Same old same old same old same old.

Keir Starmer has said he is proud of Labour’s history on women’s rights after JK Rowling said she would struggle to support the party because of its stance on transgender rights.

Starmer told reporters on Saturday that he was “very proud of the progress” of past Labour governments, which made a “material difference” to women’s lives.

Yes we know, and that’s not the issue. The issue is not past Labour but current Labour.

Writing in the Times on Saturday, Rowling, a former Labour member and donor, said she would struggle to vote for the party “as long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the[ir] rights”.

More on Starmer’s exasperated contempt for women:

Starmer has a woman problem, or more specifically, he finds the women who argue for their sex-based rights to be respected, both in law and in practice, extremely irritating. He could barely contain his exasperation during the BBC’s Question Time on Thursday when a young woman asked him about his current views on biological sex, reminding him that he had previously criticised Labour MP Rosie Duffield for stating that “only women have a cervix”. He said at the time her statement of the obvious was something that shouldn’t have been said. “It’s not right.”

It seems he has changed his mind – or has he? Adopting his best human rights lawyer pose,

A little happy ending story.

A pet donkey that escaped his owners five years ago in California has been found “living his best life” with a herd of wild elk. Terrie and Dave Drewry, of Auburn, are convinced the animal, filmed by a hiker earlier in June, is their pet “Diesel”.

…

Diesel was spooked and took off during a hiking trip with Mr Drewry near Clear Lake, California in 2019. Weeks of volunteer searches proved fruitless, and a trail camera image a few months later was the last time he was seen…Then hiker Max Fennell spotted the herd earlier this month, describing the donkey as “happy and healthy”, and posted his film on social media…The elk herd is

Bad stupid man complains about woman having concerns he doesn’t approve of.

Martina Navratilova turning this anti-trans crusade into her life's obsession in recent years remains dispiriting! And she turns it into way more transphobic vitriol than just discussing sports fairness, as I've covered before, just being nasty and cruel and dehumanizing. Boo. https://t.co/LI3npnApwp pic.twitter.com/5xRw5jITqR

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 21, 2024

Bad stupid man accuses women who disagree with his bad stupid tweet of “swarming” his “mentions.” Man said a bad stupid thing and women replied. That’s not “swarming” and man’s “mentions” are not sacred ground that must be kept immaculately clean.

(Been wild to see when these folks have swarmed my mentions how for so many of them,

Hmm. Nigel Farage speaks up in defense of manly pastimes like beating up women:

Nigel Farage has praised the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate for being an “important voice” for the “emasculated” and giving boys “perhaps a bit of confidence at school” in online interviews that appear to be aimed at young men over the past year.

The Reform UK leader spoke in favour of Tate for defending “male culture” in a Strike It Big podcast that aired in February, while acknowledging that the influencer had gone “over the top” and elsewhere that he had said some “pretty horrible” things.

Good old male culture, with its mischievous delight in choking and punching and raping women.

Since December 2022, Tate has

Well you see by “inclusivity drive” we mean inclusion of more boys and no girls.

A leading Scottish school is facing a backlash after its head girl was replaced with a boy in what it claimed was an inclusivity drive.

It is an inclusivity drive – it’s more inclusive of boys.

Williamwood High School in East Renfrewshire has scrapped its positions of head boy and head girl and replaced them with two gender neutral “captains” who are elected by other pupils. Under the system, two of the three male candidates secured the posts while none of the four girls who put themselves forward were chosen.

So it’s inclusive of pupils who don’t want girls as heads or captains or bosses … Read the rest

The Telegraph reports on the Times report on Starmer’s hostility to women. (Meta enough yet?)

Writing in an article for The Times, Ms Rowling also attacked Sir Keir for failing to defend Rosie Duffield, the gender-critical Labour MP who was investigated by her own party and has received death threats for her gender-critical views.

“Rosie has received literally no support from Starmer over the threats and abuse, some of which has originated from within the Labour Party itself, and has had a severe, measurable impact on her life,” said Ms Rowling.

