Vigilance! Eternal vigilance! You can’t ever have enough of it, and the object can’t ever be too many connections away. If you know someone who has a friend who has a neighbor who has a colleague who approved of someone who committed wrongthought once ten years ago or so, you are a legitimate object of vigilance, censure, and ostracism.

What?

Slow down, Captain Vigilance. Why they what? Why they follow an account, that has a pinned link, to an online shop, that includes in its merchandise a banner?

Does Captain Vigilance seriously think that people examine all the tweets of person X before following person X? Does he think people examine all those tweets so minutely that they check to see what that linked online shop sells, and by “what that online shop sells” I mean every single item?

There’s also the question of why he thinks it’s any of his business anyway, but we know that already. Step one in my Flight From the Wokies was Improbable Joe on Twitter demanding why I was following Helen Lewis and Glosswitch. To this day I don’t understand why people think that’s a question they’re entitled to ask.

More on Greene’s playful harassment of Ocasio-Cortez and her staff:

During a February 2019 visit to congressional offices at the US Capitol with associates who include a man who would later enter the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection, Greene — then a conservative activist — can be seen taunting Ocasio-Cortez’s staff outside the congresswoman’s locked office by talking through a mailbox slot urging her to come out.

In the video, from a since-deleted Facebook Live of Greene’s that was saved by CNN’s KFile, Greene tells Ocasio-Cortez to “get rid of your diaper,” referring to the congresswoman’s office as a “day care.” Greene repeatedly indicates throughout her stream that security has been called on them.

“We’re going to go see, we’re going to visit, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Crazy eyes. Crazy eyes. Nutty. Cortez,” Greene says to the camera on the way to the congresswoman’s office, mispronouncing “Ocasio.”

…

“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I’m an American citizen. I pay your salary through the taxes that you collect for me through the IRS because I’m a taxpaying citizen of the United States,” Greene says, noting elsewhere in the video that members of Congress are “employees” who “work for us.”

“So you need to stop being a baby and stop locking your door and come out and face the American citizens that you serve,” she says. “If you want to be a big girl, you need to get rid of your diaper and come out and be able to talk to the American citizens. Instead of having to use a flap, a little flap. Sad.”

It’s true that legislators are paid by the citizens, but it doesn’t follow that citizens can just show up and force the legislators to chat with them face to face that very moment. If that were the case, how would legislators get anything done?

The video is from February 22, 2019 — the same day that Greene visited the Capitol and brought to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office a petition to impeach the California Democrat for treason, and suggested she should be executed or imprisoned for her “crimes.” On social media in 2018 and 2019, Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing other Democratic politicians, including former President Barack Obama, former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, and FBI agents.

Greene also visited Rep. Maxine Waters’ office that day, where she said the California Democrat was “just as guilty” of treason as Pelosi. She also went on to visit the offices of then-freshman Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, during which she falsely claimed the first two Muslim women elected to Congress weren’t “official” because they had been sworn in on the Quran.

Ignorance and threats: ideal for a member of Congress.

With Greene at the Capitol that day was her close ally Anthony Aguero, a former El Paso congressional candidate and conservative livestreamer who was captured on camera inside the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection.

As they leave Ocasio-Cortez’s office, Greene says, “Bye. Bye. Bye, AOC. Ocasio-Cortez. Bye, bye, baby. Bye-bye, baby. Bye-bye, little baby girl. Ocasio-Cortez– she went and hid. She couldn’t take it,” said Greene, mispronouncing Ocasio-Cortez’s name again.

She’s both infantile and abusive, yet she is now actually in the House. It’s embarrassing as well as dangerous.

Greene’s disruptive visit is not the first time she’s interacted aggressively with members of Congress. As a congressional candidate in September 2020, she posted an image of herself holding a gun alongside images of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib and encouraged going on the “offense against these socialists.”

And by that she means “let’s you kill them.”

It turns out that Marjorie T-G has been hating on Ocasio-Cortez for a long time.

It’s very January 6-like in the giggling menace, the snickering orders and challenges and expressions of contempt.

Is this rapey enough yet?

Man talking too fast: “Quickreminder tosome cislesbians outthere that pleasestop centeringyour lesbianism around penis disgust.”

That “quick reminder” item – nobody asked for some “reminder,” slow or fast, that lesbians have to love penis. Nobody has that requirement on her to-do list or schedule or daily planner page. It’s not a requirement, so you can’t “remind” us of it as such. Also “quick reminder that please stop” is not quality speeching.

But the real point of course is fuck off. Lesbians do not have to love penis. The end.

He’s not saying that any trauma you have “around them” isn’t valid, but he is saying that it shouldn’t define your lesbianism.

