Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Incredibly diverse and incredibly intersectional.

AR – what I am putting to you is that it is reasonable for you to hold that trans women are women and for LGBA to say that they are not.

PR – they are transphobic and focus on trans phobic activities.

AR – gender critical views are transphobic views?

PR – yes.

AR – you don’t think that anyone that has gender critical views should be running a charity in the LGBT sector.

PR – I don’t believe that any charity that is campaigning to remove the rights of trans people to live their lives safely and fully, should be allowed to exist.

AR – despite the fact that gender critical views are protected under the Equality Act.

PR – I’m not an expert.

BOOM!.. as he runs at full speed into the Forestater decision.

I think the crux of the matter is going to be the need to demonstrate how not including trans in LGBA is somehow “campaigning to remove the rights of trans people to live their lives safely and fully.” How does simply not including trans issues in their remit harm trans people? If being lesbian, gay, or bisexual is completely different from being trans, then there is no reason that trans “inclusion” should be a requirement. Even if it was not completely different, is it not permitted for lesbian, gay and bisexual people to have organizations of their own? Trans activists seem to to think that they are a conjoined twin of the LGB “community”, and that somehow “excluding” them from everything that LGB people do is inherently unjust, cruel, and hurtful. Does that mean that each and every charity, whatever the cause, is “harming” trans people if they do not specifically include trans people in their mission statements? They’re going to be suing a lot of charities.

Trans activists aren’t very good at explaining their position at all. They’re more accustomed to compelling obedience than justifying their actions, and they are taken aback when they have to support their own position. Like all the online activists unable to quote instances of JKR’s “obvious” transphobia, when put to the test in situations they can’t avoid, the weakness and illogicality of the genderist position is painfully obvious. A skilled lawyer can get them to lay bare the inconsistencies and incoherence of trans claims for them. One might almost feel sorry for them as you read the transcripts, the pointed questions zeroing in on the empty ideas defended by empty rhetoric.

The initial success of the “NO DEBATE” strategy allowed for the swift capture of key institutions and organizations, but left them ill-prepared to defend their conquests once people woke up to what had happened. Having not needed to argue their case, they are now unable to do so. Like hormone blockers, “NO DEBATE” stunted the movement’s reasoning and argumentation, leaving it with nothing but bullying and intimidation with which to respond. Combine this with the forced teaming with LGB, and you get the effects of both authoritarian inflexibility and intransigence, along with a dependency which has prevented them from arguing their corner and growing the fuck up to stand on their own.

Ah so this is yer man –

He “leads to ensure Consortium stays community focussed and LGBT+ issues are listened to by a range of stakeholders…”

But that’s not true, is it. He doesn’t lead to ensure LGB issues are listened to by a range of stakeholders; very much the opposite. He’s shockingly ignorant on some of them, and shockingly hostile to some of them. He’s all about the T; he’s very much not all about the L.

Nice work if you can get it.

Next installment:

AR: moving on. You complained about a tweet by Bev Jackson who observed that female lesbians are being driven off lesbian dating apps. If you are told by the people running the site that you cannot specify that you only want to meet female bodied people you are being denied service by the dating site based on your sexual orientation.

PR – I’m not on these sites and not a woman.

He’s not a trans woman, either, but that certainly doesn’t stop him advocating for their purported rights to the detriment of other people’s rights.

AR – you complained about this tweet, so I hope you can answer some questions. 

PR – yes
AR – Do you agree that those lesbians are being denied service based on sexuality?
PR – I believe that dating site is interpreting the Equality Act in the same way as I do, to be inclusive of trans women.
AR – let go back to the Stonewall definitions. Is it reasonable that a woman could be kicked off a lesbian dating site for that preference?
PR – The service is inclusive of transwomen.

AR – the definition of trans includes cross dressers. Does a lesbian have the right to exclude male cross dressers from her dating pool? 

PR – if the service is inclusive, then a transwoman should be able to use that service.

