Indiana ACLU turning its back on girls and their civil liberties.

Transgender girls aren’t girls.

THE ISSUE ISN’T TRANS KIDS.

The issue is boys destroying girls’ sports.

Nobody is saying trans students don’t belong in sports. The issue is trans students who are male intruding on students who are female.

There’s nothing to “protect” them from; they’re not in danger. It’s girls who are in danger of losing their sports and their privacy.

Talk. Like. Grownups.

If only this discussion could get out of the baby talk stage. Let trans girls play sports!! Yes thank you nobody is trying to stop them.

A controversial bill to ban transgender girls from playing girls sports in school has passed a key committee, signaling it’s on its way to becoming law.

…

Last week, lawmakers heard hours of testimony from individuals on both sides of the bill. There are supporters of the bill, who are concerned what impact the participation of transgender girls may have on girls’ sports. They say transgender girls may have unfair physical advantages that would make it harder to cisgender girls to secure a spot or compete on an even playing field.

Of course they do, at least if we’re talking about post-puberty boys. This is part of the baby talk: pretending we all have no clue that males have physical advantages over females.

Those opposing the bill, though, say transgender kids should have the same opportunities to compete and play that their cisgender peers enjoy. And, they say, there are already transgender kids playing school sports.

They would still have those same opportunities. Stop with the baby talk. And the issue isn’t “transgender kids” it’s boys. And if boys are already cheating by competing against girls then that’s a bad thing and unfair to the girls.

Transgender kids don’t pose a threat to girls’ sports, say advocates for the LGBTQ community.

Then they’re lying. Boys do pose a threat to girls’ sports once they’re past puberty. Everybody knows this. Journalists keep hiding it with this baby talk about “kids” instead of “boys.”

The ACLU of Indiana has said it will oppose the bill in the courts, should it be signed into law.

The ACLU of Indiana is all over it. It’s not a civil liberty for boys to play on girls’ teams.

Originally a comment by Freemage on Imagine.

Okay, I’m gonna leap down this rabbit-hole for a moment, because I think it really gets at the critiques of Rowling and Harry Potter from the TRAs:

H. P. Lovecraft was the creator of the Cthulu “mythos”. He pretty much invented, whole-cloth, the idea of ancient gods who are so far beyond human experience that to apply mortal morals to them is absurd, and to contemplate them directly is to invite insanity. Just as Mary Shelly created the first real Sci-Fi Horror story, Lovecraft pretty much invented the whole genre of Existential Horror. His writings have inspired scores of other writers to produce work in the same genre, as well as art, music and parodies. (I’m fond of the HP Lovecraft Christmas Carol book, personally.)

He was also a flaming racist. And not just by modern standards; even by the standards of a white man in the early 1900s, he was an extremist. (He also was terrified by science and technology, including the notion of air-conditioning.)

And these views are rife throughout his writings. The view that anyone who isn’t a high-born WASP is in some way not merely inferior, but actually dangerous, is [integral] to his stories.

Naturally, this has created some difficulties in the modern era. When retelling his stories in new adaptations, or in new works based on his mythos, writers, filmmakers and others generally take considerable effort to excise the elements that are so offensive. One of the biggest triumphs in the remake category comes from Jordan Peele, whose Lovecraft County takes pretty much everything that’s fun and enjoyable about HP’s writings, and then infuses it with a strong anti-racist vibe. Perfect subversion.

I went on this tangent to show that it’s possible to ‘imagine the art without the artist’. But now, let’s look at the billboard slogan again.

What, exactly, would be changed in a Harry Potter-verse that was written by someone who wasn’t J.K. Rowling? Well… pretty much absolutely nothing. At most, there might’ve been a greater diversity of skin-tones among the characters. But there’s no intrinsic social or political views that are driving her world-building the way there is with H.P.’s. You can’t eliminate her ‘transphobia’ because there’s nothing in the work that contains her views on sex-based differences in the first place, other than the existence of boy’s and girl’s bathrooms.

Another tantrum.

“transphobic scholarship” “pain and suffering” “the damage caused” “injurious scholarship” “directly and indirectly harmed” – it sounds like something really terrible, doesn’t it.

