Wait, though.

It sounds cuddly and friendly…until you think about it. People wanting to “join” you, whether you invited them to or not, whether you want them to or not, whether you have told them to go away and leave you alone or not, are not being warm and loving and full of solidarity – they’re being creepy, intrusive, demanding, and ultimately domineering and rapey.

We don’t have to welcome everyone who wants to join us, no questions asked, no matter what. It depends. In a public place where anyone can be anywhere then yes, people can join you. If you’re in a park or a theater or a restaurant, people can join you in those spaces. But if they want to join you in your living room, your kitchen, your shower? No, then you get a veto.

Being a woman is more like being in your shower than it is like being in a park. Men can’t join you in it without hogging the soap and knocking you over. Not invited.

This is disgusting – especially the cheers and applause at the end. Yayyyyyyy women are drastically under-represented in the LibDems and we just shut down a question about it yayyyyyyyy everybody hates women yayyyyyy.

World is on brink of catastrophic warming, U.N. climate change report says

Leading scientists warned that the world’s plans to combat these changes are inadequate and that more aggressive actions must be taken to avert catastrophic warming.

Must be but won’t be.

The report released Monday from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that the world is likely to miss its most ambitious climate target — limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures — within a decade. Beyond that threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme that people will not be able to adapt. Basic components of the Earth system will be fundamentally, irrevocably altered. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could claim millions of additional lives by century’s end.

That’s not quite the right way to put it. All lives are finite. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could end millions of additional lives early.

The IPCC report shows humanity has reached a “critical moment in history,” IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee said. The world has all the knowledge, tools and financial resources needed to achieve its climate goals, but after decades of disregarding scientific warnings and delaying climate efforts, the window for action is rapidly closing.

The knowledge, tools and financial resources but not the will or the ability.

Both the U.N. chief and the IPCC also called for the world to phase out coal, oil and gas, which are responsible for more than three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile people keep buying SUVs and going on cruises and taking planes.

Fish populations are dwindling, farms are less productive, infectious diseases have multiplied, and weather disasters are escalating to unheard-of extremes. The risks from this relatively low level of warming are turning out to be greater than scientists anticipated — not because of any flaw in their research, but because human-built infrastructure, social networks and economic systems have proved exceptionally vulnerable to even small amounts of climate change, the report said.

…

In 2018, the IPCC found that a 1.5C world is overwhelmingly safer than one that is 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the preindustrial era. At the time, scientists said humanity would have to zero out carbon emissions by 2050 to meet the 1.5-degree target and by 2070 to avoid warming beyond 2 degrees.

Five years later, humanity isn’t anywhere close to reaching either goal. Unless nations adopt new environmental policies — and follow through on the ones already in place — global average temperatures could warm by 3.2 degrees Celsius (5.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, the synthesis report says. In that scenario, a child born today will live to see several feet of sea level rise, the extinction of hundreds of species and the migration of millions of people from places where they can no longer survive.

Or the child born today will be one of the millions wiped out by floods or droughts or crop failures or the perils of migration.

Also in Spectator Australia, Alexander Voltz on the criminalization of women’s rights:

John Pesutto has declared his intention to expel Moira Deeming from her position as a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party. Deeming’s crime? She attended an event that was hijacked by neo-Nazis.

Imagine if a thunderstorm had rolled in during the event, and a bolt of lightning destroyed a trash bin. That would have been her fault too.

On March 19, at 2:15 pm, The Guardian reported the Victorian government’s rightly grim view of these neo-Nazis and their behaviour. ‘Nazis aren’t welcome,’ tweeted Daniel Andrews. ‘Not on Parliament’s steps. Not anywhere’. The Guardian also made mention of Deeming’s attendance at Let Women Speak.

Then, at 8:55 pm, The Age broke that, because of Deeming’s supposed ‘links’ to a ‘neo-Nazi rally’, Pesutto was seeking her expulsion.

Oh look, that’s the article I just ripped for not ever spelling out what Deeming’s wicked views are. I didn’t realize it was the first to break the story.

We might only hope that Paul Barry takes The Age’s Sumeyya Ilanbey to town in Media Watch’s next episode; hers has got to be one of the most misleading headlines yet printed in 2023.

Except reporters don’t usually write the headlines, it’s the editors who do that. But the whole damn article was appallingly evasive and empty while still accusing Deeming of horrors. I think Ilanbey should be busted down to the traffic beat.