AR – you are not focusing on the question. A woman is kicked off a dating site for specifying that she is only interested in female bodies. Is that reasonable? 

PR – trans women should be able to access that service.
AR – we are not talking about trans women. We are talking about is it reasonable for lesbians to exclude men from their dating pool.
PR – back to trans women.
AR – it is clear that this is an example of a conflict between the rights of LGB people and trans people.
PR – there is no such conflict.
AR – We are talking about lesbians being excluded from lesbian dating services.
PR – back to trans women, they have a right to use those services and not be excluded. This is trans exclusion. 

No, it’s men exclusion from lesbian dating sites. It’s staggeringly rapey to keep insisting “trans women” have a right to use lesbian dating services.

AR – what I am putting to you is that it is reasonable for you to hold that trans women are women and for LGBA to say that they are not. 

PR – they are transphobic and focus on trans phobic activities.
AR – gender critical views are transphobic views?
PR – yes.
AR – you don’t think that anyone that has gender critical views should be running a charity in the LGBT sector?

R – I don’t believe that any charity that is campaigning to remove the rights of trans people to live their lives safely and fully, should be allowed to exist.
AR – despite the fact that gender critical views are protected under the Equality Act.
PR – I’m not an expert. 

But I understand that there is a difference between expressing those beliefs and holding those beliefs. And trying to remove the rights of trans people to live their lives.

What about the rights of lesbian people to live their lives?

AR – I will put it to you that you have created an echo chamber with no diversity of thought. 

PR – I absolutely disagree, our sector is incredibly diverse and incredibly intersectional.
AR – no further questions.

The whole thing is incredible.

More Tribunal:

(I’m not sure if this is the next ReaderApp thread in the sequence or a third for the day.)

AR – we are talking about material that children might use to decide whether to go on to a medical pathway.

PR – I disagree, our members are providing helpful materials to young people struggling with their identity.
AR – a young person wouldn’t look at these words and attempt to figure out their identity.
PR – It’s a very complex area, lots of organisations working in this area helping young people.
AR – lets go back to the definitions. Gender identity is about whether you instinctively relate to the gender stereotypes of your sex 

PR – I feel like you’re forcing me into dictionary definitions.

So Paul Roberts wants “trans” and “gender identity” to be undefined? That’s what he’s going with? But everyone has to be “inclusive” of it despite not knowing what it is?

AR – I asked you earlier if you agreed with these definitions and you said yes.

PR – there are so many nuances here and its a complex area. These are Stonewall’s definitions. 

There are so many nuances and it’s a complex area but everyone must act as if it’s clearly defined and absolutely mandatory.

How’s that working out?

They talk about the Gingerbread person, with PR being as steadily evasive as ever.

AR – its not a stretch to relate the number of gay children being referred to GIDS to this notion that they are born in the wrong body. 

PR – I disagree.
AR – what is happening is when a young person identifies as trans they are immediately affirmed as trans.
PR – I disagree. Affirmation is giving the room to explore.

Uh, no, affirmation is affirmation. It’s the opposite of room to explore. It’s a box.

AR – Do you agree that it is reasonable for LGBA to be concerned about the schools campaign?

PR – I disagree. Young people are being given access to information, the materials are about exploring their identity.

What does “exploring their identity” mean? Why is it something schools are promoting? Why is “identity” being treated as coterminous with gender and gender alone? In what sense is the Gingerbread Person “information”?

AR – as a result of this information, a 4000% increase in girls, who are 70% non-heterosexual, being referred to GIDS. This LGBA campaign is entirely legitimate.

PR – I disagree. They are preventing trans people from exploring their identity. 

How does PR know the trans people he mentions are in fact trans people? How does he know that’s a real category? How does he know it’s not a fad, aka a social contagion?

AR – referring to single sex services. Women at risk 

PR – yes, single sex services.
AR – we agree that the Eq Act provides for single sex services.
PR – a mention of single sex services including trans women.
AR – but let’s look at why: strength and men’s tendency towards violence against women. PR – I’m not an expert, I don’t know if men are stronger or the statistics on male violence.