I bet I can figure out why he’s saying that. I bet he’s saying it because he has one and he doesn’t want those bitches having their own thoughts on the subject. They have to consult him on what thoughts they’re allowed to have. Why? I don’t know, I guess because of the pretty curls?

Gee, I didn’t know people were allowed to set up “sting” operations without any kind of legal authority.

A network of conservative activists, aided by a British former spy, mounted a campaign during the Trump administration to discredit perceived enemies of President Trump inside the government, according to documents and people involved in the operations.

The campaign included a planned sting operation against Mr. Trump’s national security adviser at the time, H.R. McMaster, and secret surveillance operations against F.B.I. employees, aimed at exposing anti-Trump sentiment in the bureau’s ranks.

See this is what I mean. That stuff is illegal if you don’t have a warrant and stuff, isn’t it? People can’t just do “sting operations” and “secret surveillance” on their own, without any kind of law enforcement authority, isn’t it? Or am I hopelessly out of touch.

The operations against the F.B.I., run by the conservative group Project Veritas, were conducted from a large home in the Georgetown section of Washington that rented for $10,000 per month. Female undercover operatives arranged dates with the F.B.I. employees with the aim of secretly recording them making disparaging comments about Mr. Trump.

Since when is a random person spying on people with no authorization to do so an “undercover operative”?

Central to the effort, according to interviews, was Richard Seddon, a former undercover British spy who was recruited in 2016 by the security contractor Erik Prince to train Project Veritas operatives to infiltrate trade unions, Democratic congressional campaigns and other targets. He ran field operations for Project Veritas until mid-2018.

Isn’t all of that completely illegal? The government shouldn’t be doing it either, mostly, but at least when the government does it there is legal supervision and some accountability. (I say “mostly” because, you know, insurrections and stuff.)

That? That wasn’t an insurrection, that was just a few tourists visiting the Capitol.

Congressman Andrew Clyde was asked about his widely criticized comments downplaying the Capitol insurrection earlier today.

“You didn’t take what I said in context at all,” the Republican lawmaker told NBC News this morning. “So you go listen to what I said.”

Here’s exactly what he said during that committee hearing yesterday: “Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos, pictures.”

He added, “You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

Pelosi is not amused.

The Democratic speaker mocked congressman Andrew Clyde’s comments that footage from the insurrection looked like “a normal tourist visit”.

“I don’t know a normal day around here when people are threatening to hang the vice-president of the United States or shoot the speaker in the forehead,” Pelosi said. “I don’t consider that normal. Multiple people were killed.”

She added, “It was beyond denial. It fell into the range of sick.”

We’re walking on the edge of a precipice these days.

What a good plan.

Hundreds of people experiencing poor mental health will be introduced to the natural beauty of wetlands under a “blue prescribing” scheme.

In London, this is.

There is increasing evidence of the benefits of nature for mental health and wellbeing. A recent pilot wetlands project showed that people diagnosed with anxiety or depression moved up a clinical mental health grade, from below average to average.

I swear by this. I’m not afflicted with anxiety or depression but I can testify that getting outside always elevates my mood. (Well…one exception – when the air is in the red zone.) A clear bright breezy day elevates it into the stratosphere, as does going to the Lake or the Sound or a distant viewpoint or the like.

Now a scheme will start this summer at the WWT London Wetland Centre in the UK with six-week wetlands courses co-designed by the WWT, the Mental Health Foundation and participants themselves. Activities could include birdwatching, pond dipping, nature walks and habitat protection work. Participants’ travel costs are to be funded and their progress assessed using standard medical questionnaires.

Very good plan.

Previous schemes involving activities such as wildlife volunteering noted clear improvements in mental health. YouGov polling for the Mental Health Foundation found that being near lakes, rivers and the sea – ahead of time spent in gardens, parks and the countryside – was rated the highest by people in terms of having a positive impact on their mental health.

Heh. What I just said – Lake or Sound. Seattle is really exceptional in having not one but two large bodies of water promoting our mental health.

What the wicked TERF has been doing lately.

Academic ethics…

You may think that’s just some high school kid but in fact he’s an academic. He’s been comparing gender critical feminists to Holocaust deniers for hours.

So he’s saying that the ideology that says men are women if they say they are is an authoritative ideology, and that it’s true or at least strives towards truth, while skepticism about that ideology is not true and does not even strive towards truth.

How do people get so confused?

We’re a “specimen of untruth” because we say people are what they are and not what they fantasize they are (unless the two happen to be the same).

This is a belief system where fantasies represent the truth and empirical reality is a specimen of untruth.

How did that happen?

Wait who is the terrorist in this one-act play?

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene aggressively confronted Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday and falsely accused her of supporting “terrorists,” leading the New York congresswoman’s office to call on leadership to ensure that Congress remains “a safe, civil place for all Members and staff.”

In other words somebody please instruct Greene to act like an adult, and make it stick.