[T]he incontestable point is this: the event concerned issues affecting women and women’s rights. It had nothing to do with neo-Nazism at an operational level, and that is why John Pesutto, as a matter of principle, is totally erroneous to seek Deeming’s expulsion for her attendance.

Deeming did not invite the neo-Nazis to the event. There is no evidence to suggest Deeming engaged with the neo-Nazis at the event. Following the event, Deeming in fact tweeted that she was disappointed that police could not do more to stop the neo-Nazis from flaunting their hate.

It’s so typical though. Grab any straw to punish women for saying no to men, including men in skirts and heavy makeup.

I really hope this blows up in Pesutto’s face.

Edie Wyatt at Spectator Australia on the naughty women:

Moira [D]eeming was recently elected to the Victorian Upper House, and is a former local councillor and school teacher. In her maiden speech, Deeming presented a clear platform for women’s rights and talked about her broad association with more left-leaning woman in solidarity against gender identity ideology.

The women’s rights rally has since been skirmished by neo-Nazis who proceeded to do a Sieg Heil salute on the parliamentary steps where the women were speaking.

…

It is interesting to note that Antifa were present to protest the women’s event but at no point objected to the neo-Nazis. The neo-Nazis were dressed in very basic black shorts and T-shirts and black masks and carried a sign that said ‘destroy paedo freaks’ (which is a sign the women’s campaigners would not have carried, obviously).

That is interesting. It’s almost as if the whole point is to demonize feminist women no matter what, while letting misogynist men and indifferent men and outright Nazis off the hook. It’s almost as if a hell of a lot of people just hate feminist women, full stop, and can’t believe their luck at getting this free pass to fling shit at us on all occasions.

Many women at the rally, including Māori woman Michelle Uriarau, Co-Founder of women’s group Mana Wāhine Kòreo, said the salute was ‘chilling’. Moira Deeming is also a Māori woman and was reading out a letter from a Muslim migrant at the rally, she seems an unlikely person to be targeted as a white supremacist by her own party.

Yebbut the trans thing: that means men can jump up and down on her to their hearts’ content, because she has Views, that no one bothers to spell out but that nevertheless are evil and wicked and not at all permissible.

…the event on Saturday was long planned and co-ordinated with the Victorian Police, event organisers made public warnings that far-right groups were expected and not welcome. The motivation of the far-right groups can only be speculated, but for my money they attend for their own social media optics, for the clashes with the trans activists, and for the flashpoints that feed the new social media political landscape. It is also extremely convenient for the Andrews government, which has taken gender identity policies to draconian levels, to associate all resistance with Nazis.

And by “all resistance” they mean feminist women. Feminist women are Nazis; boom; that will shut the bitches up.

The Age solemnly repeats the stupid lies. The reporter has a thumbnail photo in a full hijab, so we know she’s very progressive.

Opposition leader John Pesutto will move to expel controversial Liberal MP Moira Deeming from the parliamentary party room after she attended a rally that has been associated with neo-Nazis.

Has it all, doesn’t it – “has been associated with.” By whom? Oh, you know, people who want to expel her. “Associated with” in what sense? Oh, you know, was in the same area as. Were the neo-Nazis part of the rally? No, they invaded it against the wishes of the women who were there to talk about women’s rights. Ok so how is that a reason to expel her??? Oh, you know, we want to, and it’s there.

In other words this is sly, derogatory, underhanded, shit reporting.

Deeming attended the Let Women Speak rally organised by British anti-trans rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull at Parliament House on Saturday.

More sly, derogatory, underhanded, shit reporting. KJK is not anti genuine rights of trans people, she’s anti new, claimed, bogus “rights” that demolish women’s rights.

About 30 people from neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network, dressed in black and most with their faces covered, attended the protests on Spring Street supporting Keen-Minshull, repeatedly performing the salute and holding up a sign using offensive anti-trans language.

Uninvited, unwanted, unprevented by the cops. It’s not the women’s fault that the Nazis invaded.

Pesutto on Sunday night announced he had met with Deeming earlier that day, and discussed her involvement in “organising, promoting and participating in a rally with speakers and other organisers who themselves have been publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists”.

“Associated with”; see above.

The opposition leader moved against Deeming, whose views on transgender issues are well documented, because she was promoting the event and had attended a karaoke night with the organisers.

