They cannot be serious.

Using someone’s preferred pronoun is a simple way to show respect…so the driver should say “Where do them want to go?”

Ask the passenger what their pronoun is. Do not assume someone’s pronoun because of their appearance or name on the app. If you do not want to ask, you can ask what they prefer to be called –

So if you do not want to ask, ask. Mkay.

Introduce yourself and share your pronouns.

What planet are these people on? A taxi trip isn’t a long-term relationship, it’s a transaction in which A drives B to point C for $X.xx. That’s it. The pronouns involved are I/we, and you. The end. Third person pronouns don’t come into it. Even if the precious passenger with the lemonade hair and the lemur-skin boots does have a bespoke pronoun, there is not going to be any occasion to use it for that transaction.

And even if there were…again, it’s a short-lived relationship, and it really doesn’t need to be anxiously hand-clutchingly inclooosiv in that way. It doesn’t. Even if the driver does use a “wrong” pronoun for some weird reason…it doesn’t matter. Passenger can deal with it.

These poor pathetic narcissistic dweebs must be horribly jealous of us older dweebs who lived in the distant past when we had to struggle to get basic respect for women and black people. They must feel left out of a giant party, and the only way they can think of to have their own party is to run around screeching about their pronouns.

But that’s ok. Trump is destroying everything, the Tories will destroy whatever’s left, the Arctic is melting, Australia is on fire – but please please please do tell us more about your Special Pronouns.

She really doesn’t care.

Her cause is anti-bullying, which is making the first lady’s silence deafening.

Melania Trump has yet to speak out in the wake of President Donald Trump’s mocking tweet directed at 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, in which he told the teenager to “work on her anger management” and “chill” out.

This is 72-year-old millionaire president of the US using his Twitter account to jeer at a teenage girl. It doesn’t get much more “bully” than that.

Just last Wednesday, Melania Trump tweeted a defense of her own child, whose name was referenced in a pun by an impeachment inquiry witness.

“A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it,” Melania Trump tweeted after Karlan, a law professor, mentioned Barron Trump during impeachment hearings on Capitol Hill. Karlan later apologized for making reference to the youngest Trump child’s name.

But when huge powerful rich man Donald Trump does it it’s perfectly fine.

Stephanie Grisham, who serves as top communication aide for both the first lady and the President, defended the first lady’s silence in a statement on Friday.

“BeBest is the First Lady’s initiative, and she will continue to use it to do all she can to help children. It is no secret that the President and First Lady often communicate differently — as most married couples do. Their son is not an activist who travels the globe giving speeches. He is a 13-year-old who wants and deserves privacy,” Grisham said.

Oh, I see, so it’s being an activist that makes it ok for huge powerful rich man to tweet his bullying of her to his millions of followers, only about half of whom are fake.

For the past 24 hours, Twitter has been filled with memes and statements mocking the first lady’s Be Best platform in light of the bullying of a child demonstrated by the President, and the first lady’s ongoing silence on the matter.

On Thursday night, former first lady Michelle Obama tweeted support to Thunberg: “@gretathunberg don’t let anyone dim your light. Like the girls I’ve met in Vietnam and all over the world, you have so much to offer us all. Ignore the doubters and know that millions of people are cheering you on.”

Ignore the doubters and the rich powerful famous orange male bullies.

At least we know whose fault it is that the Tories won.

It was the Jews the Communists the Masons the feminists!!

I BEG you pardon?

For an encore how about he “explains” how he’ll pluck the moon out of the sky and use it for a lawn ornament.

Also note that “will be eligible.” Not so fast, sonny. It doesn’t become true just because you use the future tense.

Also note that ludicrous “eligible” as if he’s talking about some well-established law as opposed to a stupid fantasy cooked in the meth lab that is Fox News. “Trummp will be eljabl for a extra turrrrm because we sed so.”

But cool that Huckabee was “named” to head up this non-existent eligibility-election, let’s hope it keeps him busy and out of trouble.

No thank you. No really, that’s ok, we’ve got this.

Empowered Trans Woman:

I think it’s super important for trans gals to learn about the feminist movement. Here’s Jude reminding us of the First Wave — the women’s suffrage movement. The Women’s Suffrage movement flourished concurrently in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Thanks to the efforts of such courageous women, the 19th Amendment, giving women the vote, passed in the U.S. in 1919, and got ratified in 1920.

Ah Princess Ivanka – she’s so sneaky.

If your family leave is paid for by your own Social Security then it’s not paid family leave. That’s not how we use the word “paid.” Paying for it ourselves isn’t “paid.” A job we pay ourselves for isn’t a paid job, and family leave we pay for from our Social Security isn’t paid leave.

Remember kids – if you pay for it yourself then that’s you paying for it yourself. Don’t be fooled.

Another episode of Trump Behaving Badly:

In the days following the release of a viral video showing world leaders at the NATO meeting in London making fun of him, Donald Trump shot back at his counterparts. The famously sensitive American president lashed out during a closed-door meeting at the White House with more than a dozen ambassadors to the United Nations present, according to three sources with knowledge of the gathering.

Oh he’s not famously “sensitive.” He’s famously touchy, famously quick to go nuclear at any insult to him while freely insulting anyone and everyone else whenever he feels the urge. That’s quite another thing. “Sensitive” would include other people’s feelings as well as his own. Trump never, ever, ever does that.

In doing so, he made a number of foreign officials noticeably on-edge and also upended a portion of the meeting meant to focus on world powers’ security cooperation, not personal gripes.

As he so often does. Everything is always about him; he is always the most, or only, important subject. An insult to him is far more important than world security cooperation.

During this private airing of grievances, President Trump repeatedly denigrated the Canadian prime minister behind his back and called the French president a “pain in the ass” while referring to him as “short,” according to an individual who was present for the meeting. Trump also bashed the French leader for not doing enough to help in recent Iran negotiations.

