The Great Lanyard War grinds on.

A Government crackdown on so-called “woke” lanyards in the civil service has been dropped by Labour after the general election, i understands…Esther McVey, who was the Cabinet Office minister known as “minister for common sense” in the last Government, gave a speech in May arguing that officials should not seek to express their views or identity in the workplace…The change was widely seen as a response to a trend of civil servants wearing lanyards in rainbow colours to express support for LGBT causes.

Leaving aside questions about banning a particular form of lanyard, what I wonder is why it’s always LGBT causes. Why is it never women? Or workers? Or the poor?

But especially women, who are, after all, half of all people, and the source of all people.

Why does the LGBT brand soak up all the attention and celebration and incloosion and advertising and lanyard-wearing?

From March:

Florida’s Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would ban cities and counties from adopting requirements for mandatory water breaks and other workplace protections against extreme heat.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 28-11, along party lines, to pass Senate Bill 1492, which would prohibit local governments from determining workplace heat standards that go beyond those required by federal law. In effect, the bill would strip cities and counties of the ability to require water breaks for workers and time to rest in the shade throughout the day.

That’s evil. Genuinely, literally evil. Heat kills. Humans are not built to tolerate extreme heat, and they die when they get too hot. They don’t “get used to it” or “adapt” or anything like that, any more than people get used to having their heads cut off. There’s a hard limit on how much heat we can survive, and legislators don’t have the power to change that.

The state legislation comes after the planet notched its hottest year in recorded history in 2023. Nearly the entire southern part of the U.S. last summer suffered weeks on end of oppressive humidity and triple-digit temperatures in a series of long-lasting heat waves that climate scientists said were intensified by global warming.

No doubt that’s part of the motivation of the murderous senators, along with wanting to stick it to people who failed to lie and exploit and cheat their way to vast wealth. Must block all safety laws related to heat because must pretend planet is not cooking.

labor organizations have said workplace heat standards are necessary to keep people safe, particularly for individuals who work in construction, agriculture and other industries that require them to be outside.

Similar legislation was passed last year in Texas, as part of a state law that limited local governments from, among other things, establishing ordinances for mandatory water breaks and time in the shade for outdoor workers.

Heat causes more deaths in the U.S. each year than any other weather event, according to the National Weather Service, and outdoor workers are among those most vulnerable to heat-related illness and death when temperatures spike.

Yeah no shit, because they’re stuck outside in it, working.

The Indy reports:

Waterstones has come under fire for sacking a bookseller who claimed she would “tear up and bin” an author’s novel over their gender-critical views.

Their gender-critical views?? Her views. She’s a woman and doesn’t pretend otherwise.

Book influencer and Waterstones employee Tilly Fitzgerald, who uses the TikTok page Tilly Loves Books to share her reviews of novels, was fired after breaching the retailer’s social media policy during an interaction with author Christina Dalcher.

“Book influencer.” Yuck.

Ms Dalcher was subject to Ms Fitzgerald’s criticism after the author appeared to endorse a new publishing network for those “concerned about the impact of gender ideology” and the safeguarding of women’s rights. This prompted Ms Fitzgerald to write on X/Twitter: “Ooh I’ll enjoy tearing up your books and popping them in the bin today. Thanks for the heads up.”

The bookseller was subsequently dismissed from her job and took to social media to tearfully express her sadness – and clarify her stance on Ms Dalcher’s books. She said her intention was not to have the author removed from the shelves of Waterstones – merely that she did not want to personally support the author.

And she did want to personally trash the author on social media.

Following news of Ms Fitzgerald’s dismissal, supporters of the LGBTQ+ community have flooded Waterstones’ social media posts with comments encouraging the bookstore to reinstate her.

There is no such “community.” It’s a fiction of the initials-besotted.

Ms Fitzgerald uttered some deepities for the Independent.

“I’m so grateful for all the support people in the book community have shown. The last thing I would consider myself is an activist (although I’m forever in awe of those who are brave enough to fight so relentlessly), but to me, it’s fairly simple – we just let people be who they want to be and begin with kindness.”

