Lessons for invaders: don’t use the elevators.

Russia agreed to a ceasefire in Mariupol and then went on shelling the evacuation corridor.

Russian forces continued to shell the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Saturday, despite agreeing to a ceasefire just hours earlier – throwing an attempted mass evacuation of civilians into chaos.

It would, wouldn’t it.

Three hours after the ceasefire was supposed to begin, at 09:00 (07:00 GMT), Mariupol authorities announced they had postponed a planned mass evacuation because of the continued bombardment.

“We ask the people in Mariupol to head for the shelter, there will be more information on the evacuation asap,” a statement said.

“Due to the fact that the Russian side is not sticking to the ceasefire and continues to shoot Mariupol itself and the outskirts, the evacuation has been postponed.”

War crimes.

They might as well be building their new houses on the slopes of an active volcano, or on a frozen lake that melts every summer, or in the middle of a freeway.

Away from the lights and fountains of the Las Vegas Strip, bulldozers are working overtime as the suburbs of Sin City are bursting out of their seams.

Las Vegas is growing at a staggering rate. Clark county, where the city is located, is home to roughly 2.3 million people, but forecasts predict the population could go beyond 4 million by 2055.

And Las Vegas is where? In. the. desert. And the climate is doing what? Getting. hotter.

What is wrong with people?

Attracted by the lure of cheaper costs of living, lower taxes, and newly built homes, more than half a million people are expected to flock to southern Nevada in just the next 15 years. To accommodate them, the region’s arid landscape is being converted into strip malls and shopping centers as winding cul de sacs creep closer to the rocky hillsides.

Maybe those half million people will surprise whoever this is who is “expecting” them to flock to bone-dry southern Nevada as the climate crisis speeds up every day. Also maybe the nitwits in charge of converting arid anything into new suburbs should stop right now.

Last year temperatures hit 116F (46.6C) in June, setting a new record for such dangerously hot weather so early in the year. Concrete cooked during the day, spitting out heat long after the sun set. Thousands of unhoused residents, outdoor workers and communities that couldn’t afford the rising costs of air conditioning bore the brunt. By July, 12 people lost their lives to the heat. In 2020, the Clark county coroner counted 124 heat-related deaths.

Yes but that’s just poor people, and they don’t matter.

It’s only going to get worse. The city is warming faster than anywhere else in the US. And the future will get hotter, drier and more turbulent, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a consortium of climate scientists from around the world, warned in its most recent report.

The county is also grappling with a quickly waning water supply and intense air pollution that’s affecting the most vulnerable. The issues are exacerbated by heat, which will be driven higher by both the climate crisis and the building boom. Temperatures are going to keep climbing – and people are going to keep coming.

But don’t worry – they’re all about the sustainability!

“We are one of the best-kept secrets in the world when it comes to sustainability,” said Jace Radke, a senior public information officer with the city of Las Vegas, listing off achievements. Already, the city has added 450 miles of bike lanes, switched 52,000 streetlights to LED lighting, and public buildings, parks, and traffic lights are powered by renewable energy, Radke said.

Awesome. So when it’s 116 degrees people can go for a nice refreshing bike ride to cool off. The bike lanes change everything.

In 2019, Clark county generated more greenhouse gas emissions than the city of Los Angeles – which is home to roughly 1.7 million more people – according to a new report issued by the county in February. Nearly half of the county’s emissions are from energy used to power buildings and industry. The next biggest share at 37% was attributed to transportation. Both of these sectors are slated to increase as more homes and businesses are built and rising numbers of residents hit the roads. The construction equipment itself is expected to add to emissions as the county continues to grow.

Shhhhh – just think about the bike lanes. Bike lanes bike lanes bike lanes.

The dog that didn’t bark in the night:

Donald Trump was aware long before he took the stage at the “Save America” rally on 6 January that he would not march to the Capitol to protest the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win, according to his White House private schedule from that day.

The former president started his nearly 75-minute long speech at the Ellipse by saying he would go with the crowd to the Capitol, and then repeated that promise when he said he would walk with them down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol.

But Trump’s private schedule – released by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack in a filing on Wednesday – shows Trump must have known that there were no plans for him to join such a march, and that he was being taken back to the White House.