“harmful scholarship”

How dare those traitors be unoffended by the content? How dare they not do everything they can to get it removed and rejected and forever silenced?

“personal safety” “harmful scholarship”

“unwaveringly correct decision” “harmful and problematic”

Melodrama is a powerful drug.

Useful summary of state of play.

Harriet Hall on Charles Windsor as self-proclaimed Enemy of the Enlightenment:

Edzard Ernst has a new book out: Charles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorized Biography. I wrote a full book review that will appear in the next issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, but I wanted to give my readers on Science-Based Medicine a heads-up.  Charles’ efforts to promote alternative medicine have been mentioned many times on SBM, but readers may not appreciate the depth of his folly. I know I didn’t, until I read this book. The full story has never been told until now.

Ernst uses Prince Charles’ own words to demonstrate his ignorance of science and medicine. He thinks conventional medicine is nothing but “pills and procedures”. At the age of 34, he had the chutzpah to lecture to the members of the British Medical Association on the power of spiritualism, urging them to follow their intuition rather than look for scientific evidence. He has always been intuitively averse to scientific materialism and was drawn to mysticism.

He has the chutzpah to lecture everybody on everything. He lectures architects on architecture, scientists on science, city planners on city planning. He thinks he’s much much much cleverer than he is. Dunning-Kruger to the max.

Perhaps the worst thing is that he is proud of being called “the enemy of the Enlightenment”. He is clearly anti-science. He calls for more research into alternative medicine, but he doesn’t mean what we mean by research. He doesn’t want research to ask “if” a treatment is effective, he wants it to demonstrate that it is effective, and that it would save money (which it would not).

He identifies as right about everything.

CNN “reports”:

Lia Thomas, a transgender woman swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania, won the 500-yard freestyle race at the Ivy League women’s swimming and diving championships on Thursday night in 4 minutes and 37.32 seconds, beating her next closest competitor by 7.5 seconds.

In other words William Thomas, a man, won the 500-yard freestyle race at the Ivy League women’s swimming and diving championships on Thursday night in 4 minutes and 37.32 seconds, beating his next closest competitor, a woman, by 7.5 seconds. Which is to say, a man won a women’s race by blatantly gaming the system. This should not be allowed to happen, end of story.

Her dominance in the pool has raised questions about the NCAA’s policies toward transgender women athletes and the proper balance between inclusion and fairness.

Fuck “balance.” Women’s sports should be for women. “Inclusion” in that context should mean all women, all kinds of women, women of all classes and races and ethnicities. It should not mean men.

Huh. Subway ads for the New York Times attacking JK Rowling. That’s a new level.

The New York Times has come under fire for an ad that describes a woman imagining what Harry Potter would be like without its author JK Rowling.

Setting aside the morality of a major newspaper singling out a woman for hatred in its advertising, that’s just plain a stupid thing to say. Let’s imagine what The Trout Quintet would be like without Schubert. What would King Lear be like without Shakespeare? Wuthering Heights without Emily Bronte? Fallingwater without Frank Lloyd Wright?

At least it’s an easy exercise. The answer is nothing. Zero. An empty space.

And as for the morality…well. It’s beneath contempt.

The advertisement is part of the paper’s new brand marketing campaign, ‘Independent Journalism for an Independent Life’, which according to a press release aims to give an insight into the lives of several New York Times subscribers.

By singling out a woman for abuse because she has an independent mental life.

Why isn’t everyone there booing?

Julia Beck on that ratbag who got her kicked off a city commission and has now “detransitioned.”

Four years ago I was ousted from a city commission, all because I said “sex” is important. Now I hear the man who took my place, the man who then called himself a lesbian and led the charge against me, has since detransitioned. I welcome every person’s decision to detransition or desist, and at the same time abusers must be held accountable for their actions. Sure, finding yourself in life is a process, but it never requires traumatizing women, or pretending to be one.

I wouldn’t even mind the pretending to be one all that much if it were called that. I would mind it some, because men’s idea of what it is to be a woman can often be quite irritating, but I wouldn’t mind it nearly as much as I mind the “we are women every bit as much as you are and we do it better” nonsense.

