A tweet yesterday:

What proposal? You may think they said what proposal in a preceding tweet but they didn’t. Maybe they deleted something, maybe they’re just sloppy. I searched and found a BBC story from July 20.

World Rugby could ban transgender athletes from playing women’s rugby because of safety concerns.

It would be the first international sports federation to prohibit transgender women from competing.

World Rugby said it had undertaken a review of its “rugby-specific transgender guidelines” in light of the “latest peer reviewed research”.

It said it was committed to “ensuring a safe and inclusive playing environment at all levels of the game”.

You know, it shouldn’t be just safety. There should be zero argument about the safety aspect but safety is not the only reason men should not be allowed to play on women’s teams or compete against women. It should be about fairness as well as safety.

In a statement to BBC Sport, it added: “The latest peer reviewed research confirms that a reduction of testosterone does not lead to a proportionate reduction in mass, muscle mass, strength or power. These important determinants of injury risk and performance remain significantly elevated after testosterone suppression.”

Which is exactly why it should be about fairness as well as safety, but apparently that’s too much to ask.

A World Rugby transgender workshop in February sought a “comprehensive review” for the sport, bringing together experts from across the globe to look at a “rugby-specific framework for all, prioritising athlete welfare, inclusion and fairness”.

One of the experts to attend the workshop was Dr Nicola Williams, director of women’s rights advocacy group Fair Play for Women, who described World Rugby’s position as “trailblazing” if it goes ahead with the decision.

“The sensitivity around this issue around transgender issues, and the fear that people would be called transphobic for raising concerns has meant that most sporting bodies have buried their head in the sand on this,” she told BBC Sport.

In other words it’s not necessarily genuine agreement with the view that trans women should be “included” in everything related to women no matter what, but rather a desire not to be bullied and demonized, that causes so many organizations to jump when trans women say jump.

However, Loughborough University medical physicist and transgender woman Joanna Harper, who also attended the workshop, said she doesn’t feel a ban would be right.

Well it’s not Harper’s safety that’s at stake, is it, just as it’s not Harper’s right to fair competition that’s at stake.

“I certainly understand all of that and I think putting restrictions on trans-women is a reasonable thing to do but I certainly don’t agree with this idea of an outright ban,” she told BBC Sport.

Because hey it’s only the safety of women, and that obviously doesn’t matter enough.

So, International Gay Rugby says it “stands with our Trans & Non-Binary players in solidarity to protect their #RightToPlay” and the hell with women’s right to safety and fairness. Stonewall UK is right there in solidarity with them.

Proud. Stonewall is proud. Stonewall is proud to stand with International Gay Rugby to say fuck women’s safety, fuck fairness to women, let the men trample them into the mud if that’s what they want. Funny thing to be proud of.

Life under a dictator:

The Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny is in a coma and on a ventilator in a hospital intensive care unit after a suspected poisoning.

“We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea,” his press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, tweeted. “That was the only thing he drank this morning. The doctors say that the toxin was absorbed more quickly because of the hot liquid. Right now Alexei is unconscious.”

An outspoken critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Navalny was returning to Moscow by plane from Tomsk in Siberia when he began to feel ill. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk and he was taken to hospital. A mobile video shot on the plane showed medical personnel rushing onboard as a man screamed in agony.

Putin the Poisoner strikes again.

Several opposition figures have been targeted with poison since Putin came to power in 2000. Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who defected to the UK, died in 2006 of radiation sickness after ingesting a lethal dose of polonium-210 slipped into his tea. One of the men accused in his poisoning is now an MP in Russia’s parliament. The opposition activist Petr Verzilov recently revealed a poisoning attempt against his life in Moscow in 2018.

Not to mention Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

Seems to be a busy morning. Steve Bannon has been arrested for fraud, and a breaking news banner at the top of that story says a judge has thrown out Trump’s challenge to the Manhattan DA’s subpoena of his tax records. Also Trump melted down the rest of the way while watching the Dem convention last night.