He doesn’t know if men are stronger.

There aren’t enough eyerolls in the universe.

AR – you don’t accept that men are stronger and more prone to violence.

PR – I don’t have those statistics. I’m not an expert.
AR – we exclude all male bodies because we have no way to distiniguish. between the overwhelming number of men who are not violent and those who are.
PR – I can’t answer this without thinking about vulnerable transwomen.

He can’t answer a question about male violence against women without thinking about men in dresses. Misogyny on stilts.

He won’t like that.

International guests are said to have been asked to travel on commercial flights and forbidden to use helicopters or private cars to reach the [Queen’s] funeral. They are to arrive together on a bus from a site in west London, Politico said, citing official documents.

Westminster Abbey is expected to be so full that only one representative from each country can attend, although they can be joined by their signficant other.

Questions have been asked in the US over whether the former president, Donald Trump, would be invited but British sources have scotched the idea that he could accompany the US delegation and said there would not be space for Biden’s predecessors. The former US president Dwight Eisenhower attended Churchill’s funeral, but in a private capacity.

They worked intensely together preparing for D-Day.

Bets on Trump trying to crash the funeral?

Tribunal part 3:

AR – going back to charitable objects of LGB Alliance, same sex attraction and advocacy.

PR -yes,
AR – the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
PR – that’s what they claim.
AR – that’s quite a broad object many ways they could do that. AR – they do not hide their object that they are campaigning to maintain the definition as same sex attracted.
PR – what there aims are and what they do are different
AR – we are not talking yet about what they do, there is no dark agenda. They don’t lie about it. 

PR – what they say and what they are doing is different. I disagree.
AR – nothing they are doing is attempting to prevent trans people living their lives in peace and dignity
PR – I don’t agree, they are undermining trans rights in reality.

What are trans rights?

There is no “right” to force other people to see you the way you see yourself. There sure as hell is no “right” to force people to have sex with you despite the fact that they are not sexually attracted to you. Who is actually undermining rights here? I’d say it’s Paul Roberts, trying to guilt lesbians and gay men into having sex against their inclinations.

More tribunal:

AR – you agreed its transphobic to say that a person with a female body can be a gay man.

R – yes
AR – you believe that it is transphobic to say that gay men do not have sex with people with female bodies.
R – its not for me to say who should have sex with anyone. 

Naughty. That’s not the issue. The issue is definitions.

AR – I’m not talking about individuals. Is it a transphobic statement in general?

R – that puts it in a very binary way and I’m not sure I agree.

But that’s the whole point. The trans ideology does put it in a very binary way: it does shun and punish and exclude people for the crime of saying gay men do not have sex with people with female bodies. That’s what this hearing is about.

AR – anyone with a female body who is attracted to men is a heterosexual, that is an opinion held by many

R – there will be some who believe that
AR – you think it’s bigotry?
R – we are talking about preferences there and its up to that individual
AR – the view that someone with a female body attracted to men, is a heterosexual woman, that is inconsistent with the values of your organisations? 

R – yes, that is inconsistent with our values.

The truth at last.

AR – the phrase ‘same sex attraction’ had fallen out of currency until LGB Alliance was formed.

PR – yes, but practice was mixed.
AR – Stonewall formed using the term Same sex attraction’.
PR yes
AR – you say it’s not meant to be exclusionary but by its very nature it excludes people who are not same sex attracted.
PR – the difficulty is that it makes sex and gender binary
AR you no longer advocate for people for who are same sex attracted 

PR – we do advocate for them
AR – you advocate for same gender attraction not same sex

PR – we advocate for LGB trans people
AR – stonewall glossary, ‘homosexuality is a medical term for those who are attracted to the same gender’
PR – yes
AR – gender is to do with masculinity and femininity and are culturally determined. If it is culturally determined then it is not innate.
PR yes
AR – a man could be feminine and a woman could be masculine.
PR – people are who they are

Tautological but true, and men are not women.