Two Washington Post reporters witnessed Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) exit the House chamber late Wednesday afternoon ahead of Greene (Ga.), who shouted “Hey Alexandria” twice in an effort to get her attention. When Ocasio-Cortez did not stop walking, Greene picked up her pace and began shouting at her and asking why she supports antifa, a loosely knit group of far-left activists, and Black Lives Matter, falsely labeling them “terrorist” groups. Greene also shouted that Ocasio-Cortez was failing to defend her “radical socialist” beliefs by declining to publicly debate the freshman from Georgia.

“You don’t care about the American people,” Greene shouted. “Why do you support terrorists and antifa?”

She did the same thing to David Hogg, the Parkland survivor and gun control activist, before she was [shudder] a member of Congress. She’s a belligerent bully, just like her hero Trump.

Before walking away, Greene said that the encounter was intended to hold Democrats accountable for their policy proposals.

“She’s a chicken, she doesn’t want to debate the Green New Deal,” she said to a small group of reporters and onlookers near the entrance to the chamber. “These members are cowards. They need to defend their legislation to the people. That’s pathetic.”

She sounds like every school bully and street corner punk.

Earlier this year Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) accused Greene and her staff [of]  accosting her in a tunnel beneath a House office building after [Bush] asked Greene to wear a mask “out of concern for the health of my staff, other members of Congress, and their congressional staff.” Greene denied the allegation and accused Bush of “lying” and of leading a “terrorist mob” because Bush supported Black Lives Matter.

The incident prompted Bush to ask Democratic leadership if she could move her office away from Greene at a time when the Georgia congresswoman was already under heavy scrutiny for her rhetoric and behavior.

…

Since asking earlier this year to debate Ocasio-Cortez, Greene has confronted her one other time on the House floor, when she approached the New York congresswoman last month to try to schedule a date for a debate over the Green New Deal, a set of environmental policies intended to combat climate change. In a video posted to social media a day later, Greene criticized Ocasio-Cortez for not debating her.

“If she chickens out, then she shows who she really is: a scared little girl that is pretty stupid and doesn’t know anything about the economy or economics,” Greene said.

In other words Marjorie Taylor Greene is trash.

There’s a plastic surgery firm in San Francisco called Align Surgical Associates. It’s on Facebook.

I didn’t include the photos.

Via

Is that true?

I’m not seeing it.

I’m not seeing where the confidence comes from, to announce that. How do people know such things? Where do they get them?

Why would we be “addicted” to our fear?

Really, why? What’s the reward that creates the addiction?

Why would we “fall in love with” our fear? Fear is nasty, so why would we fall in love with it?

I had a charismatic Comparative Literature teacher at university a few centuries ago who did this kind of thing regularly – informed us that professed motives were fake and the actual ones were something less idealistic and more selfish: sex or sadism or greed and the like. At some point I noticed that it was a pattern, and got bored with it, despite the charisma.

This nonsense is like that. It’s a silly show-offy empty bit of shtick. Oh you think people are genuinely concerned about the virus? Hahaha you are so naïve no of course they’re not, they’re lining their pockets, or they’re polishing up their CVs, or they’re addicted.

And you know that how, O genius of the tweeterverse? Your insight was bestowed on you by what tooth fairy?

It’s sad to see someone who used to be intelligent fall down this storm drain.

Thinking of applying to teach at Virginia Commonwealth University? They have a little requirement.

Statement of Contribution to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Virginia Commonwealth University is committed to organizational diversity, equity and inclusion – an environment where all can thrive in their pursuit of excellence. Applicants are requested to submit a Statement of Contributions to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion providing your career aspirations and contributions toward promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.

I like the way they say it three times in that one short paragraph, just in case you lost track of what they’re “requesting.”

It’s funny what lousy rotten grumpy sour sore losers they are, when…

Especially when Clinton won the popular vote (the actual vote) by 3 million and Trump…didn’t.

Ah yes the pretend-feminism of the predator. “Girls, tell them you don’t need “”””protecktinng””””.”

You know, if you make it mandatory, you’ll never know if it’s for real or just forced compliance. If a man tells a woman she has to say “I love you” to him at least once a day or he’ll punish her, can he be confident she means it when she says it?

The national anthem would have to be played before all sporting events held at Wisconsin venues that received any public funding under a mostly symbolic bill passed by the state Assembly.

Why? What’s the point? If it’s compelled, what good is it?

The requirement would apply at all levels of athletic events played on a field that ever received public money, from a bar league softball game at the local park to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.

If it’s compelled, you can’t be sure it’s sincere.

Updating to add:

It’s not really all that fast though. Could be cut at least in half!

One of the great joys of now as opposed to say six months ago is that we get to ignore That Guy. But every now and then I feel an atavistic impulse to point and laugh one more time.