So, Bannon.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been arrested after being charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors through their campaign “We Build the Wall.” 

Bannon, along with three of his associates, w[as] indicted by investigators at the U.S. Southern District of New York on Thursday. They allege that the group of conservative leaders defrauded donors and that led to raising “more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border of the United States,” according to the press release. 

This must have been written at top speed, because it’s full of mistakes and confusions, but I think we can get the drift.

The campaign was intended to raise money to help President Donald Trump fulfill a campaign promise of building a border wall along the border. Instead, prosecutors allege, that Bannon and his team profited off of the arrangement. 

Jeez, I don’t write that sloppily even when I’m in a hurry. Anyway, upshot is, prosecutors allege that Bannon and co skimmed a lot of the $$ and gave it to themselves, which is not permitted.

“The defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, said in a statement. “While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle.

I suppose Trump has already posted the tweet that says he barely knows Bannon and fired him the very instant he realized what a Loser he is.

Philip Bump at the Post says why Trump’s failure to disavow QAnon is so dangerous:

The FBI was concerned enough about the emergence of “anti-government, identity based, and fringe political conspiracy theories” last May that it issued a formal intelligence bulletin to American law enforcement agencies. It warned of people being inspired to engage in “criminal and sometimes violent activity” by such philosophies, given that they “tacitly support or legitimize violent action.”

So Trump thinks they sound nice.

The spread of QAnon is seen by federal law enforcement as a threat to the public. There are obvious cases in which QAnon is used by disturbed individuals as a rationale for their action, as in the murder of a reputed Mob boss on Staten Island last year. This is the central concern, that fostering a belief that there exists a particularly evil group — its members defined by individual observers — will lead to some of those observers taking steps to confront the presumed evil. That some QAnon adherent will decide that some other person is part of the cabal Q is discussing. That is allegedly what happened on Staten Island.

Trump could have said that the theory was obviously not true and itself stood as a danger. He could have fervently denied that he or anyone in his administration was involved in any action like that Q describes. He could have indicated that his government was taking steps to contain the theory. But he didn’t. QAnon adherents like him and, hey, what’s wrong with being seen as a guy who wants to take on Satanic pedophiles?

Somebody has to, right? If they’re there. Anon says they are, and who is Trump to contradict them? They like him. He has no conceivable reason to contradict them.

Axios has more on Trump’s playdate with QAnon.

QAnon is a sprawling internet conspiracy theory that baselessly alleges that a powerful cabal of sex traffickers within the “deep state” is engaged in a global fight to take down Trump. The FBI identified fringe conspiracy theories, like QAnon, as domestic terrorist threats in 2019.

Why would sex traffickers want to take down Trump though? It’s not as if he’s a vocal opponent of sex trafficking or any other form of sexual exploitation.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vocal supporter of QAnon, won the Republican nomination in Georgia’s deep-red 14th Congressional District runoff last week. Trump tweeted his congratulations and called her a “future Republican Star.”

Well he had to say something, and his vocabulary is small.

“I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much. Which I appreciate. But I don’t know much about the movement,” Trump said.

“I have heard that it is gaining in popularity and from what I hear … these are people that don’t like seeing what’s going on in places like Portland, and places like Chicago and New York and other cities and states.

“I’ve heard these are people that love our country and they just don’t like seeing it. So I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me and they also would like to see problems in these areas, like especially in the areas that we’re talking about, go away.”

He’s got the intellect of a child, but all the greed and malice and venom and belligerence of an angry self-obsessed adult man. It’s not a good combination.

When informed that the crux of the theory is a belief that he is “secretly saving the world from this Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals,” Trump responded, “Well I haven’t heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?”

It’s supposed to be a made-up thing, sir. It’s supposed to be a laughably silly conspiracy theory that makes no sense and is supported by no evidence, sir.

“If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to put myself out there.”