The newly-released private schedule indicates Trump deliberately lied to his supporters…

It documents it I suppose, but it can’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s paid attention to Trump. Walk all that way? On his own feet? In a crowd of actual human people? You must be joking. Of course he was never going to do that.

However the fact that it’s documented is evidence of conspiracy.

It is a significant revelation that could bolster the select committee’s claim in the filing that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States by seeking to obstruct a lawful function of the government by deceitful or dishonest means.

…

Trump’s promises are significant as they served as one of the primary motivations for his supporters to march to the Capitol alongside militia groups like the Oath Keepers, and were used by far-right activists like Alex Jones to encourage the crowd along the route.

Well yeah. What was he supposed to do, not encourage them to march to the Capitol? The marching and attacking and entering was the whole point. It was a rally, not a get-together for coffee.

This again.

International Women’s Day they say, but Sara Phillips is a man.

Right there – in celebration of International Women’s Day.

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2022, Wicklow County Council Library Service has invited Wicklow’s own Sara Phillips to the library for what promises to be an interesting conversation with Mary Millett from County Wicklow Partnership. Sara hails from Ashford and is a member of the National Women’s Council of Ireland and also chairperson of The Transgender Equality Network Ireland, TENI.

Sara will be chatting about a variety of topics , in particular those that affect transgender women in terms of inclusion.

So on International Women’s Day a man will be talking about what it’s like to be a man who calls himself a woman, and especially about issues that affect men who claim to be women in terms of inclusion. “Hello, women, here I am on International Women’s Day to tell you to be inclusive of men like me. You’re welcome.”

The Tucker Carlson-Russia-Trump-Bozo the Clown nexus continues to outdo itself in weirdness. Back in December:

“At this point, NATO exists primarily to torment Vladimir Putin,” Carlson said, “who, whatever his many faults, has no intention of invading Western Europe. Vladimir Putin does not want Belgium. He just wants to keep his western border secure.” He insisted that Putin just wanted to secure Russia’s naval base on the Crimean peninsula, which, of course, was already secure from Russia’s 2014 incursion into Ukraine.

He just wants the Sudetenland, really, it will all be fine.

He suggested that concerns about Russia were a function of lobbying from Ukrainian actors and a “hangover” from spending four years on the “Russia hoax” — Donald Trump’s description of the investigation into Russia’s very real efforts to influence the 2016 election.

So…the change of causality here is Russia helped Trump therefore Trumpies must defend and flatter Putin? That’s their motive?

At one point, Carlson showed a clip of a State Department official saying that a violation of “Ukraine’s territorial integrity” would prompt the United States and its allies to “act resolutely.”

Carlson scoffed. “Such children!” he replied, disparaging the idea that the concern was Ukraine’s integrity. He then mocked Victoria Nuland, an administration official who had briefed senators on the situation the day prior.

“No serious person could take Victoria Nuland seriously. She’s a joke,” he continued. Nuland, he said, was “obviously unimpressive as a person” and “not especially pro-American.”

Whereas Tucker Carlson on the other hand…

Last night it was Kamala Harris’s turn.

Her job, Carlson said, was “to trot down to the Blue Room periodically to greet delegations of TikTok influencers.” He suggested that his dismissal of the threat of invasion was spurred by the fact that Harris had been dispatched to the Munich Security Conference in mid-February as the conflict loomed.

“We assumed that if things were dire, serious people would be involved in fixing them,” Carlson said. “But we looked up, and we saw Kamala Harris involved, and that reassured us.”

…

[R]emember why he was doing that on Thursday: so that he could blame Harris and the administration for his fawning endorsement of the Russian president’s geopolitics. That’s the second reason his attack on Harris was garbage: He was dutifully lugging Putin’s water around television boxes well before Harris even went to Munich.

…

Carlson did admit he’d erred at one point in his Thursday show, however.

“We’ve been taken by surprise, by the whole thing,” he said. “We’re not the only ones who were, but we’re willing to admit it. The only thing more embarrassing than being wrong in your estimates is pretending that you weren’t.”

I would argue that more embarrassing still is trying to convince your audience that your knee-jerk opposition to the U.S. government in service to a violent authoritarian was the vice president’s fault because, you know, she’s just some lightweight dame.