And, just in case anyone is coming in late, it’s not just a matter of passive no support, as it were; it’s a matter of evading the question when … Read the rest

JKR has a stemwinder of a piece on Labour’s contempt for women.

She went to a launch party for The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht yesterday evening, and got home just in time to join her husband watching Keir Starmer on TV.

“Three years ago,” the woman in the studio audience said to Keir Starmer, “you criticised your MP Rosie Duffield for saying ‘only women have a cervix’. You recently backtracked on this. What do you believe now, and how do we know that you will stick to your views?” Ah, Cervixgate. I remember it well. It was September 2021 and I was sitting at my kitchen table reading over the chapter I’d finished the day before. The TV was

Erase erase erase

Sigh. Religion is good for people.

The official death toll from this year’s Hajj pilgrimage has soared to almost 500 and the true toll could be more than double that as reports emerged that as many as 600 Egyptian worshipers perished on the route to Mecca amid extreme heat.

At least 14 Malaysians, 165 Indonesians, 68 Jordanians, 35 Pakistanis, 35 Tunisians, 11 Iranians and 98 Indians have died, according to authorities in each country. A further 22 Jordanians are hospitalized and 16 are still missing, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry said.

Dozens of Iranians have also been hospitalized due to heatstroke and other conditions, the Iranian Red Crescent said Wednesday, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Why doesn’t their … Read the rest

Can we spot the flaw?

LGBTQI+ activists wear rainbow colored burqas as they proclaim ‘My Burqa is my Right and Pride.’

Would these men be allowed in Gaza? pic.twitter.com/DD0olfu3Qa

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) June 21, 2024

Why yes, we can. The burqa is not a symbol of freedom. The women of Afghanistan are forced to wear it, on pain of violence and death.

These imbeciles should book their trip to Kabul immediately.

Update: On the other hand Oli in London needs to date his sources: this is from 2019 and not in London but Amsterdam. So why are the signs in English? I don’t know – possibly because English is the lingua franca in the Netherlands and Scandinavia.… Read the rest

Oh by the way

Reports of domestic abuse made to Women’s Aid in the Republic of Ireland reached a record high in 2023. The charity said there had been an 18% increase in disclosures of domestic abuse to it compared to the previous year. This, it added, was the most it had received in its 50-year history.

A Cathal Crotty in every home, yeah?

On Wednesday, Women’s Aid also said they had heard from service users that their partners or ex-partners were subjecting them to a broad and brutal pattern of abuse. Among these, women reported assaults with weapons, constant surveillance, and monitoring, relentless put downs and humiliations and the taking and sharing of intimate images online.

There was also

Still not making any kind of sense.

BBC:

Cathal Crotty, 22, attacked 24-year-old Natasha O’Brien, punching her six times, after she asked him to stop shouting homophobic abuse. Ms O’Brien’s injuries included a broken nose and bruising. She told the court she has suffered nightmares and panic attacks.

Crotty was given a three-year suspended sentence on Thursday. The judge described the attack as a “cowardly, vicious, unprovoked” assault. However, he said the defendant “must be given credit” for his guilty plea and told the court he had “no doubt” that if Crotty was jailed his army “career is over”.

Where is the “must” in “must be given credit” for pleading guilty? If it’s a legal “must” that’s one thing, … Read the rest

Keir Starmer two days ago:

NEW

Sir Keir Starmer says he agrees with Tony Blair “a woman has a vagina and a man has a penis”

“Tony’s right about that, he put it very well… I agree with him on that”

— Dominic Penna (@DominicPenna) June 18, 2024

Keir Starmer today:

Asked about @RosieDuffield1 stating only women have a crevix, @Keir_Starmer tell us he agrees with Tony Blair

He then once more paints Rosie as ‘toxic’ & once more references a murdered child

There are women that will hold their noses to vote for this man, I don’t think I can pic.twitter.com/F5gNtf5USt

— Le_Sorelle_Arduino KPSS (@Sorelle_Arduino) June 20, 2024

At least he’s consistent. Rosie Duffield is a bad troublesome nuisance … Read the rest

No no no no we can’t have women saying it, we can’t have Rosie Duffield saying it, we can only have it when men say it, especially important men like Tony Blair.

