Originally a comment by Acolyte of Sagan on It woz the volcanoes wot dunnit.

Another indication that human emissions dwarf those of volcanoes is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels, as measured by sampling stations around the world…

This reminded me of conversations I’ve had with climate change deniers who have argued that the global temperature isn’t rising, there are plenty of cold areas that would lower the average that the scientists calculate if only there were more measuring stations. In other words, there are large areas between measuring stations and that’s where ithe colder regions are that would lower the measured average. Some even go so far as to claim that the scientists deliberately avoid those areas in … Read the rest

Jo Phoenix takes a wide-angle look at the sitch:

Random observations after nearly two weeks:

1. By trying to shut me up and because I stood up to them, the harassers and bullies and discriminators at OU have given me a platform I would never have had. Own goal there. Misjudged the strength of my conviction and belief in academia. Or you are all just too bloody arrogant.

2. I win a case of harassment, discrimination, unfair and constructive dismissal along with post-employment victimisation and within days I get those who seem to possess “irrational fears” or are palpably “uncomfortable” with sex realism swarming around my X feed like flies on shit.

3. For years I get told *any*

A thing dissenters say about global warming is that volcanoes contribute way more than human activities. Back in 2009 Scientific American said nuh-uh.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than one percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors.

200 million v 24 billion. Hard to argue that it’s close.

Another indication that human emissions dwarf those of volcanoes is the fact that atmospheric CO2

Hey kids: never ever do this.

Never ever say you’ve demanded a meeting with someone high up in government followed by speculation on the someone’s reasons for ignoring you.

Why? Why never ever do this?

Dear oh dear isn’t it obvious? I’m quite sure it’s obvious.

Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch has not responded to my invitation to discuss the Govt's troubling failure to ban conversion therapy, adequately fund sexual health clinics & enable trans self-ID via a legal Statutory Declaration

What'she afraid of? https://t.co/k4gwpuSkzT

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) February 4, 2024

… Read the rest

Today.

We were told by one of the directors at @womenslibrary that they don’t agree with censorship at the library. So why do they not have any displays or books about the amazing GC women & women’s groups currently working hard for women’s rights in Scotland?

— Suzanne Malyon (@suzxu) February 3, 2024

Oh that’s not censorship, it’s just…er…not having.… Read the rest

Originally a post at Miscellany Room by Your Name’s not Bruce?

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith set to announce changes to policies around “gender” issues

(A link in the above piece takes you to a “CBC Explains: How gender-affirming health care for kids works in Canada” page that carries lots of trans talking points and next to no dissenting ones.)

Most of the above measures seem to be aimed at keeping minors from irrevocable changes. Prime Minister Trudeau has done the forced teaming work for Team Trans, calling the proposed policies “most anti-LGBT policies anywhere in this country.”

Not to be outdone by the CBC, Global News flaunts its own captive status allyship by supposedly “fact checking” Smith’s claims about “trans … Read the rest

Sidney Blumenthal on DARVO Trump:

Time after time, with predictable regularity, never missing a beat, Donald Trump proclaims his innocence…

Then, he declares himself to be the victim. Whatever it is, he is falsely accused. But his self-dramatization as the wounded sufferer is only half his story: he insists that whoever has accused him is in fact the offender. He emerges triumphant, the martyr, the truth-teller, courageously unmasking the real villain. J’accuse!

Trump’s pattern is textbook manipulation – literally. It has a precise name given to it after decades of academic research. Jennifer Freyd, now professor emerita of psychology at the University of Oregon, developed the theory over her career studying sexual assault, trauma and institutional betrayal. She named

Arwa Mahdawi on the malign influence of Peter Thiel:

He, along with a group of other venture capitalists, is currently deploying part of his vast fortune to help bankroll a pro-drugs version of the Olympics called the Enhanced Games. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a sporting competition in which participants are encouraged to take as many performance-enhancing substances as they can get their steroid-enlarged hands on. All in the name of science and innovation, naturally.

Much science! Peak innovaty! Artificial enhancements are good at artificial enhancement. Who knew?!

Honestly? It sounds amazing. I would 100% watch. It’s a real shame Thiel, who currently runs spy tech firm Palantir, doesn’t spend all his resources on reality TV

A feel-good story from Paris:

A French policeman who called a female sexual assault complainant a “whore” has been let off by a police court.

The incident happened in February 2022 when the woman filed her complaint at a Paris police station. The officer later rang her and left a voicemail message about paperwork but his insults were accidentally recorded after he thought he had hung up…

During the hearing, the court was to asked consider that the officer made the insults to himself or to his colleagues, and that they were not aimed directly at the woman…A female judge ruled that the comments had not amounted to a sexist insult and acquitted the officer.

Well, sure, it’s not … Read the rest

Just a straight-up lie. Many people have lined up to point out that there are no such front pages. No newspapers are glorifying the children who killed Brianna Ghey. (It would be extremely odd if there were. What would that even look like?)

I'm not going to share the repellent front pages glorifying the children that killed Brianna,once again demonstrating the extreme institutional transphobia of our press. Please if you can, help the organisations that support trans children every day. Lets do better 👇 https://t.co/L1VKZdxaS1

— Nancy Kelley (@Nancy_M_K) February 3, 2024

… Read the rest

The NY Times has plucked up the courage to run a piece on detransitioners.

Grace Powell was 12 or 13 when she discovered she could be a boy.

Well, no, she didn’t discover “she could be a boy.” She discovered she could claim to be a boy, identify as a boy, pretend to be a boy. Let’s be careful about how we word things, ok?