And that you’re a heavyweight…Fox News talking head.

They’ve been trying to take Zelensky out and failing.

President Zelensky has survived at least three assassination attempts in the past week, The Times has learnt.

Two different outfits have been sent to kill the Ukrainian president — mercenaries of the Kremlin-backed Wagner group and Chechen special forces. Both have been thwarted by anti-war elements within Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

Wagner mercenaries in Kyiv have sustained losses during their attempts and are said to have been alarmed by how accurately the Ukrainians had anticipated their moves. A source close to the group said it was “eerie” how well briefed Zelensky’s security team appeared to be.

Some Chechens tried last Saturday and were “eliminated” by Ukrainian security.

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, told Ukrainian TV channels that Russian spies had tipped them off about the planned assassination.Ukrainian officials claim the information that led to the deaths of the Chechens came from disgruntled agents in the FSB who oppose the invasion.

Awesome. I’ve been wondering about that. All the reports are that Putin is isolated and paranoid, so it seems highly likely that there are plenty of “disgruntled” people all over the place, including in the FSB.

However, there are still a lot of agents there, and they could still succeed.

Ten days ago a fellow “trans lesbian” talked to Susan Stryker about his plans to tell Irish lesbians what’s what.

The upcoming Lesbian Lives Conference in UCC will see the internationally renowned Susan Stryker giving a keynote speech. I spoke to her in advance of the conference, and, as a trans lesbian myself, I found her insights on trans people’s role at this point in world history incredibly illuminating.

Well naturally. What could be more illuminating than a man telling a man about their “role” in telling women what to do?

We also discussed being a trans woman within the wider lesbian and academic community. “There was Simone de Beauvoir saying one is not born, but rather one becomes a woman and there was Janice Raymond saying male to constructed females, so called transexual lesbians, are rapists trying to infiltrate the women’s community. I knew that I wasn’t that latter thing and Simone de Beauvoir made a lot of sense to me. I had a sense pretty early on as an 18 or 19 year-old that the issue of trans lesbianism was something that was debated within lesbian communities and that there were different positions on it.”

One, that’s not what Beauvoir meant about the not born but becomes item. Two, it’s nice that Stryker knows he’s not a rapist (not that we’re required to believe him) but it’s beside the point. It’s blindingly egotistical to think that saying “I’m not a rapist” is enough to settle all worries about men pretending to be women for purposes of rape.

“And so, as I was with people in loving relationships in my 20’s those questions about when to disclose and how to disclose and negotiating our own genders and sexualities and relationships, it was something that I feel like I did with integrity. I have tried being a public person to talk about issues that come up around trans issues, lesbianism and queerness, the LGBT community and sexual sub communities. To be a trans lesbian in the academic profession, and to bring my academic training to the community I feel I do my best to thread those needles and have good intention in what I do.

Those are words all right, but they don’t say anything. They also don’t make him a lesbian.

Given her insights, I then asked what can be done to combat [rejection of trans dogma]. “I really feel not just trans people, but many people who are in minoritised positions who are the targets of these kinds of ethno-nationalist, reactionary political movements, we all need to really figure out ways to take care of each other collectively, without thinking that state and society are always going to be on our sides.

“In the US context, I turn for wisdom to Indigenous and African American communities who’ve lived under occupation for half a millennium. It’s like, you are 400 years into the afterlife of slavery, how do you live and have joy and find meaning in life? There are cultural resources there. There’s historical wisdom and the experience of those communities that I think many of us who are targeted in different ways could learn from. I think, increasingly not in terms of, how can we win, how do we survive?”

I hope they tell him to gtfo and throw rotting apples after him. A great hulking tatooed white man with an academic job pretending he’s as marginalized and threatened as “Indigenous and African American communities” – how creepy and entitled can you get?

Empathetic?!!!

A man who accepts an invitation to give the keynote at a lesbian conference does not have a lick of empathy. A man who stands in front of room full of lesbians and pretends to be one of them does not have a lick of honesty or integrity or decency. A man who stands in front of room full of lesbians and pretends to be one of them reeks of male entitlement and ego and sense of superiority.

Of course the quislings at “Equality Network” turned off replies on this tweet, so they know they’re insulting and provoking lesbians and women in general.