In 2018 I was living in Baltimore, Maryland. To defend lesbian rights, I joined the city’s LGBTQ Commission and then was elected to a leadership position on the Law and Policy Committee. It’s a fact that lesbians, despite beginning the alphabet acronym, are erased left and right. There are very few lesbians in positions of power or influence these days. So, as an out lesbian, I was glad for the opportunity to represent women like me. It wasn’t long before my feminist politics came out, too; my committee was asked to review a list of proposals from the police department which I criticized for replacing “sex” with “gender identity.” I argued that policies which use this ideology are easily manipulated by male perpetrators, like male rapists in women’s prisons.

And bam, along came an I Identify As A Woman to punish her for knowing what a woman is.

[H]e accused me of committing “violence” against the “transgender community” and called for a vote to kick me out. This man personally identified as transgender and apparently empathized with the male perpetrators of Baltimore City. At the time, he called himself a “transbutch” and abruptly claimed my position. Did he truly intend to dominate the only lesbian on the committee? Or was his entire political scheme merely a ruse for narcissistic validation? In any case, he was celebrated in the local press for being a pride-month hero, while I became “the most hated lesbian in Baltimore.”

Who knew that men make better lesbians than women do?

It sure takes a lot of balls to call yourself a lesbian, run an actual lesbian out of her elected position in city government, and then years later boast about your enlightenment from living for a few years in girl mode. I wonder how many women were harmed in the making of his ego.

Too many, we know that much.

The crook and his crook kids have to testify.

Donald Trump and two of his children have been ordered by a New York judge to appear for a deposition within the next three weeks, as part of the billowing investigation over alleged fraud in the valuation of assets belonging to his family business.

The ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron to force Trump and his two eldest children – Donald Jr and Ivanka – to comply with subpoenas amounts to a sharp escalation of the legal perils that are rapidly tightening around the former president.

I know, I know, he keeps getting away with it, but you know, you can play with fire 153 times and not get burned and that still doesn’t mean you won’t get burned the next time. He’s gotten away with it before (though not entirely) but it doesn’t follow that he’ll inevitably get away with it forever. Jeffrey Epstein got away with it until he didn’t.

Following a two-hour hearing on Thursday, Engoron delivered a blunt rebuttal to arguments put forward by Trump lawyers that the former president should not be subjected to questioning in the civil case because the information could be used against him in criminal proceedings that are running in parallel. The judge went so far as to say that had James not subpoenaed them, it would have been “a blatant dereliction of duty”.

Responding to the news, [NY Attorney General Letitia] James said that it showed that “no one will be permitted to stand in the way of the pursuit of justice, no matter how powerful they are”.

And Trump isn’t all that powerful now. He’s not president any more.

He can plead the Fifth Amendment but that has its own problems.

In legal arguments before Engoron delivered his decision, lawyers for Trump argued that he could not feasibly plead the fifth without hurting his potential criminal defense.

“If he goes in and follows my advice, which will be you cannot answer these questions without … immunity because that’s what the law provides, and take the fifth amendment, that’ll be on every front page in the newspaper in the world. And how can I possibly pick a jury in that case?” said Ronald Fischetti, Trump’s criminal defense lawyer.

Politically, the deposition is also likely to be awkward. In the past, Trump has poured scorn on those who remain silent under questioning. During his 2016 presidential election campaign, he ridiculed the practice, saying “the mob takes the fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment?”

Oops.

The James investigation, combined with its criminal Manhattan equivalent, are now top of the league of a plethora of legal troubles facing the former occupant of the White House. A Guardian tally this month found that Trump was facing a total of 19 legal challenges, six of which involve alleged financial irregularities.

Well at least he won’t get bored.

The one with Andy Lewis and Aaron Rabinowitz.

I’ve watched only a clip so far, in which Helen asks Aaron if he thinks Lia Thomas has a right to be in the women’s changing room and Aaron says yes.

One way of looking at it is that critics of trans ideology are obsessed with the subject [and by implication kind of weird and crazy for being so obsessed].

Maybe, but on the other hand, maybe they have interests at stake, aka genuine concerns, and thus know more about it than you do, and thus just possibly are right while you – knowing less about it – are wrong. It may be that they think more about it than you do and care more about it than you do, and thus just possibly get it mostly right while you get it mostly wrong. Or not. Caring can of course distort too, but I don’t think Aaron should just ignore the knowing more=getting it right possibility.