AR – being attracted to people of the same gender is very different from being same sex attracted.
PR – I do not see the world as that binary.
AR – describes lesbian couples that may be one butch and one femme, aren’t they a straight couple based on gender identity?
PR – I don’t believe there are many lesbian couples like that (Outburst from spectators)

Hahahahaha I just bet there was.

AR – but will you not acknowledge that people who believe in same sex attraction exist?

PR – I believe if someone is denying the human rights of a trans person, that is transphobic.
AR – are you suggesting that Fanshawe and Harris are denying Human rights to trans people?
PR – I’m not accusing anyone of that, I’m not a legal expert.

AR – you exclude anyone who wishes to describe LGB as same sex attracted?
PR – we exclude organisations that would exclude trans men and trans women.
AR – that’s a yes, then
PR – yes. 

There you go.

Putative LGB organizations exclude actual LGB organizations that don’t pretend trans people are literally and for all purposes the sex they are not. The “rights” of trans people to be “validated” now trump the rights of LGB people to be same-sex attracted.

The Mermaids-LGB Alliance tribunal has resumed.

AR is Akua Reindorf for LGBA, R is Paul Roberts, CEO of LGBT Consortium, for Anti-LGBA. I’ve filled out some of the tweets a little without marking them because they’re quick stenography.

AR – you believe they have a transphobic agenda?

R – yes that is correct

AR – you believe that they have deliberately adopted a positive stance to deceive the Charity Commission and the wider community.
R – yes that is correct
AR – you describe their messages as innocuous, are they delivering Hidden messages?

R – Yes
AR – CC decision looked at LGBA inevitably denigrates T people. Quoting from website, ‘respect’, ‘tolerance’ ‘dialogue’ ‘disagreement is not hate’. Do you believe those words are a sham and deceitful?
R – I disagree that that is how they are operating.

AR: now referring to witness statements from Bev Jackson and Kate Harris. Both discuss pride and history of lesbian activism.
R – that what is written here.
AR – that is 100 years of activism for progressive causes.
R – activism yes, not sure it is progressive

Bam. Decades of activism for lesbians and gay men, he’s not sure it’s progressive.

AR – you believe that they have set up this charity with sole objective of removing rights from trans people?
R – yes, I believe that is their prime objective
AR -you realise that they are bombarded daily on social media with accusations of being a hate group?
R – yes, I understand that. 

AR -tweet from J Maugham, describing LGB Alliance as a dark money funded hate group. O Wilson: similar tweet.
R – yes I see that
AR – you may not know how many followers they have but they are influential.
R – yes

I think O Wilson must be Owen Jones. They’re transcribing at lightning speed so flubs are inevitable.

They discuss transphobia and “a disgust for trans people,” R agrees that’s what he thinks they have.

AR: are you prepared to entertain that they are acting in good faith?

R – they might believe they are acting in good faith, I believe they are not.
AR: you say earlier they have deliberately deceived the Charity Commission, therefore they must be acting in Bad faith.
R – yes, I agree.
AR: so you are not prepared to entertain that they may be acting in good faith.
R – they are trying to remove rights from trans people. That can’t be good faith.

R is talking about removing rights from trans people without spelling out what rights he’s talking about. That can’t be good faith.

They talk about how recent the addition (aka “inclusion”) of trans to LGB is.

AR: the opposition is that LGB are sexual orientation and T is about identities. 

R – That is the argument.
AR – you don’t see that there are any conflicts between LGB and T rights.
R – I see that some might disagree.
AR – but you are exclusive of people who disagree with including T with LGB.
R – we are not inclusive of those who exclude T 

But they are inclusive of those who exclude the LG who exclude the T.

AR – you expect members to be inclusive. An org that focuses on gay men must include trans gay men

R – yes.
AR – that means that an org that focuses on gay men, must include people who are born female, but identify as men and are exclusively attracted to gay men. 