Hahahaha no he’s not. He’s willing to flap his lips, that’s all. He’s “willing to put himself out there” to the extent of walking a few hundred yards with a heavy escort after gassing civilians to get them out of his way. That’s not what the rest of us call willingness to put oneself out there. He’s willing to tweet, sure, he’s willing to call names and bully and ridicule, but genuinely put himself out there, no.

Q maintains President Trump is secretly fighting a child-selling cabal in the U.S., though the conspiracy has spiraled to cover a vast array of claims, from JFK Jr. having faked his death to help Trump behind the scenes to the coronavirus being a hoax or a biological weapon engineered in either case by sinister elites.

The sinister elites is Trump.

Others are not quite so cheery about QAnon as Trump is.

I read some of that West Point one. It’s interesting.

Anyway it’s ok, a reporter explained it to Trump and he caught on perfectly.

And he says we are akshally, we’re saving the world, we’re saving the world from a radical left philosuffy that will destroy this country, an when this country is gonn, the rest of the world would follow – the rest of the world would follow. He gives that “uh huh yup it would” look that he gives when he’s pulling it out of his ass.

Trump is asked about QANON. His response is that they like him.

What else does he need to know? Nazis? “They like me very muccchh.” Mass murderers? “They like me very muccchh.” Pedophile rings? “They like me very muccchh.” Putin? “He likes me very muccchh.” Jeffrey Epstein? “He liked me very muccchh.” Michael Flynn? “He likes me very muccchh.”

Trump:

Jim Wright:

Guy who wanted you to inject bleach now wants you to buy shitty cheap tires made in a foreign country to own the libs.

Also, his MAGA hats are made in China.Remember when Republicans got mad and started throwing their Keurigs off balconies before they figured out they didn’t actually know how to make coffee for themselves?

Looking forward to Republican Pinterest where they offer tips on making your own tires from MAGA hats, MyPillows, and Alex Jones Yak Piss Boner Juice.

Also looking forward to responding to the next Republican who complains about “Cancel Culture.”

Doesn’t Trump usually try to present himself as the friend of the working stiff? Lot of jobs at Goodyear…

The verbal re-engineering continues. A self-described “Trans & Queer Centered Full-Spectrum Doula & Childbirth Educator” wants to know what you and you and YOU call that thing where you give a baby milk that your body produces and the baby derives nourishment thereby.

While we’re working to dispel stigma around feeding babies from our bodies this month, I just want to pipe up with a little reminder that this practice goes by many names for many different people! For some of us, it’s chestfeeding, for some of us it’s bodyfeeding, and for some of us it’s something else! What words do you use to talk about feeding your baby the milk that your body makes?

I gotta say, “bodyfeeding” sounds pretty gross. Too many options.

It’s a clothing line. Of course it is.

Amazon has removed a clothing line emblazoned with an offensive slogan referring to Kamala Harris from its website after complaints from Twitter users who branded it “unacceptable”.

The T-shirts, tank tops and hoodies which had the words “Joe and the hoe” written in red, white and blue in the style of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Harris’s campaign logo, were on sale for between $24.99 and $42.99.

Ok but you can’t seriously expect people to ignore the opportunity of a great rhyme can you? I mean it cries out for product placement. His name is Joe, and she is – ? Right? Come on. You know it’s what you were thinking too.

Meghan Murphy was also unimpressed by Solnit’s rhapsody on her own hippitude. (Do I like to beat everything to death? Yes, I do, why do you ask?) Meghan Murphy does excellent unimpressed.

The increasing banality of Solnit’s writing might explain why she published a 1700 word letter in The Guardian, in response to nothing and no one, never making clear why this and why now. Perhaps she has a hat from which she can pull hot takes, or perhaps a predictable and dull editor requested the polemic for clicks. A writer myself, it strikes me that these kinds of pieces are what happens when one runs out of things to say.