Oh whew, there’s no problem then, what a relief.

Oh but wait though. Wait a second. Back up. How do we know which is which? How do we know which “trans women” are really just predatory and abusive men disguising themselves as “trans women” to get access to vulnerable women in private spaces? How do we know???

The Met Police – the ones with the horrific record of abuse of women – just can’t do enough for their trans n enby ossifers.

The Met Police are reviewing their uniform policy amid concerns some officers feel obliged to wear uniforms that do not match their gender identity. Currently, the uniforms officers wear are at a manager’s discretion, meaning that some trans or non-binary officers may feel obliged to ‘come out’ to management when picking their kit.

But “coming out” as gender-special is the whole point. It’s an announcement that One is more special than everyone else. Doing it to a manager, and watching the manager anxiously grovel, must be their treat of the year.

In his interview with MyLondon, [Chief Inspector Declan] Halton-Woodward revealed that the Met Police are also reviewing how body searches in custody can “better reflect the officer’s gender identity” – which could involve making it the default that trans women are able to search female arrestees.

At the Met. At the Met, with its history of “What’s that smell? Must be her knickers!” and retaining Wayne Couzens long enough so that he took the opportunity to rape and murder Sarah Everard. The Met is going to allow men to do body-searches of women. Of course it is.

Ron DeSantis chastised some high school students for…clowning around? Littering? Smoking? Laughing at him? Saying “like” too many times?

No.

The Florida Republican governor approached a group of students wearing masks who were standing behind a podium at the University of South Florida, where he was scheduled for a news conference Wednesday.

“You do not have to wear those masks. I mean please take them off,” DeSantis said to, at first, polite laughter. But he wasn’t kidding around.

“Honestly, it’s not doing anything. We’ve gotta stop with this Covid theater. So if you want to wear it, fine. But this is ridiculous,” he continued.

Why do we gotta stop?

DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw defended the governor’s statements on Twitter: “I mean, someone had to say it, after 2 years of propaganda that terrified and manipulated young people. Breathe free, feel safe and be happy.”

Or, get Covid, or pass it to someone else, or both. Whatever.

Originally a comment by Omar on Puff puff puff.

Part of her wanted people to know her journey to this moment, to know what it felt like to be in a body but not be of that body.

This could be the biggest philosophical breakthrough of all time! Imagine the response from dear old Plato if he was still around. The consciousness of Lia Thomas or whatever his real name is, floats about inside his body like goldfish at constant equilibrium with the water inside its bowl; IN THE BOWL BUT NOT OF IT! Drop the bowl on the floor and smash it, and there will be the goldfish flapping about, free.

Another term for ‘consciousness’ is ‘soul’, proving that the soul is not only independent of the body, but will not die if and when the body dies. The soul is therefore immortal.!

One important question remains. Does this apply to all souls, or just to the souls of trans types.? If just to the latter, I should imagine that there will soon enough be a trans-rush, to make the 19thC gold rush to the Klondike look like a Sunday school picnic.

ALL ABOARD.!!

(Sorry about all the block caps. But there are not too many days AS EXCITING AS THIS.!!!)

It’s Women’s History Month and Robin Buckallew is again observing it by writing a story a day. Today’s is about privilege and who really has it.

NEVER POOR

The Sports Illustrated interview with Lia Thomas slobbers all over him.

Fresh off her final practice of the week, the most controversial athlete in America sat in the corner of a nearly empty Philadelphia coffeehouse with her back to the wall. Lia Thomas had done some of her best work this season while feeling cornered.

Aw diddums. Imagine how the women feel – then laugh a callous laugh and go back to fawning over Lia.

The shy senior economics major from Austin became one of the most dominant college athletes in the country and, as a result, the center of a national debate—a living, breathing, real-time Rorschach test for how society views those who challenge conventions.

He’s not “challenging conventions.” Quite the opposite – he’s exploiting a new convention in order to cheat his way to medals and records. Also, obviously, if he were genuinely shy he wouldn’t be doing any of this.

In her first year swimming for the Penn women’s team after three seasons competing against men, Thomas throttled her competition.

Interesting choice of word.