Note the total failure so far to spell out what’s wrong with the actual views of the women at the rally. Could that be because they know there’s nothing wrong with them?

Deeming also appeared in a video with Keen-Minshull, who made comments that in the UK trans rights activists were posing as neo-Nazi agitators at women’s rights rally to smear their cause.

And that can’t be true because the reporter and the opposition leader are determined to stamp KJK and Deeming as Nazi-fans.

Pesutto said her planned expulsion was not about restricting free speech, but denouncing the actions of a Liberal MP who associated with people whose views were “abhorrent” to his, the party’s and the wider community’s values.

Which views? What are these views that are so abhorrent to The Wider Community? They haven’t named one yet.

“The Liberal Party I joined and which I am now honoured to lead, must strive to represent all Victorians,” the opposition leader said. “Regardless of religious faith, race, sexual preference and identity, Victorians everywhere should know that the Liberal Party is inclusive and can be a voice for them.”

Again – airy nothing. What are the evil views???

Senior Liberal sources, not authorised to comment publicly, said Deeming was hauled before the parliamentary leadership team late on Sunday to explain her conduct at the rally and why she remained until the end even when a group performed neo-Nazi salutes on the steps of Parliament.

The leadership team, made up of Pesutto, David Southwick, Georgie Crozier and Matthew Bach, were adamant Deeming’s views were incompatible and she must be expelled from the party room.

What views? She still hasn’t said. This is shockingly bad reporting.

There are several more paragraphs. Still no information about “the views.” Journalistic malpractice.

Moira Deeming issued a longer press statement about the Let Women Speak rally.

PRESS RELEASE MOIRA DEEMING LIBERAL MP – WESTERN METROPOLITAN REGION Personal statement: I have been informed that there will be a vote in the Liberal Party room to determine whether I should be allowed to remain or be expelled from the Parliamentary Party. Let me clear – I have done nothing wrong. Those who organised the Let Women Speak event on the weekend have done nothing wrong. Despite this, a select few members of the Liberal leadership team have condemned me unjustly. This is an inflection point for the Liberal Party in Victoria. There are two paths the Party must choose from. Does it accept the utterly false premise that anyone who chooses to speak out reasonably, constructively, and legally is somehow an endorsement for anyone at all who happens to show up at a public event? Are we truly suggesting that we let Daniel Andrews decide the rules about who is attached to and responsible for who? This from a Premier whose own Party was found to have rorted the tax payer over the scandalous red shirts affair and yet apparently has nothing to do with it and bears no responsibility or accountability for it. Or will the Liberal Party choose this moment to draw a line in the sand and stand on our principles. I believe that Victorians want us as Liberals to stand up to the bullying from Daniel Andrews. They’ve had enough of the spin and the slander. And enough of women and girls being silenced about the extraordinary challenges we face. My intention is to fight and to remain a member of the team. I hope that my colleagues draw the line and say enough, and that I am able to fight alongside them. I hope that when I have the opportunity to present the facts as they occurred, that my colleagues will stand on principle and vote down the motion to have me expelled. Background statement: On Saturday 18th of March, I attended the ‘Let Women Speak’ event hosted by ‘Standing For Women UK’ (SFW). SFW advocates for the reinstatement of reasonable biological-sex based rights and against the irreversible and harmful medical transitioning practices used on gender non-conforming, autistic and gay minors. This organisation and its goals are mainstream and global, supported by high profile members and leaders of every mainstream political party in the world. The Melbourne “Let Women Speak” event was attended by Muslims, Christians, Atheists and members of the Greens, Labor, LDP and Liberal Parties. I announced on International Women’s Day, in Parliament that I’d be in attendance and invited Natalie Hutchins to join me, because she is the Minister for Women. Due to threats of violence from extreme left activists including the notorious Antifa, I was approached and asked if I could drive international speaker Kelly Jay and her security guards to park in Parliament House car park, for safer passage to and from the Parliament House steps. I sought and gained permission from Parliament services to do so. The event was very ably organised by Angela Jones, a left-wing, pro-gay rights Jewish woman, who liaised with Victoria Police to arrange a buffer zone between her event and any counter protestors. This is why I and the other attendees were horrified to see masked men all clad in black inside the buffer zone. We thought that we were going to be attacked. However, the police did not seem worried and were talking with them over at the edge of the line. Later I saw the police seemingly usher these men right through the centre of the buffer zone in between our event and the counter protestors, which is when I saw those men raise their hands in a Hitler salute. I, along with the few others who were facing them from the front were horrified, but relieved that the police were moving them on. 1/2