“Dear ladies who are fearful and hostile to trans women,” she begins. Which ladies, we will never know. One presumes Solnit has never encountered said ladies, personally, as she declines to offer examples. But that’s not the point. The point was to offer herself a way to launch into an advertisement of her own perceived Cool Girl-ness — the “I have black friends” version of queer politics. Much of the piece documents Solnit’s humble participation in San Fransisco’s LGBTQ scene, where everyone was kind, which I suppose is meant to comfort women who have concerns about, say, violent men raping women in prison and the complete dissolution of female sport.

While also at the same time making them feel small and pathetic for not being as hip and San Franciscoish as Rebecca Solnit. The whole piece simply reeked of that “I’m better than you” just barely not spelled out implication.

She claims, “Transphobes are always warning us that if trans people live in peace and legal recognition and even have rights, there will be terrible consequences,” which has never been true, not even once.

That was one of the major faults of the piece: the outright falsehoods. Murphy then tackles the bit where Solnit says we’re all fine, and asks if “Jessica” Yaniv’s victims are fine, if the girls losing out on scholarships because boys are taking their places in sport are fine, if women in prison with violent men are fine.

It’s not only the fact Solnit seems to believe we should just take her word for it, but that she seems not to believe in listening to any woman who might like her word considered fairly and accurately as well. To refuse to seek out evidence to support your own claims is bad enough for someone of Solnit’s stature, but to actively misrepresent and lie about what other women say and believe is worse.

It’s all too typical though.

That’s nice.

DeAnna Lorraine ran for Congress in Pelosi’s district; she lost the primary in March. She’s a self-employed “life and relationship coach.”

There was this the other day too:

What is wrong with people?

The longer clip makes clear what a fool this Mike Lindell is. He’s the kind of guy that if he sat next to you on the train you would move to another car.

There is no evidence that oleandrin is a miracle cure.

Reports of this oleandrin push in the White House have raised eyebrows this week, as there is no evidence that oleandrin works to treat COVID-19 in humans. While oleandrin has been developed to treat cancer, it is still considered an “investigational new drug” that is not an approved cancer treatment in the U.S. What’s more, both oleandrin and the plant it is derived from are toxic to humans and animals; eating one oleander leaf can kill an adult.

Injecting bleach isn’t too healthy either.

Yet Lindell argued on Tuesday that oleandrin is “the miracle of all time,” and that “the tests are out there.” Indeed, he said he was contacted about it as far back as Easter Sunday, when he recalled that he “told the whole country to pray for the end to this pandemic.”

Oh well in that case there’s no more to be said. Bottle them babies up.

But the more Cooper grilled Lindell over any proof that oleandrin is effective against COVID-19, and that it has been tested for this purpose in humans in rigorous peer-reviewed, clinical trials, the more flustered Lindell became. “There has been studies the FDA has not published yet,” Liddell insisted. He repeated that one involved “a thousand people,” but he could offer no details about when or where it was done, or why the public hasn’t seen this report yet.

He said “a thousand people” a lot, in a very impassioned way, as if it were a clincher.

Good answer.

Go Anderson!

Notice the cross worn outside the shirt, where a loosened necktie would be. Baby Jesus says oleander is MAGIC for the covid.

Female people aren’t human, they are merely the mechanism for creating humans and the mechanisms that make more humans and mechanisms, and so on. No mechanism is permitted to say no to the duty of a mechanism. It doesn’t matter if the mechanism is too small to create a human, the worst that can happen is that the mechanism will permanently break in the attempt. Nothing of value is lost.

Scores of Brazilian women have taken to the streets to protect a 10-year-old child who was being persecuted by religious extremists for trying to legally undergo an abortion after being raped, allegedly by her uncle.

So she’s a child, so she was raped, so the rapist is her uncle, so what – she’s a mechanism for creating humans (and mechanisms), she can’t refuse.

The girl, from São Mateus, a small town in the south-eastern state of Espírito Santo, was admitted to hospital on 7 August complaining of abdominal pain and doctors confirmed she was pregnant.

Saint Matthew in Holy Spirit state – they never let you forget, do they.