When she swims at the NCAA Women’s Division I Swimming and Diving Championships, which begin March 16 in Atlanta, Thomas is a favorite to win individual titles in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle events, and also has a shot in the 100-yard freestyle. She has an outside chance to break longstanding collegiate records held by Katie Ledecky and Missy Franklin, two of the most beloved American Olympians of this century. 

Outside chance? From what I’ve seen it’s considered inevitable. He’s a man.

Thomas’s story has also become a right-wing obsession, a regular topic of discussion on Fox News. Conservative opinion sites have called her a man and deadnamed her, purposely using the name she went by before transitioning. Her moves have been minutely tracked by the U.K.’s Daily Mail, including once with cruel detail about her habits in the women’s locker room provided by an anonymous teammate.

Cruel? What about what he’s doing to those teammates?

“I’m a woman, just like anybody else on the team,” Thomas says. “I’ve always viewed myself as just a swimmer. It’s what I’ve done for so long; it’s what I love.” She’s not thinking about wins or records, she insists. “I get into the water every day and do my best.”

And what possible reason could we have for not believing a word of that?

Every day this season felt like a challenge to her humanity. Part of her wanted people to know her journey to this moment, to know what it felt like to be in a body but not be of that body. She wanted people to know what it was like to finally live an authentic life and what it meant for her to finish a race, to look up at a timing board and see the name lia thomas next to the names of other women. What it meant to her to stand on a podium with other women and be counted as an equal.

Now let’s talk about those other women, the only actual women on the podium – let’s talk about what it meant to them to have him standing there towering over them.

Lia Thomas has spoken up.

Thomas was recently interviewed by Sports Illustrated and is on their daily cover.

“I just want to show trans kids and younger trans athletes that they’re not alone,” Lia Thomas told SI. “They don’t have to choose between who they are and the sport they love. I’m a woman, just like anybody else on the team. I’ve always viewed myself as just a swimmer. It’s what I’ve done for so long; it’s what I love. I get into the water every day and do my best.”

I don’t believe him. I don’t believe that is what he just wants. I think what he wants is to win a lot of races and break a lot of records. Also he’s not a woman “just like anybody else on the team.” The “just like” claim is completely wrong and false. He’s much, much bigger than they are. Swimmer’s Mother said his back is twice as wide as any of the women’s – which may not be literally true, I don’t know, but we can see from the photos that he is indeed massively bigger than they are. The shoulders alone tell the story. He’s bigger than it’s physically possible for women to be.

Her success in the water has been a controversial topic in swimming this season, but Thomas said she wants to continue to swim.

“I don’t know exactly what the future of my swimming will look like after this year, but I would love to continue doing it,” Lia Thomas told SI. “I want to swim and compete as who I am.”

Of course he would. More easy wins, more prizes, more records broken.

Always finding a new low.

Priorities.

The Russian Football Union said it will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) to appeal against its ban from international competitions after the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

On Monday, Russian football clubs and national teams were suspended from all competition “until further notice” by Fifa and Uefa.

The union said it would file one lawsuit against football’s world and European governing bodies, demanding Russia’s men’s and women’s national teams be allowed to compete.

Or, you know, they could just look at the bigger picture and take the hit. Putin is not their fault, but he’s not Ukraine’s fault either, and look what’s happening to them.

ACLU pushing girls in front of the train again.

Nobody’s trying to “push trans youth out of public life.” We’re trying to prevent males from invading and destroying everything women have. The ACLU couldn’t care less about women and our rights.

Be careful.

A personal trainer died after taking caffeine powder the equivalent of up to 200 cups of coffee, an inquest heard.

At one time, that is – not drinking 200 cups, which would take a lot of time, but taking 200 cups’ worth of caffeine all at once.

Caffeine is used by some gym-goers, with some fitness websites recommending it for improving sports performance in certain doses. However, experts have warned that when taking powders there is a risk of consuming over the recommended amount.

On Tuesday an inquest heard Mr Mansfield began clutching his chest and complaining his heart was beating fast after consuming the product. Minutes later, after going to lie down, he began foaming at the mouth.

And then he died.

The hearing was told the scales Mr Mansfield had used to measure the powder had a weighing range from two to 5,000 grams, whereas he was attempting to weigh a recommended dose of 60-300mg.

Caffeine is powerful stuff. Be careful.