Sure, let people be who they want to be. Let Trump be a descendant of enslaved people if he wants to be. Let all white people be descendants of enslaved people if they want to be. Let people be Barack Obama or Harrison Ford or Simone Biles or Taylor Swift if they want to be.

Trans “activism” adds one more to the body count.

She’s an editor.

The “be kind” set strikes again.

Waterstones has spoken.

I suppose Waterstones has a policy that covers little pranks like publicly trashing books Waterstones sells.

Another brave activist steps up to tell us all about qrxself.

As I opened the envelope last summer – during the beginning of warmer weather and, aptly, of Pride season – I felt like I was opening the next chapter of my life.

The envelope contained my deed poll – a legal document that proved I changed my name – and receiving it was one of the most joyful and emotional moments of my transition. I identify as non-binary; and the deed poll confirmed my name is – at long last – Dee Whitnell. 

Is that the most exciting thing you’ve ever read or what?

But I haven’t always been able to celebrate my identity in this way – far from it. For as long as I can remember, I’ve never felt like a girl or a boy.

I didn’t fit into either group at school, and either isolated myself by hanging out on my own because I thought I was the only one to experience these feelings, or threw myself into hyper-femininity to try to convince myself that I was a girl. I grew my hair long, fake-tanned and wore my school skirt rolled up to make it shorter – because that’s what the girls did.

Meanwhile every single one of the other girls, of course, had no such feelings or qualms or doubts whatsoever, because they were all dull conformist drones, unlike Precious Self.

There’s a whole lot more in the same vein, about how her mother doesn’t get it about her name, and how hard it is to vote, and enthralling details like that. A feast of delights for the narcissist-fancier.

Land of liberty.

[C]hild marriage, which activists describe as one or both parties entering a union while under age 18, remains legal in 37 US states. There are no federal laws against it, meaning minors can marry, with parental consent, before they can vote, drink, or buy lottery tickets in the majority of the country. Some states have a minimum marriage age on the books, which ranges from 15 to 18. Four states – California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Mississippi – do not specify any minimum age at all.

So the bride is 3, so what? She has liberty too you know.

In many states, statuatory rape is not a crime within marriage, creating a legal loophole that entices predators and increases the likelihood of sexual abuse. “Child marriage can be seen as a workaround for child rape,” said Fraidy Reiss, founder of Unchained at Last.

Or to put it more simply, child marriage is child rape. I think it’s pretty much always the female half of the equation who is the child.

So far this year, survivors have successfully campaigned to get child marriage taken off the books in three states, marking steady progress towards their goal of ending child marriage completely in the US by 2030. But, Reiss says, indifference is a challenge: “It’s been difficult to get legislators to pay attention to the issue and to take the simple, commonsense step of saying you have to be 18 to marry, the same way you have to be 18 to enter into almost any other contract.”

Advocates also face interference from a seemingly odd cohort: rightwing politicians who are using child marriage as ammunition in their war on reproductive rights, and left-leaning organizations who say they are defending the rights of young people by protecting the legality of child marriage.

Like the ACLU for instance? [scrolls down] Ah yes.

However, some secular organizations have argued against the coalition’s efforts: in California last year, local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood came out against a law that would have banned child marriage in the state. “They see it as a reproductive rights issue, that the ability to decide to get married is an issue of choice,” Syrett, the historian, said. The law did not pass because, according to the Los Angeles Times, these organizations exerted influence over Democratic lawmakers.

Well yes and the ability to drink a bottle of rum or smoke fentanyl or drive an SUV at 90 miles an hour down a city street is also an issue of choice. What’s your point? Children don’t get to make choices in all circumstances, because they’re children.

This happened:

Boohoohoo, all she did was try to bully a novelist for having Non-approved views.

Mind you, I don’t really think she should have been fired for that, at least when I think about it. The novelist in question doesn’t think so either.

But still. There is a certain schadenfreude in seeing it happen.

The novelist is Christina Dalcher.

Ah well. Forget it Christina: it’s Chinatown.