Growing up in a relatively conservative community in Grand Rapids, Mich., Powell, like many teenagers, didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. She was unpopular and frequently bullied. Puberty made everything worse. She suffered from depression and was in and out of therapy.

“I felt so detached from my body, and the way it

Oh hey, the queer rivers book is published by my neighbors at the University of Washington.

A snip at $30 for the paperback.

Rivers host vibrant multispecies communities in their waters and along their banks, and, according to queer-trans-feminist river scientist Cleo Wölfle Hazard, their future vitality requires centering the values of justice, sovereignty, and dynamism. At the intersection of river sciences, queer and trans theory, and environmental justice, Underflows explores river cultures and politics at five sites of water conflict and restoration in California, Oregon, and Washington.

What intersection is that exactly? In what way do river sciences and trans theory intersect? For that matter what is “trans theory”?

The politics of rivers in the west is in … Read the rest

Heads up! It’s time – long past time, actually – to learn about queer river justice.

Hot on the heels of medieval trans studies, one intrepid queer theorist has turned a hand to “Queer Trans Ecologies and River Justice”, in a book which costs £87 in hardback.

River justice is not for the poor, apparently.

“Rivers matter for queer trans lives. Rivers have long…

— Lorelei 🌕🧙🏻‍♀️🕸🍄 (@hatpinwoman) February 2, 2024

Sure sure sure, you can totally see it. Rivers are queer as fuck. They’re long, they can wind, they flow, they’re deep (except when they’re not), they have indigenous names, they’re special, they have souls – the list is endless.

Rivers matter for queer trans lives. Rivers have long

Filia reports:

On 29th January I attended an event organised by the local council and billed as one of a series, with the aim of ‘hearing your ideas’ to ‘create the positive change you would like to see’ in Brighton & Hove.

This particular evening, the focus was supposedly on making the city safer for Women and Girls, which is why I was there. I’m the co-founder and CEO of a Feminist charity called FiLiA. Many of our team members are survivors of male violence, and we work to amplify the voices of Women, particularly those less often heard or purposefully silenced. What I witnessed during the course of the two-hour workshop left me shocked; silencing, intimidation

How dare she.

Many Muslim women choose to wear the hijab, reflecting their personal religious beliefs.

Hijab-wearing women often face discrimination and heightened Islamophobia for their visible Muslim identity.

On #WorldHijabDay show them your support! pic.twitter.com/pD8Gsly9Dh

— Naz Shah (@NazShahBfd) February 1, 2024

Women and girls are whipped, beaten up, imprisoned, killed for not wearing that loathsome snuffer. What is the purpose of it? To keep men from getting erections because a woman has hair on her head. How about forcing men to wear iron underpants instead of forcing women to wrap blankets around their heads?… Read the rest

And so we arrive at full circle: contempt for and mockery of lesbians by The Most Oppressed of Them All.

'Lesbians are dying out' portrays lesbianism as a fear of penises, rather than a sexual orientation. pic.twitter.com/E63uZhQU2W

— Scottish Lesbians (@ScotLesbians) February 1, 2024

I’m gobsmacked by that, I must say. The new contempt for lesbians just like the old contempt for lesbians. Don’t worry: just be sure to mock and dismiss women and you’ll always be on the right track.… Read the rest

That Tweet is providing cover.

The fact that this tweet has already amassed thousands of quote-retweets — far more than replies, even, & virtually all of them are positive — shows how many people want to speak up, but feel they can only do so when they've got an authority like @richarddawkins backing them. https://t.co/C5NkUu5Dfl

— Arty Morty (@artymortyarty) February 1, 2024

Dawkins is now a human shield!… Read the rest

Bloomberg on the cruise ship question:

When Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas embarks on its first official voyage on Jan. 27, the journey is sure to make waves. The world’s largest cruise ship, the Icon is over 1,000 feet long (360 meters) and weighs in around 250,000 gross registered tons. It boasts 20 different decks; 40 restaurants, bars and lounges; seven pools; six waterslides and a 55-foot waterfall. Royal Caribbean says its boat will usher in “a new era of vacations.”

Maybe so. But the Icon is also a doubling down on a negative aspect of cruising’s current era: greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2022, Bryan Comer, director of the Marine Program at the International Council on Clean

Joan Smith on Keir Starmer’s buddy relationship with the People of Gender:

[G]ender-critical women’s organisations and even some of his own MPs struggle to get a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer. 

Not so trans activists, for whom Starmer apparently has all the time in the world. This week he welcomed members of the lobby group LGBT+ Labour to a reception at Westminster and offered them everything the most dedicated trans activist could want, short of self-ID. Starmer was accompanied by a raft of frontbenchers including his deputy, Angela Rayner, and the Shadow Women and Equalities Minister, Anneliese Dodds.

“Together we’ll ban conversion therapy, strengthen hate crime laws and tackle health inequalities,” Dodds posted excitedly on X.

But the “conversion therapy” … Read the rest

Trump loses another fight. Loser.

Donald Trump’s attempt to bring a case in the UK against a former MI6 officer who compiled a salacious dossier linking him to Russia has failed. The former president had been seeking to use data protection laws to sue the company run by Christopher Steele but the High Court has thrown out the case.

Mr Steele compiled the dossier which contained unproven allegations about bribing officials and sex parties. It was leaked to the media just before Mr Trump was sworn in as president.

It was BuzzFeed that leaked it, not Steele.

Trump filed the case too late. He says that’s because he was too busy being president. Too busy tweeting is more like … Read the rest