With the interesting result that an organization that focuses on gay men no longer focuses on gay men. It’s compelled heterosexuality under a “progressive” label.

AR – going back to the example, anyone who identifies as a man is quite a wide population.

R – yes.
AR – may not have surgery or taken hormones etc
R -yes
AR – so we are talking about self-identification.
R – yes.
AR – you mean that they are literally men?
R – no, there would be differences but my understanding is that they are men under the law

Ah, there would be differences. Interesting. There would be differences but the law says they are men, and everyone must obey the law. I wonder if the law can compel the gay men in these organizations that focus on gay men to be attracted to the women who are “men under the law.”

R – you keep using the word literally, what do you mean.

AR – actually, objectively.
R – trans men are men and should be treated as such.
AR – orgs must accept that a person with a female body can be a gay man. it is transphobic to say otherwise.
R – if someone is being Denied access to a service yes.
AR – do you believe it is transphobic to say that someone with a female body cannot be a gay man?
R – yes, I agree. 

Because sex isn’t about bodies, it’s about gendered souls.

To be continued

This comment of Sastra’s sent me to the source to get the full context.

The source is

SEC. 1101. DEFINITIONS AND RULES.
``(1) Race; color; religion; sex; sexual orientation; 
        gender identity; national origin.--The term `race', `color', 
        `religion', `sex', `sexual orientation', `gender identity', or 
        `national origin', used with respect to an individual, 
        includes--
 ``(A) the race, color, religion, sex, sexual 
                orientation, gender identity, or national origin, 
                respectively, of another person with whom the 
                individual is associated or has been associated; and
                    ``(B) a perception or belief, even if inaccurate, 
                concerning the race, color, religion, sex, sexual 
                orientation, gender identity, or national origin, 
                respectively, of the individual.

``(2) Gender identity.--The term `gender identity' means 
        the gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or other 
        gender-related characteristics of an individual, regardless of 
        the individual's designated sex at birth.

There.

It’s disconcerting. How? In its flimsiness, its triviality, its lack of the heft, the inescapability, the reality of race and sex and the others. Mannerisms??? We’re basing equality legislation on mannerisms now? Are they serious? There’s also the circularity of course. What does gender identity mean? It means the gender-related identity. Ohhhhh, thanks, that clears that up.

And on the basis of this circular absurd trivial nonsense they passed a law protecting men who want to elbow women out of women’s sports and prizes and jobs and everything else. Based on the men’s mannerisms.

Christ on a bike.

Guest post by James Garnett.

More and more these days I keep seeing pop technologists ranting on about AI and “transhumanism”, which is to say, moving beyond biology and injecting our consciousness into machines. There is so much wrong with this even from a merely technical standpoint that I don’t even know where to start.

So much of our consciousness and the way we understand and interpret the world is tied up with our physical bodies and the inseparable link between them and our minds (yes, I said “inseparable”) as to make talking about one without integrating the other almost nonsensical. It betrays the blindered standpoint of persons without disability or dysfunction; people who can mostly ignore the presence of their bodies because nothing impinges upon their awareness to force them to observe.

One person I spoke to recently said that this is exactly what the “Singularity” will mean (downloading one’s consciousness into a computer): freedom from awareness or worries about biology and the body. I submit that this is wholly and completely wrong and mistaken: being unaware of a body that is functioning perfectly is completely different from being cut off from that same body, or from living insensate, or living with a body that doesn’t do what our instinct tells us that it should. It doesn’t take much malfunction to make us very, very aware that we live within it, and that its proper function is absolutely fundamental to our ability (should we enjoy it) of being unaware of its daily operation.

Even the very formation of our thinking and the thoughts within are formed, molded, and ultimately limited by the fact that we have binocular vision facing forwards, or that we stand upright, or that we have two hands instead of eight tentacles, or that we have basic biological firmware mechanisms built in to our very brains that prevent us from doing such things as walking off a cliff, and so on et cetera.

Anyway. Just random blitherings on a lazy sunday afternoon.