After the event I was informed that these masked men had in fact mounted Parliament House steps outside of our view on the other end and performed a Nazi salute, and that members of the SFW group asked the police to make them leave, but were informed that the Police had no powers to move them on due to Labor’s removal of those powers. The Let Women Speak event saw several women injured by the extreme left counter protestors who infiltrated the event. I was assaulted and injured, along with multiple other women, including one who was taken to hospital after being knocked unconscious. They also became violent with police and punched police horses, forcing the event to finish early. I condemn their actions, and call on others to condemn this violence against peaceful women. I also condemn of the actions of the masked men in black who were later identified as Neo-Nazis, who gate-crashed the Let Women Speak event. Most of the LWS supporters did not realise who they were until they were being escorted out by Victoria Police, when they did the despicable Nazi salute. I completely reject the beliefs of National Socialists (Nazis) and I have seen first-hand the impact that the Holocaust had on a family member. None of those organising the event had any involvement with these men, as has been confirmed by Victoria Police, the Australian Jewish Association and all the organisers themselves. If Daniel Andrews had not repealed the ‘move on’ laws, they could have been removed. The ‘move on’ laws need to be strengthened and I also welcome moves to ban the Nazi salute. And I hope that the concerns of women and girls will finally be deemed worthy of attention. 2/2

Statement by Australian Senator Claire Chandler:

STATEMENT ON WOMEN’S SEX-BASED RIGHTS

The biggest fear of women and girls concerned about the loss of single-sex spaces, services and facilities is being forced to share space with violent, dangerous men.

There is no more dangerous or violent group than Nazis. This is an obvious fact confirmed repeatedly by warnings from security and intelligence services.

It is preposterous to suggest that women and girls fighting for the sex-based rights of women and concerned above all about male violence would want the most violent and dangerous men – Nazis – anywhere near a women’s rights event.

Over the last few years I have spoken to thousands of women concerned about laws which enable males to enter female sports, facilities and spaces. Protecting single-sex female services is a completely mainstream and widely supported position. Many of the women who advocate for female single-sex spaces are victims of sexual abuse, or male violence. Many are women from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Much of the public commentary over the last 48 hours blaming women for the actions of dangerous men has been disgusting and defamatory.

Serious questions should be asked about why women in Victoria needed permits and protective security to hold an event speaking about women’s sex-based rights, yet Nazis were allowed by Victoria Police to stroll through in balaclavas and performing Nazi salutes. Any laws designed to criminalise Nazi hate symbols which allow Nazis to walk down a public street performing Nazi salutes are clearly inadequate and should be strengthened. Police and security services should be empowered to go after and shut down all Nazi groups operating in Australia.

It is of great concern to me that once again, the media and many commentators have chosen to blame women for the actions of violent men. It is documented over and over again that women face violence, death threats and sexualised abuse for speaking up about sex-based rights. Hundreds of police were in attendance to protect the women attending an event called ‘Let Women Speak’ from violence.

Yet when those hundreds of police allow balaclava clad men to perform Nazi salutes in a public place and the entire apparatus of Government claims they were unable to prevent it – the media chooses to blame a handful of women speaking about women’s rights.

It’s Karenism.

Woman cyclist driven out of the sport by men taking over.

Still in Melbourne:

Updating to add the Facebook version:

NAZIS CRASH WOMEN’S RALLY IN MELBOURNE – questions raised re police behaviour

Yesterday a “Let Women Speak” rally was held in Melbourne featuring visiting British women’s advocate Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (also known as Posie Parker) as well as local women. This movement is concerned that biological men are undermining the integrity of women’s sport and spaces such as bathrooms.

AJA unreservedly condemns the Nazis who invaded the rally. These ugly thugs likely saw an opportunity to hijack the event for their own publicity.

There was some very odd policing. While the Victorian police held back the trans activists who arrived to disrupt the rally, they did not do the same to the Nazis. Rather they seemed to facilitate their entry to where the women’s rally was taking place on parliament steps. WATCH the video and form your own view.

This disruption caused the women’s rally to disperse early. Many are saying the police should have stopped the Nazis.