Brazil’s highly restrictive abortion laws – largely written in 1940 – permit terminations in cases of rape, when the mother’s life is at risk and when the birth defect anencephaly is detected.

Well it’s rape and childbirth is hella dangerous for a ten-year-old but what the hell, put her through it anyway, amirite? She probably seduced the uncle with her slutty ten-year-old ways.

She had to go 900 miles to Recife to get the abortion.

When the girl reached the hospital where the termination was to be performed on Sunday afternoon, its entrance had been occupied by far-right anti-abortion activists and politicians who were filmed hurling abuse at hospital staff and the child, and trying to stop them entering.

The child hadn’t been abused enough yet, I guess.

The activists appear to have discovered the hospital’s location, which was kept secret for security reasons, from a hardcore supporter of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.

In an online video, which was later deleted but the Guardian has seen, the pro-Bolsonaro extremist Sara Giromini names the girl and falsely claims authorities had kidnapped her and chartered a private jet to transport her to the termination.

…

“It’s just unbelievable this is happening in Brazil, that part of the population really believes abortion is worse than rape,” said Viana from the women’s rights group Curumim. “But we weren’t surprised because we know we have a president who is supportive of these shows of hatred.”

Their god hates women, so they hate women too.

Fun choice:

Donald Trump has confirmed he will address the Republican convention next week from the White House, a controversial choice.

It’s not just “controversial,” it’s unethical and revolting.

But it’s worse than that: the racist couple who pointed guns at protesters are scheduled to speak at the Republican convention.

In a racially charged incident in late June, Patricia and Mark McCloskey, who are white, were pictured outside their mansion in St Louis, pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters heading for the mayor’s house nearby.

Mark McCloskey held an assault rifle, Patricia McCloskey a handgun. The couple, both lawyers, said they feared for their own safety and were defending their home.

And the Republican party said booya, we want more of that, let’s have them at our convention! Vote racist!

Sad.

The epistemology is obviously a joke, but the allegiance underlying the joke is for real. His allegiance is to team men are women if they say they are, and his hostility is to team men are not women just because they say they are.

I would have thought that verification by “because I say so” would be anathema to scientists. I especially would have thought that when the issue is an obvious material fact which is being denied on the basis of an internal subjective mental state. That doesn’t work for other things – we can’t say “I am the Chrysler building” or “I am a humpback whale” or “I am the solar system” and expect to be believed, so why does it work for men who say they are women? Why does a scientist treat it as obviously and rock solidly true?

Granted “women” and “men” are squishier categories than those. It’s possible to masquerade as the other sex, and it may even be possible to fool people for a while. Several of Shakespeare’s plays are constructed around women (played by boys) masquerading as men, and women were not allowed to perform on stage in most cultures until quite recently. But actors play monarchs, murderers, extraterrestrials, all sorts of identities not their own; that doesn’t change the underlying realities. Burt Lahr was never in any danger of actually becoming a lion.

We can all pretend it’s true that men become women by saying the words, but feminists have been explaining why that would be the end of women’s rights so let’s not decide to do that. Apparently Phil Plait doesn’t give a shit, which is sad.

Trump is bragging about…New Zealand?

Donald Trump has called out New Zealand for its recent Covid-19 outbreak, saying the places the world hailed as a success story is now facing a “big surge” in cases.

“The places they were using to hold up now they’re having a big surge … they were holding up names of countries and now they’re saying ‘whoops!’.

“Do you see what’s happening in New Zealand? They beat it, they beat it, it was like front-page news because they wanted to show me something,” the US president said at a campaign rally in Mankato, Minnesota.

That’s why they did it?

Of course the US has a lot more people. New Zealand has 4.8 million, the US has 328 million. The US would have to have around 600 new cases today to match New Zealand’s 9 but of course it has only…uh…42,000.

Overall 22 people have died from Covid-19 in New Zealand, compared with more than 170,000 in the US, the highest death toll in the world. It accounts for nearly 22% of deaths globally.

Yes but we have 66 times the population! 66 times 22 is…uh…1452.