Global warming–>more frequent droughts–>crop failures–>famines.

California rice fields:

Normally, by September, the drive north from Sacramento on Interstate 5 showcases vast stretches of flooded rice fields on both sides, farms bustling with tractors and workers preparing for fall harvest.

Not this year, said Kurt Richter, a third-generation rice farmer in Colusa, the rice capital of California where the local economy relies heavily on agriculture. “It is now just a wasteland,” he said.

As drought endures for a third year with record-breaking temperatures and diminishing water supplies, more than half of California’s rice fields are estimated to be left barren without harvest — about 300,000 out of the 550,000 or so in reported acres, provisional data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows. This year, rice is estimated to account for just 2% of total planted acres across the state.

That’s a lot of missing rice.

Espino, the Butte-based farm advisor, said the options are limited for rice farmers in the Sacramento River Valley, and continued drought would likely result in only those with the economic capacity to withstand the financial swings brought forth by the drought remaining.

But it’s hard to predict what exactly will happen this winter — if there will be plentiful rain to nourish these lands once more. “Nobody really knows what’s going to happen,” he said. “The only thing we can do is keep positive and hope for rain.”

Cross all those fingers.

There’s an awful lot of flapdoodle around over the public’s supposed “grief” – and not for the first time.

Ours what? Our “grief”? Come on.

The queen said so herself – the fictional one at least.

Erin Friday on the move to change Title IX at the expense of women and girls:

While U.S. citizens, and particularly women and parents, should be celebrating the golden jubilee of Title IX, marking 50 years of protection against sex discrimination, they are instead feverishly trying to stop the Biden administration from implementing sweeping changes to the 1972 federal civil rights law. The proposed regulations undermine the initial premise of Title IX, prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. These regulations will chill speech and enshrine gender identity as a reality…

When reality, oddly enough, is the very thing it isn’t.

Imagine changing federal laws to enshrine other fantasies. Affirmative action for white people who identify as black! Protections for people who were born here to people who were born here but identify as immigrants! Federal scholarships for Wasps who identify as first nations! Stipends for billionaires who identify as penniless!

On Sept. 12, 2022, the Department of Education will close public comments to its Notice of Proposal Rulemaking, a 700-page document rife with inconsistencies and double-speak. Essentially, the executive branch will promulgate new law expanding discrimination protections based on sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation. Notably, none of these terms are defined, resulting in incomprehensible regulations that guarantee a barrage of lawsuits from both sides of the aisle. Few students, from preschool to graduate school, will be immune to the deleterious effects of these regulations should they be enacted.

But on the plus side, there will be more and more and more precious gender angels everywhere.

Call to action.

The trans and lesbian communities have always been intertwined??? Meaning lesbians have always been intertwined with men who claim to be lesbians? I don’t think so. I really really don’t think so. Why would they be?

Also, there’s no such thing as a “trans lesbian.” Men can’t be lesbians. Men aren’t lesbians. Lesbians are under no obligation to “validate” or embrace or protect or prioritize or defend or scrub the toilets of men who call themselves lesbians.

Also the brandished axes are duly noted. Of course the pretense is that they represent the labrys, which has been a lesbian symbol for decades, but the (at least) double meaning is obvious. “Shut up and comply, bitches, or we’ll chop you up with these here axes.”

I remember when Republicans and the right wing were all about law n order. Seems like a century ago now.

Donald Trump’s non-stop drive to paint the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to recover classified documents as a political witch hunt is drawing rebukes from ex-justice department and FBI officials who warn such attacks can spur violence and pose a real threat to the physical safety of law enforcement.

But the concerns have not deterred Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and other Trump allies from making inflammatory remarks echoing the former US president.

The unrelenting attacks by Trump and loyalists such as McCarthy, senator Lindsey Graham, Steve Bannon and false conspiracy theorist Alex Jones against law enforcement have continued despite strong evidence that Trump kept hundreds of classified documents illegally.