The Nazis were condemned by the women’s rally organisers – one contacted AJA in distress explaining what had happened. The “Let Women Speak” organisers had nothing to do with the Nazis.

It is shameful that some politicians and media are now trying to smear this women’s movement with the false accusation of involvement with Nazis.

“Katy” Montgomerie is doing his usual sneer lie taunt routine.

It’s not a woman and he’s not being grabbed by the throat. It’s a man who stole the mic to prevent women from speaking at the Let Women Speak rally. Montgomerie just keeps repeating the lie over and over and over.

The man is a man, and he wasn’t invited and he grabbed the mic so another man stopped him. This is a man forcibly silencing women, not a woman subject to violence. Montgomerie gets off on this Repeat the Lie routine.

It’s not violence against women, it’s prevention of male violence against women. He’s not a woman but trans, he’s a man.

He’s a man. He apparently shoved a woman away and grabbed the mic from her. That’s what justifies forcibly stopping him.

Updating to add

Another update: I’ve found video of the moment via Stone the Crone:

Not all that liberal.

An outspoken Victorian Liberal MP is set to be expelled from the party over her involvement in an anti-transgender rally attended by neo-Nazis.

Moira Deeming spoke at the “Let Women Speak” event held by British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull outside Victorian parliament on Saturday.

The wording is, as always, misleading. The label “anti-trans” implies (as it’s intended to, of course) that the Let Women Speak event was in opposition to trans people when it’s the ideology we reject. This obfuscation makes it sound maybe possibly almost reasonable to kick someone out of the Liberal party for attending.

A group of neo-Nazis joined the anti-trans demonstrators and repeatedly performed the Nazi salute, sparking violent clashes as police kept counter protesters at bay.

The neo-Nazis didn’t so much “join” as “invade.” There’s a photo of one cop high-fiving one of the neo-Nazis. There’s no such photo of a gender-critical woman high-fiving a neo-Nazi.

Opposition leader John Pesutto said he met Ms Deeming on Sunday afternoon and discussed her involvement in organising, promoting and participating in a rally that had speakers and others publicly linked with far right-wing extremist groups, including neo-Nazi activists.

What does “publicly linked with” mean? Anything more than “trans activists say they’re all neo-Nazis!!”? KJK’s rallies are open to everyone, but they’re not neo-Nazi rallies.

“This is not an issue about free speech but a member of the parliamentary party associating with people whose views are abhorrent to my values, the values of the Liberal Party and the wider community,” Mr Pesutto said in a statement.

What values?

“The Liberal Party I joined and which I am now honoured to lead must strive to represent all Victorians.”

Except women.

“Regardless of religious faith, race, sexual preference and identity, Victorians everywhere should know that the Liberal Party is inclusive and can be a voice for them.”

Unless they’re women, especially feminist women.

Like so many people, this stupid man doesn’t grasp that you can’t be “inclusive” and banish all feminist women who defend women’s rights and spaces. You can’t be “inclusive” of men who steal women’s rights and identities and of women.

Mr Pesutto labelled the scenes of black-clad white supremacists marching along Spring Street an “abomination” and “affront” to values all Victorians should hold dear.

But their presence is not Moira Deeming’s fault.

And now Pesutto is punishing her for the fact that the police let the masked men invade the rally. It’s disgusting.

Wyoming makes abortion medication illegal:

The Wyoming bill, which was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature earlier this month, makes it illegal to “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion”.

Women must not be allowed to plan their own lives. Women must be public property.

Wyoming American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocacy director Antonio Serrano criticised the bill, saying “a person’s health, not politics, should guide important medical decisions – including the decision to have an abortion”.

Nice of him to weaken his own criticism by saying “a person’s health” instead of a woman’s. Nice of him to delete women from the abortion issue as if it were not an attack on women specifically and exclusively. Nice of him to be more concerned about the four or five trans men who might be annoyed if he said “woman” than he is about millions of women.

Maybe maybe just maybe trans ideology isn’t quite the red-hot vote-winner that its fans were thinking.

Labour must fix its stance on transgender issues to win the next election, Sir Keir Starmer has been told.

Senior figures within the party believe there is a need to clarify its policies on the issue and bring them closer in line with where the public is.

They’re alarmed by Nicola Sturgeon’s crashing and burning.

Figures within Labour believe their policies must not fall into a similar trap whereby “in trying to do good for a very small minority group, you inadvertently offend an awful lot of women who feel their place in society is being eliminated. You have to balance the needs of different groups”.