The demonic shit is pushing ahead with his plan to destroy the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge. No matter how busy one is golfing and watching Fox News and tweeting sexist insults, there’s always time to destroy irreplaceable wilderness.

The Trump administration is pushing ahead with plans to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The first leases to drill for oil and gas in the area could be sold by the end of 2020, Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt said as his agency formally announced its leasing program on Monday.

We need more oil so that people can sit in their cars with the engines running for hours playing with their phones. It’s a basic human right.

Environmental groups have pledged to sue to stop the move. They said that once drilling rights are sold, it will be harder for a future president to reverse course.

…

“The Trump administration never stops pushing to drill in the Arctic Refuge — and we will never stop suing them,” said Gina McCarthy, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “America has safeguarded the refuge for decades, and we will not allow the administration to strip that protection away now.”

…

Sierra Club lobbyist Athan Manuel has been fighting to keep rigs out of the refuge for more than 20 years. He said the Trump administration is rushing to get at least one company to bid on leases before the end of Trump’s term and the possible arrival of a new president who opposes drilling.

“I think they just want to ram this down people’s throats to show that they can still drill where they want to drill and still prop up the oil industry, even in the face of evidence of climate change,” he said.

Wilderness Society’s Alaska state director, Karlin Itchoak, said in a statement that the move by the Trump administration “ignores science and shortcuts the public process in an irresponsible rush to help oil companies secure leases on the coastal plain before the 2020 presidential election.”

They want to hurry up and break it while they can, in case the anti-breaking party wins.

Now Trump is promoting a poison to “treat” the virus.

President Donald Trump and Mike Lindell, the creator of MyPillow and an avowed supporter, participated in a July meeting at the White House regarding the use of oleandrin as a potential therapeutic for coronavirus, Lindell confirmed to CNN.

What other meetings are they having? Meetings regarding being run over by tanks as a potential therapeutic for coronavirus? Meetings regarding being sliced up by swords as a potential therapeutic for coronavirus? Meetings regarding jumping out of planes without a parachute as a potential therapeutic for coronavirus?

Oleandrin is an extract from the plant Nerium oleander. The raw oleander plant is highly toxic, and consumption of it can be fatal.

So let’s use the presidency to tell people to try it! To cure a deadly disease! Which everyone would like to see a cure for!

[Lindell] described the President’s response toward the extract as “enthusiastic.”

“He was enthusiastic, as he is on everything that’s going to help people,” he told CNN, adding that Trump wanted the Food and Drug Administration to “do its course.”

No, as he is on random things that random people mention to him and that he knows nothing about. Things that really are going to help people he’s not enthusiastic about at all.

Trump confirmed he’s “heard about” oleandrin when asked Monday on the White House South Lawn, but still seemed to be in an information-gathering phase.

Hahahahahaha is that what you call it.

Last week, Lindell was added to the board of Phoenix Biotechnology, which makes oleandrin, and received a financial stake in the company.

Well great, thank god Trump is getting his information from a disinterested observer.

“The reason I did that, I want this to get to the public so bad and I want to get it out there to help people,” he said.

As far as I can tell Lindell has no medical training. Wikipedia says his background is more in crack addiction.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Lindell was addicted to cocaine, crack cocaine, and alcohol, leading to foreclosure of his house, and his wife filing for divorce. Lindell stated that he achieved sobriety through prayer in 2009, and, since then, has been clean.

That’s nice but it’s no substitute for medical or pharmaceutical training. You need that before it’s of interest that you’re “enthusiastic” about a poisonous plant as treatment for a virus.

How poisonous is it though? Pretty damn poisonous.

While it’s a beautiful shrub, all parts of it are toxic to people and animals. Ingesting any part can cause serious symptoms or even death. Skin contact also can result in irritation, such as rashes and sores. Plus, even smoke from burning the plant is toxic. 

But hey, let’s get all excited and “enthusiastic” about popping it for covid or to prevent covid or just on general principles.