Evidence shmevidence. The point is that Trump is Our Guy.

“I have been dealing with law enforcement and the criminal justice system for close to 40 years. I have never seen the type or virulence of attacks being made every day against the FBI, DoJ lawyers, and judges,” former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian. “It’s a chorus led by Trump but that includes elected officials at every level. It is dangerous and unacceptable.”

Bromwich added: “It’s one thing for professional rabble rousers, liars, and nihilists – such as Bannon and Jones – to attack law enforcement and DoJ in the way that they have since the search; it’s quite another for so-called respectable political figures such as McCarthy and Graham to do so. Their recent actions and words reflect that theirs is a politics detached from facts and principle.”

They’re not really respectable political figures any more. They hold respectable offices, but they themselves are just common or garden self-dealing bullies like Trump.

Judge throws out ludicrous lawsuit:

A federal judge in Florida dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, saying there was no basis for the former president to claim that Clinton and her allies harmed him with an orchestrated plan to spread false information that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential race.

What means this word “basis”? If Trump thinks it, it’s true; that’s how the world works.

Trump “is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this Court is not the appropriate forum,” Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks of the Southern District of Florida wrote in a scathing 65-page ruling released Friday. The judge also wrote about “the audacity of Plaintiff’s legal theories and the manner in which they clearly contravene binding case law.”

Other than that, decent effort.

The judge explains Trump in one paragraph:

“What the Amended Complaint lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” Middlebrooks wrote.

That is Trump. He lacks substance in every department; he knows nothing about anything; all he has is endless bluster and sadism. A talkative bully=Donald Trump.

Middlebrooks pointedly took a shot at what he said was the lawsuit’s sweeping attempt to criminalize criticism of Trump, writing: “Neither politically opposing Plaintiff, disliking Plaintiff, nor engaging in political speech about Plaintiff that casts him in a negative light is illegal.”

And if anyone in the world is deserving of a great deal of speech that casts him in a negative light, it’s Plaintiff.

Middlebrooks also highlights the difference between being in conflict with Trump and causing him harm: “Opposing Plaintiff’s presidential campaign does not amount to a realized pecuniary loss. Statements to law enforcement or comments made in a political campaign are not intended to induce others not to deal with Plaintiff or his business, or to cause direct or immediate financial loss.”

In other words, in less technical language: no, bozo, of course you can’t sue someone for running against you in a political campaign, that’s not how any of this works.

How to pretend women are included even when they’re not:

Bros review – Billy Eichner’s all-LGBTQ+ romantic comedy is a winner

What the Guardian goes on to describe, though, is a movie about gay men. Which is fine, but don’t pretend it’s also about lesbians.

Billy Eichner’s slick Judd Apatow-produced gay comedy Bros carries with it the specific sort of baggage that only a “first” is forced to carry. As the first theatrically released studio gay rom-com, the first studio film co-written by and starring an openly gay man and the first studio film with a majority LGBTQ+ cast, it’s a light movie made heavy with expectation – will it be gay enough or good enough or accessible enough or profitable enough – an unfair yet unavoidable heap of crosses to bear.

The fact that it’s called Bros kind of hints that lesbians don’t get a whole lot of screen time.

The review as a whole makes it pretty clear that it’s about a gay couple, and that there are some “LGBTQ+” parts for the crowd scenes. Again, that’s fine, but don’t pretend it’s about lesbians.

One of the two toxic traits, so of course I had to decide what the other was before reading on.

A former lawyer who served in the White House during Donald Trump’s administration, said the ex-president is a “deeply wounded narcissist”, claiming that’s one of the two toxic traits that dictate his actions and decision making.

Well of course the other one is obvious, it’s just that there are a lot of ways to name it. Complete lack of conscience is one way; complete lack of any kind of regard or concern for other people is another. Brutality is another; piggy selfish bullying mean rude aggression is another. It’s why I’ll never understand his popularity. I can grasp admiring someone who can be cruel on occasion, but when it’s someone who is relentlessly shamelessly brazenly horrible at all times, I just can’t get my head around it.