FROM THE DESK OF

(Which is already ridiculous. Desk shmesk. It’s a flat thing where he can scribble with his Sharpie. He doesn’t need a desk because he can’t read or write or think.)

Anyway from the flat thing of –

Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being. I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party. She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our Country. She is a talking point for Democrats, whether that means the Border, the gas lines, inflation, or destroying our economy. She is a warmonger whose family stupidly pushed us into the never-ending Middle East Disaster, draining our wealth and depleting our Great Military, the worst decision in our Country’s history. I look forward to soon watching her as a Paid Contributor on CNN or MSDNC!

Just think, the brainless creature who dictated that garble used to be a head of state.

Outrage as male voice actor dubs male actor, fumes the Guardian.

The Italian-language version of Emerald Fennell’s revenge thriller Promising Young Woman has come under fire for giving trans actor Laverne Cox a male voice.

But…Laverne Cox has a male voice. Necessarily, being a male person.

[T]he release has been pushed back after a clip of Una Donna Promettente was posted by Universal Pictures Italy on 6 May. In the since-restricted video, Cox’s character, Gail, talks to protagonist Cassie, played by Carey Mulligan, in a distinctively masculine tone. The Orange Is the New Black star was given the deep tones of voice actor Roberto Pedicini. Italian viewers couldn’t believe their ears, immediately taking to social media to voice their outrage.

Oh no, not taking to social media to voice their outrage!!! How will anyone survive?

“I think this dubbing choice was a straight-up act of violence,” Italian trans actor and voice actor Vittoria Schisano tells the Guardian. “It’s insulting. I’d feel bullied if I were [Cox],” she added.

Straight-up meaning genyoowine, real, not fake, literal – act of violence. But it isn’t a literal act of violence, is it now, even if you do think it’s insulting.

This isn’t the first time Italy’s dubbing industry has failed Cox and the trans community. In OITNB, her character, Sophia Burset, was voiced by male dubber Andrea Lavagnino, who also voiced her characters in The Mindy Project and short-lived drama Doubt. But Italy is far from being the only country misgendering Cox on the dubbing stage. In Spain and Germany, a cis man was cast to voice Cox in Promising Young Woman. Universal Pictures International, which is handling distribution of Fennell’s movie in Europe, has listened and reassesed.

Meanwhile women in the industry are underpaid, underemployed, written out of scripts, not written into scripts in the first place, harassed, pressured, raped…but never mind all that when men who claim to be women get voice-dubbed by men: the horror!

A spokesperson for Universal Pictures International told the Guardian in a statement: “We are deeply grateful to Laverne and the transgender community for opening our eyes to a bias that neither we nor many in our industry had recognised. While there was no malicious intent behind this mistake, we are working diligently to fix it. We have begun redubbing Ms Cox’s voice with female actors in our international territories and are pushing back release dates to ensure the correct version is available.”

So they have begun faking, because Ms Cox’s voice is a male voice, since Ms Cox is a man. If they’re getting female actors to dub Cox then they’re perpetrating a minor fraud.

From Gnu Atheism:

Now the Republicans are trying to pretend Fauci created the pandemic on purpose for [insert reason here].

For much of the past year, Republicans have decried lead government coronavirus expert Anthony S. Fauci’s prescriptions for mitigating the pandemic — including masks, social distancing and keeping society shut down.

Yeah, boy, masks – have you ever heard of anything so UnAmerican? Masks. I ask you.

But increasingly in the past week, the effort has taken on a new flavor — with suggestions that Fauci might be personally to blame for the advent of the virus itself.

…

With Fauci set to testify before the Senate on Tuesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson teed things up the night before. In a commentary leading off his show, he played up the idea of a lab leak, pointing (rightly) to shifting beliefs in the medical community about its plausibility and treating it as an open question.

But then he pivoted to treating this as something amounting to fact.

While talking about National Institutes of Health funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Carlson referred to “the deadly experiments that were going on there” — which is valid, given that’s the kind of thing virologists do.

But he then referred to them, as if the lab-leak theory were proved, as “the experiments that clearly went so wrong.”

…

“This wouldn’t have happened if Tony Fauci didn’t allow it to happen — that is clear,” Carlson continued, referring to the funding. “It’s an amazing story. It is a shocking story. In a functional country, there would be a criminal investigation into Tony Fauci’s role in the covid pandemic that has killed millions and halted our country, changing it forever. So why isn’t there a criminal investigation into Tony Fauci’s role in this pandemic?”

…

The idea that Fauci is somehow using all of this to keep people in masks or locked down for his own edification has been a fixture in some corners of conservative media, and in their telling he’s gradually emerged as perhaps the epitome of overzealous government scientists. But this new line of attack is painting him as something else entirely.

I think global warming must be frying their brains.