Stop right there. It’s not a matter of “offending.” It’s not a matter of women “feeling” you’re trashing our rights. It’s reality. It’s a matter of the blazingly obvious fact that enabling men to displace women violates women’s rights. Just shut up with this subjective deniable “offend-feel” shit. We’re not talking about our feeeeeelings, we’re talking about our rights.

Labour MPs are concerned that the party needs to “come up with an answer” to the trans question that “secures women’s rights”.

Labour MPs also need to get it through their heads that women are not some tiny minority it’s ok to trample for the sake of men who claim to be women.

Trump did a thing in 2018…

President Donald Trump signed the biggest rollback of bank regulations since the global financial crisis into law Thursday.

The measure designed to ease rules on all but the largest banks passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support. Backers say the legislation will lift burdens unnecessarily put on small and medium-sized lenders by the Dodd-Frank financial reform act and boost economic growth.

Opponents, however, have argued the changes could open taxpayers to more liability if the financial system collapses or increase the chances of discrimination in mortgage lending.

Cough Silicon cough Valley cough Bank cough

The measure eases restrictions on all but the largest banks. It raises the threshold to $250 billion from $50 billion under which banks are deemed too important to the financial system to fail. Those institutions also would not have to undergo stress tests or submit so-called living wills, both safety valves designed to plan for financial disaster.

Silicon Valley what now?

Poor Trump, no one tells him anything, he has to get his information from the news media like any other shlub.

Donald Trump says he expects to be arrested on Tuesday and has urged his supporters to launch mass protests.

However his lawyer said there had been no communication from law enforcement and the former president’s post was based on media reports.

And gossip, don’t forget gossip.

The district attorney’s office has not yet commented. Mr Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, said her team had not heard anything from law enforcement officials.

“Since this is a political prosecution, the district attorney’s office has engaged in a practice of leaking everything to the press, rather than communicating with President Trump’s attorneys as would be done in a normal case,” she said.

That’s so sad when he’s such a norm-following respectful punctilious guy himself.

The Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has hit out at the investigation, calling it “an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA [district attorney]”.

There it is again, that stupid UK media trick of translating discourse into physical violence. Kevin McCarthy didn’t “hit out at” anything; he said words. Metaphor is all very well but this brand of metaphor is highly manipulative, and journalists should not be using it.

Very enlightening piece by Jonathan Haidt about the rise in depression among girls and how catastrophizing is involved.

In May 2014, Greg Lukianoff invited me to lunch to talk about something he was seeing on college campuses that disturbed him. Greg is the president of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), and he has worked tirelessly since 2001 to defend the free speech rights of college students. That almost always meant pushing back against administrators who didn’t want students to cause trouble, and who justified their suppression of speech with appeals to the emotional “safety” of students—appeals that the students themselves didn’t buy. But in late 2013, Greg began to encounter new cases in which students were pushing to ban speakers, punish people for ordinary speech, or implement policies that would chill free speech. These students arrived on campus in the fall of 2013 already accepting the idea that books, words, and ideas could hurt them. Why did so many students in 2013 believe this, when there was little sign of such beliefs in 2011?

Greg is prone to depression, and after hospitalization for a serious episode in 2007, he learned CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). In CBT you learn to recognize when your ruminations and automatic thinking patterns exemplify one or more of about a dozen “cognitive distortions,” such as catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, fortune telling, or emotional reasoning. Thinking in these ways causes depression as well as being a symptom of depression. Breaking out of these painful distortions is a cure for depression. 

What Greg saw in 2013 were students justifying the suppression of speech and the punishment of dissent using the exact distortions that Greg had learned to free himself from.

Ahhhhhh. That’s very interesting, and would explain a lot.

Students were saying that an unorthodox speaker on campus would cause severe harm to vulnerable students (catastrophizing); they were using their emotions as proof that a text should be removed from a syllabus (emotional reasoning). Greg hypothesized that if colleges supported the use of these cognitive distortions rather than teaching students skills of critical thinking (which is basically what CBT is), then this could cause students to become depressed. Greg feared that colleges were performing reverse CBT. 

Do catastrophize. Do use your emotions as a guide to reality.

They wrote an essay about it.

