minority exhibit the same pattern but … Read the rest

This is pretty much a straight-up lie.

What most people will understand by “criminalizing life saving health care” is that people are being denied medicines or surgeries or both to treat life-threatening illnesses. What the ACLU of course means by “life saving health care” is surgeries and/or cross-sex hormones to create an artificial resemblance to the opposite sex. The latter is, obviously, not life-saving in any ordinary sense. The underlying idea is that without help in trying to change sex, trans people will kill themselves. That’s not what “life-saving” means.

Think of a scenario in which a man threatens to kill a woman if she won’t have sex with him. Would the ACLU whine at the recalcitrant woman that she … Read the rest

There’s a lesbian visibility week? Who knew?!

DIVA is all worked up about it.

Who else is excited for Lesbian Visibility Week 2024? Taking place between 22 April – 28 April, next year’s celebration of the wonderful lesbian community and all LGBTQIA women and non-binary people is set to be bigger than ever. Therefore, DIVA needs some reinforcements! 

Oh I see, so it’s not a lesbian visibility week, it’s a lesbians and some men visibility week. Kind of a different thing.

We are delighted to be bringing the legendary activist Nancy Kelley onto the DIVA team for Lesbian Visibility Week 2024. Nancy has spent her career campaigning for human rights and social justice on issues ranging from poverty and

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on They.

They censor our speech. They undermine our governments with bribery and blackmail. They’ve captured our media, banks, and virtually all of academia.

According to Politico, pro-Palestinian content is much more widely available on social media than pro-Israel content.

Israel has a history of being the most actively condemned nation by the UN. In 2020, al Jazeera reported that Israel was 3 times more likely to be condemned by the UN than other nations.

Member States:

Member States select people to represent them at United Nations meetings and conferences. The individuals selected present credentials to the UN to show that they are legitimate representatives of their country. The credentials are

If women don’t include men in everything there will be a billion suicides every day until there are no men left. No really, there will, and it will be women’s fault.

Below is one of the arguments used by the AHRC that we will be challenging at our appeal. It implies that lesbians holding events for lesbians only, will cause 86% of trans identified people to suicide or think of suicide. It implies a direct link. pic.twitter.com/DVnXRK34QW

— Lesbian Action Group (@ActiveLesbians) February 7, 2024

“The Commission notes that the grant of this exemption may lead to the further exclusion of and discrimination against trans women who are lesbians.”

But women are allowed to “exclude” men sometimes. We need to … Read the rest

This is how the trick is done. And done and done and done, a billion times every day.

I agree that here in the uk Peter homophobia is generally in decline. Yet in America this year alone there are 398 anti LGBT+ laws in State legislates going through. We can’t let our guard down in the rise of the right..https://t.co/YwgWQsIAMi

— classicalet (@classicalet) February 6, 2024

Eeeeeeeek attacks on LGBTQ rights everywhere eeeeeeeek – when what they mean is bills to keep men from taking everything women have or bills to protect children from adults who urge them to ruin their lives. Supergluing the T to the LGB is all for the T, and disastrous for the LGB.… Read the rest

Hur hur shark geddit hur hur a shark bit her arm off, what a funny joke, very activist, much progressive.

Trans activists turn up to protest against a womens surfer speaking at a Library event in Missouri.

Bethany Hamilton, a reknowned Australian women’s surfer who lost her arm to a shark attack in 2003 was recently replaced as an ambassador for Rip Curl Women’s Surfing with a… pic.twitter.com/xg2x8FuLRY

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) February 6, 2024

Bethany Hamilton, a reknowned Australian women’s surfer who lost her arm to a shark attack in 2003 was recently replaced as an ambassador for Rip Curl Women’s Surfing with a transgender man – simply because she spoke out against men in women’s sports. One activist