Anyway yes that was it. One he’s a narcissist, two he’s a shit.

Ty Cobb, who stepped down in 2018 because of Trump’s disapproval of his “conciliatory” approach, also said Trump is “incapable of acting other than in his perceived self-interest or for revenge”.

Or a third motivation: sheer pleasure in bullying and injuring people. He loves doing it. He feeds on it, like a hummingbird sucking down the nectar.

During the CBS interview, Cobb also said the current justice department investigation about Trump allegedly stealing highly classified documents from the White House is aimed to cover a wider ground including his involvement in January 6 riots and schemes to undermine the 2020 elections.

Oh good. Go for it, justice people.

“I think the Department of Justice intends to prosecute him no matter what,” he said.

The search warrant is “very, very comprehensive in terms of the types of documents that the government could take”, Cobb added.

Good. Git him.

Stonewall to Oxford: don’t refer to mothers as “she” if you want to score well.

Stonewall told Oxford University to stop referring to mothers as “she” in order to win a higher place on its controversial employer scheme, new documents have revealed.

…

The university had tried to keep its correspondence with the lobby group secret. However, it was ordered to release the documents after the information commissioner ruled that participation in the Workplace Equality Index allowed Stonewall to “exercise a significant degree of influence” over the policies of public organisations.

And in doing so, telling them to erase women from the language.

Oxford University was ranked 93rd in the 2019 Workplace Equality Index. A year later, it climbed to 76th place.

Big jump!

The documents show that in its 2020 feedback, Stonewall took issue with Oxford referring to mothers as “she” in its maternity policies, despite its advice to make the language gender neutral.

“There is good work on your policies, and it’s good to see clear commitments to trans staff,” the Stonewall assessor wrote. “The majority of your family policies are gender neutral which is good, but you use ‘she’ in the maternity policy and I recommend reviewing the glossary to expand the definition of ‘mother’ to ensure it is fully inclusive.”

What glossary would that be? The one that says men can be mothers?

Men can’t be mothers though. That’s one of the most basic things humans know – it’s female people who are mothers, female people exclusively.

In its 2019 feedback, Stonewall said: “Some great work here and clear thought-out responses to the questions. Please keep in mind that any examples in your training should cover sexual orientation and gender identity, there is a lot here which are examples of homophobia but not biphobia and/or transphobia.”

Probably because they’re not real.

Stonewall said: “We are absolutely not trying to eliminate the word ‘mother’. Every parent should be supported by their employers, and our advice simply highlights the importance of inclusive language in ensuring that HR policies, such as family and parental leave policies, are inclusive of all lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer staff.”

Blah blah blah every parent, but it’s women who face particular hardships and demands that stem from motherhood. And how exactly can maternal leave be “inclusive” of queer people? When nobody knows what “queer” even means?

More from Pakistan:

Between 5% and 10% of the city’s population of 350,000 are still stuck in their flooded homes. Those who can, travel around by boat. Others swim in the flood waters with a stick to get about. Sewage and flood waters have mixed to a dirty green. Interviews with local people painted a picture of a disaster on a scale that the government and NGOs were unable to cope with.

…

Dadu and neighbouring Qambar Shahdadkot are the worst-affected districts in the Sindh province, itself the worst-hit province. Flood water inundates roads for miles, making many towns inaccessible. Displaced people live in tents and makeshift homes on roadsides.

…

Manzoor Ali, also from Nurang Chandio, said villagers had built the tents and makeshift houses on their own. “We are running out of food,” he said. “We eat once a day. My daughter, who is just two years old, has a recurrent high fever and there are no medical facilities here.”

Holding her son close to her, Ghulam e Kubra said: “There is nothing for us. Children are falling sick and we are helpless. We don’t have clean drinking water, food and medicine. We don’t know what to do with our lives.”

Here the cruise ships are getting ready for another afternoon departure.