Originally a comment by James Garnett on Triple threat.

I’m not a climate scientist, but my professional work is in control theoretic modeling of real, nonlinear systems. It’s difficult to underscore just how frightening a positive feedback runaway can be; the results are catastrophic for the system in question, even for small things. For example, induction motors form the basis of modern processing engineering, so their function and use are taught in most electrical engineering programs. One aspect of these motors is that when they are running, if one opens the field circuit while the driving circuit is still energized, the torque of the rotor becomes infinite (in theory), because the field acts as a negative feedback control mechanism.

Some years ago I witnessed what this really means when a student did exactly this to a half-ton induction motor bolted to the floor of a lab with one-inch bolts: in a matter of seconds it tore itself free of its anchors and proceeded to fly around the room, wreaking devastation to every inch of it; it was only by sheer luck that nobody was hurt or killed.

Now scale that scene in your mind up to the entire planetary climate: that’s what we’re facing. This is why climate scientists often seem to use such hyperbolic language, but what is frustrating is that due to the nonlinear nature of the overall system they cannot make accurate predictions of when this will happen. All we can really say about such systems is that when the bad stuff truly gets going, it’s going to get really bad, really fast.

More on permafrost:

Thawing Arctic permafrost laden with billions of tons of greenhouse gases [threatens not only] the region’s critical infrastructure but life across the planet, according [to] a comprehensive scientific review.

Nearly 70% of the roads, pipelines, cities and industry — mostly in Russia — built on the region’s softening ground are highly vulnerable to acute damage by mid-century, according to one of half-a-dozen studies on permafrost published this week by Nature.

Another study warns that methane and CO2 escaping from long-frozen soil could accelerate warming and overwhelm global efforts to cap the rise in Earth’s temperature at livable levels.

Exposure of highly combustible organic matter no longer locked away by ice is also fueling unprecedented wildfires, making permafrost a triple threat, the studies report.

The second item is the scariest – it means the whole thing could race off out of control and…well, don’t look up, I guess.

The feedback loops are looping.

Rising temperatures are not the only driver of accelerated melting.

Arctic wildfires rapidly expand the layer of permafrost subject to thawing, the researchers point out.

As the climate warms, these remote, uncontrolled blazes are projected to increase 130% to 350% by mid-century, releasing more and more permafrost carbon.

Indeed, thawing renders buried organic carbon more flammable, giving rise to “zombie fires” that smolder throughout frigid winters before igniting again in Spring and Summer.

We’ve cooked it.

Still pretending it’s not just Jo and his ego.

Seriously, who is this “we”? Why does he keep pretending when there is no “we” in evidence? If it’s a “we” why does no one else ever speak up as part of the “we”? Why is not a single name other than Jolyon’s ever mentioned? How is he getting away with this absurd charade?

If it were true that other people are involved, wouldn’t it be his obligation when boasting of the project’s accomplishments to hand out credit to the other people involved? By name? Instead of hogging 100% of the limelight himself? Why do grownup news organizations take this Harvey seriously?

It’s bizarre. It’s bizarre the same way the trans ideology is bizarre – the spectacle of people just rolling over for an obvious fraud and imposition. Bizarre like the emp’s new duds.

But what are trans rights?

What trans rights are women more supportive of?

He probably means some leading question version, as in “Do you support trans rights?”, as opposed to an actual specific spelled-out claimed right such as “the right for men to be treated as women in all settings and circumstances because that’s how they identify.” I think when people hear leading questions like “Do you support trans rights?” they answer yes because who wants to say “I don’t believe in X rights”? But most people don’t realize that what’s meant by the question is pretty much “Do you think trans people should change everything to suit themselves with no one else having any right to say ‘But that doesn’t suit us’?”

We can’t even have a conversation about this because they just won’t do it.

I’m beginning to think Our Jolyon isn’t as widely or intensely admired as he would have us believe.

Who is “our”? Jolyon & his invisible friend?