Asked about @RosieDuffield1 stating only women have a crevix, @Keir_Starmer tell us he agrees with Tony Blair

He then once more paints Rosie as ‘toxic’ & once more references a murdered child

There are women that will hold their noses to vote for this man, I don’t think I can pic.twitter.com/F5gNtf5USt

— Le_Sorelle_Arduino KPSS (@Sorelle_Arduino) June 20, 2024

He’s disgusting. … Read the rest

Ah. It turns out he’s not keeping his job as a soldier.

THE DEFENCE FORCES have begun the process of dismissing a soldier who carried out a vicious attack on a woman that he later boasted about online.

Cathal Crotty (22) from Co Clare was today handed a fully-suspended sentence for the assault that he pleaded guilty to. It is understood that he will no longer serve in the Defence Forces once the appropriate processes are complete.

…

[S]enior sources say that the process to remove the convicted man from the Defence Forces has begun and will involve the military’s internal courts martial legal system.

Wise move.

Maybe he can get a job washing Andrew Tate’s cars.… Read the rest

Well whaddya know, UN Women managed to issue a statement about women for a change. No mention of trans women at all.

Today, on the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, and every day, UN Women unequivocally condemns all acts of sexual and gender-based violence wherever, whenever, and against whomever they are perpetrated. On this day, UN Women particularly recognizes the resilience of women and girls who continue to find solutions, build networks of support, and raise their voices amidst threats and limited resources.

Before you say “But they said ‘gender-based'” – yes but they said it along with ‘sexual’. I take the point to be that sexual violence is rape and the like, while gender-based

The Washington Post put some cameras near storm drains and overlooking the main street in a North Carolina beach town. Upshot: the water is rising.

The videos illustrate how, even on days without major storms, rising waters are compromising stormwater infrastructure, overtopping shorelines, elevating groundwater, and combining with rain to make flooding more persistent and more insidious over time.

The images add to growing evidence captured by scientists who, day after day, are documenting the frequency of these sunny-day floods in an area where sea levels have risen 7 inches since 2010 — among the highest in the country, according to a Post analysis.

The place is doomed.

I recommend watching the videos; they make the problem very vivid.… Read the rest

This one just leaves me blankly unable to understand. The Irish Times:

A serving Irish soldier who beat a woman unconscious in a random street attack, and boasted about it afterwards on social media, has been given a suspended sentence.

You see what I mean. Wtf? Why? Why in hell? Why have any laws at all then?

Cathal Crotty (22), of Parkroe Heights, Ardnacrusha, Co Clare, had initially tried to blame his victim Natasha O’Brien (24), by wrongly telling gardaí who arrested him that she had instigated the attack at O’Connell Street, Limerick on May 29th, 2022.

However, after gardaí showed Crotty CCTV footage of him setting upon Ms O’Brien without provocation, he admitted his guilt, Limerick Circuit Criminal

Man cannot grasp that women exist and have rights.

Unfortunately he’ll probably be an MP.

This was obviously quite a wild meeting.

The @LibDems candidate Alasdair Pinkerton (likely winner) told the audience that just asking a question about women’s need for fair sport & single sex spaces was possibly ‘malign’.

Can’t wait til he’s an MP…. https://t.co/77F4titSZp pic.twitter.com/54pnOF0lik

— teresa smith (@treesey) June 19, 2024

Note that he turns the question “What is your message to women asking for single sex services, sport, and care?” into “asking about trans people’s right to exist.” No it fucking isn’t. Telling men to get out of the women’s toilet or the women’s football is not telling them not to exist, … Read the rest