After our essay came out, things on campus got much worse. The fall of 2015 marked the beginning of a period of protests and high-profile conflicts on campus that led many or most universities to implement policies that embedded this new way of thinking into campus culture with administrative expansions such as “bias response teams” to investigate reports of “microaggressions.” Surveys began to show that most students and professors felt that they had to self-censor. The phrase “walking on eggshells” became common. Trust in higher ed plummeted, along with the joy of intellectual discovery and sense of goodwill that had marked university life throughout my career. 

2015 eh? The summer of 2015 is when all those loonies at Freethought Blogs got to work catastrophizing about me. I was supposed to walk on eggshells, but I told them to fuck off instead.

Greg and I decided to expand our original essay into a book in which we delved into the many causes of the sudden change in campus culture. Our book focused on three “great untruths” that seemed to be widely believed by the students who were trying to shut down speech and prosecute dissent:

1. What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.
2. Always trust your feelings.
3. Life is a battle between good people and evil people. 

All those people screaming at “terfs” – that’s where their heads are. No wonder it’s all such a clusterfuck.

There’s more. I’ll get to it later, because there’s a lot to think about. I like to take small bites.

Well it’s none of my business but the Guardian saw fit to publish an article about it so I guess that makes it everyone’s business.

Jon Snow ‘at complete ease’ with becoming a father again in his 70s

The broadcaster, 75, and his wife, the academic Precious Lunga, 48, welcomed a baby boy via a surrogate in March 2021 after struggling with “medical setbacks and miscarriages”.

“Via a surrogate”=a different woman did the work of gestation and pushing out.

Snow elaborated:

“I haven’t found age relevant to my relationship with my son or grandsons. Is being a grandad different to being a dad? Not really. In the end, it’s all love, isn’t it?”

Yes but that’s not the issue. The issue is that the kid will have less time with his father than most children do. The issue is that there’s a bigger than usual risk that the kid will lose his father in childhood. Maybe not an altogether kind thing to do?

Pink News sees a fistfight where there isn’t one:

Oxfam hits back at critics of trans-inclusive guidance who claim its ‘erasing mums and dads’

No it doesn’t “hit back,” because nobody “hit” in the first place. Saying words is not hitting. Oxfam responded or reacted or issued a statement; it didn’t “hit.” Nobody “hit” Oxfam.

Also, why “mums and dads” instead of mothers and fathers? Why not treat the readers like adults?

The 92-page toolkit offers advice on how to engage with different groups of people which Oxfam staff and volunteers might come into contact with, including people with a disability, sex workers and the LGBTQ+ community.  

But not women, of course. Women don’t matter. Women aren’t worth mentioning. Women are Karens.

An updated version of the guide, which went live on Monday (13 March), immediately courted controversy for allegedly ‘erasing mothers and fathers’ by encouraging the use of gender neutral terms in certain situations.  

There it is – mothers and fathers. So why the cloying “mums and dads” in the headline? To manipulate, of course.

Under the ‘LGBTQIA+ Rights and Inclusion’ section of the document, the charity stated people use the phrases “parent” or “parenthood” when unsure of the gender of a particular caregiver but equally respect people who want to be called ‘mother’ or ‘father’.

The guidance stated: “In patriarchal culture, social norms around gender result in designated roles for parents that reflect expectations of that gender.”

Well it’s not a social norm that it’s the mother who gestates and pushes out the baby, or that it’s the mother who breastfeeds the baby. It’s not a social norm that the father doesn’t do any of those things.

“Some transgender and non-binary people may identify with these roles. However, some may prefer to use other names to designate parenthood. 

“The important principle here is to be inclusive in the broader sense by describing people as ‘parents’, but if individual parents have a preference for a role name, to respect their choice.” 

Is it really? Does that come up a lot in Oxfam’s work?

I doubt it, myself.

Trump’s lawyer says he’ll surrender if he’s indicted. Very big of him I’m sure. The lawyer didn’t mention that he would also incite his worshipers to riot.

Former President Donald Trump will surrender to face criminal charges if indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, his lawyer said Friday evening.

…

Trump is under investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for his company recording as legal expenses a reimbursement to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen for $130,000 he gave porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual tryst with Trump.

Trump is living at his Florida club these days.

Under Florida law, the state’s governor is responsible for making sure a person in the state is arrested and delivered to another state if that person is indicted on a felony charge.

The governor in question is Ron DeSantis, a rival and an object of trumpy insults. Fun stuff.