The editor-in-chief of Swimming World doesn’t mince words:

Must give credit to the Ivy League. It didn’t hide its position. From the early days of the Lia Thomas debate, the conference made it clear that it would wholly support one swimmer over hundreds of athletes. It made it clear that Thomas was a priority. It made it clear that its female athletes – specifically its swimmers – were inconsequential.

One male swimmer over hundreds of female athletes. It could be thousands or billions, it would make no difference. The man and his idenniny must have priority.

The Ivy League Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships begin Wednesday at Harvard University and Penn’s Thomas – according to the psych sheets – will see action in a quartet of individual events. She is the overwhelming top seed in three events (200 freestyle, 500 free, 1650 free) and the No. 2 seed in the 100 freestyle. She is also expected to see duty as a member of Penn’s relay teams.

…

While the NCAA storyline still has chapters to be written, the Ivy League and Penn have been in Thomas’ corner throughout the winter. Despite her obvious advantages over biological females, the conference and school have been all about Lia Thomas and not given a damn about the other swimmers in the pool.

“The Ivy League reaffirms its unwavering commitment to providing an inclusive environment for all student-athletes while condemning transphobia and discrimination in any form,” said an Ivy League statement release in January.

But of course that environment is not inclusive for the female athletes. By being inclusive of one male they exclude all the women from the top spot.

Then there’s the Ivy League’s condemnation of transphobia and discrimination. Yes, such acts should be denounced, but the Lia Thomas situation is not about transphobia. It is a sad and misguided state that any argument against Thomas’ participation is immediately deemed to be an indication of transphobia. No, the arguments against Thomas are about fairness, and for the Ivy League to play the transphobia card is arrogant, ignorant, and insulting. Really, it is a sign of the conference taking a bully approach and using such a strong term to intimidate and deter those willing to speak out.

The bully approach is the only approach.

A Hooters in Liverpool – Julie Bindel is not impressed.

The all-female waiting staff are required to wear extremely skimpy shorts, tight, low-cut T-shirts, and tights. When a birthday or stag crowd are in, which is most nights, coins are tossed for which of the waitresses take part in the odd wet T-shirt competition, to keep the crowds entertained. The restaurant is, of course, aimed at large groups of heavy-drinking men and, on occasion, customers will be offered half-price entry into the nearest lap-dancing club for afters.

Kind of like beach volleyball without the volleyball.

In 2008, I visited the first UK branch in Nottingham. It was hideous and more than one of the waitresses told me, in the full knowledge that I was writing a piece for a national newspaper from a critical standpoint, that they hated their jobs and hated the customers even more.

…

Before starting work, Hooters girls in the US have to sign a contract that reads: ‘I hereby acknowledge and affirm that the Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and that the work environment is one in which joking and innuendo based on female sex appeal is commonplace.’ It continues: ‘I also expressly acknowledge and affirm I do not find my job duties, uniform requirements or work environment to be intimidating, hostile or unwelcome.’

So they have to sign a contract that says they don’t find their job hostile before they’ve started doing the job. Seems fair.

In granting this licence, Liverpool Council has shown itself to not give a hoot about the objectification of women. Providing alcohol in an atmosphere riddled with sexism is never a good idea. I expect to see a massive feminist protest against this monstrosity opening in the city, or anywhere else in the UK.

Scantily clad waitresses are certainly nothing new, but I would have hoped that after more than half a century of feminism, women being served up to rowdy male customers would be off the menu. 

Well this is third wave feminism, sex-positive feminism, woke feminism, trans women are the first priority feminism. Half a century of the real thing was just too fucking boring.

Nova has an interesting (and alarming) episode on melting permafrost in Siberia and Alaska that’s releasing methane–>more warming–>more melting and on it goes.

As the Arctic warms, methane that has been locked in permafrost for thousands of years escapes and can explode. Released methane that finds its way to the surface contributes to the greenhouse effect of climate change with even more heat retention capacity than carbon dioxide. Even igniting it doesn’t solve the problem, since that produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct.

It’s a tipping point, and it’s already tipped.

In Alaska they find a large lake bubbling with methane. On Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula, residents have reported large holes in the frozen tundra, including one more than 80 feet wide and 150 feet deep.

And it’s only going to get worse. There is no fix.