The press was allowed into the room for the beginning of the meeting, during which time the ambassadors each thanked the president for inviting them to the White House and underscored their interest in working with the U.S. on trade, foreign policy, and national security. The permanent representatives hailed from countries such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, South Africa, Russia and China.

Oh, cool, so the French rep was there for Trump’s sneers at Macron. Excellent; that’s grown-up diplomacy and head of stateing.

Trump waited for the press to leave to unleash about his whiny grievances.

Over lunch with the ambassadors, President Trump again addressed the video and went on a prolonged tangent, complaining to the diplomats about Trudeau and Macron, according to two sources briefed on the meeting. This lasted several minutes and was enough to derail the ongoing conversation about NATO countries contributing more money to security. 

Another individual in the meeting told The Daily Beast that Trump’s comments made ambassadors present “visibly uncomfortable,” especially those whose leaders were involved in the hot-mic video.

Yes but who cares about their discomfort? It’s all about Trump’s comfort, don’t you understand?

Trump’s bromance with Macron went south a long time ago, but Trudeau has always grossed him out. Trump thinks Trudeau is a god damn girl, that’s what. Ew.

Aides and longtime associates of Trump say that over the years he has often brought up the Canadian leader in the context of deep annoyance and derision, whether the conversation is about trade negotiations or the president’s displeasure at Trudeau’s insufficiently kind demeanor toward Trump. 

In late 2017, Trump sat in the Oval Office, with senior officials such as Ivanka Trump and National Security Council staff, preparing for an upcoming meeting and joint press availability with Trudeau. Soon enough, the president began making fun of the Canadian prime minister and stating how he wished Canadian citizens could see how Trudeau acted in their private discussions, according to a source who was in the room. Trump then clasped his own hands together, began imitating Trudeau using a stereotypically feminine voice, and said, “Oh, Mr. President, we must be sweet to each other, we must play nice,” calling the Canadian leader “such a child” and a “total baby,” the source recounted.

Thank god Trump is not at all a child and baby.

Trump’s Twitter is an explosion this morning, not surprisingly – he must have 20 people or so assigned to posting Republican talking points, or screaming points rather.

But his personal sneer at Greta Thunberg stands out.

Yes how dare she be named Time’s person of the year instead of Trump.

The Guardian live comments:

As we await the impeachment hearing that starts at 9am ET today, the president has had a manic morning on Twitter so far.

Most of it does not need national and international news coverage. But the blog must pause to note that the President of the United States has just taken a spiteful pop at teen climate crisis activist Greta Thunberg.

That really is breathtaking in its meanness. One can only conclude that, apart from Trump being outraged about someone telling him to listen to the science on global heating, it’s about the attention. Any year that Trump is not Time magazine person of the year, he is shocked and affronted, it seems. So the fact that a kid, the youngest Time person of the year ever, made the cover this year and it’s a darn girl from Sweden telling him what to do, well that’s beyond the pale.

She’s a teenager. She’s a girl. She’s Swedish. She’s not stupid. She’s not ignorant. She’s not a Trump fan. So many reasons for him to hate her and try to attack her. I say “try” on purpose, because in reality all he does is make himself look even more of a sadistic clown than he already did.

Stone the crows. Green Party Women on Facebook:

On the day before a general election, Green Party Women are shocked and deeply saddened at the investigation by Fair Play for Women that discloses several Green Party prospective parliamentary candidates using a misogynist slur on public platforms.

Our campaign launch, to ‘Make Misogyny a Hate Crime’, feels very hollow when we cannot set an example within our own party.

This reprehensible behaviour by a handful of candidates does not represent the values of the wider Green Party membership, nor the Party’s core values, and is completely unacceptable. Green Party Women are raising formal complaints against all party members involved.

We will never convince others to reach consensus in the fight against climate change or any issue, with such hostility and poor leadership and judgement. Bullying is NEVER acceptable.

Green Party Women unequivocally condemns the use of misogynist slurs and hate speech against women. We call upon prospective parliamentary candidates of ALL parties to conduct themselves in a civil and respectful manner during the election campaign, and beyond.

Lots of comments defending the practice of calling women ‘TERFs” though.

The bit of Twitter that I see is not impressed with Owen Jones this morning.

Just two of many.

OJ’s tweet:

The Washington Post makes an important point:

Our research finds that Trump has attracted a disproportionate (and unprecedented) number of ‘low-information voters’ to his campaign. Furthermore, these voters are more likely to respond to emotional appeals — whether about the economy, immigration, Muslims, racial relations, sexism, and even hostility to the first African American U.S. president, Barack Obama. They are the ideal constituency for a candidate like Trump.

We define low-information voters as those who do not know certain basic facts about government and lack what psychologists call a ‘need for cognition.’ Those with a high need for cognition have a positive attitude toward tasks that require reasoning and effortful thinking and are, therefore, more likely to invest the time and resources to do so when evaluating complex issues. Those with a low need for cognition, on the other hand, find little reward in the collection and evaluation of new information when it comes to problem solving and the consideration of competing issue positions. They are more likely to rely on cognitive shortcuts, such as ‘experts’ or other opinion leaders, for cues.”

Well, not so much experts and opinion leaders, more just Fox News.

More on the AA Doesn’t Work story:

Wood was working as a registered nurse on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside when he was diagnosed with substance use disorder after a psychotic break in the fall of 2013.

His professional college was informed, along with his union and Vancouver Coastal Health, his employer at the time.

He was referred to a doctor specializing in addictions, who created a plan that Wood would need to follow if he wanted to return to work. AA was a mandatory component.

As an atheist, Wood suggested alternatives to the 12-step program, including secular support groups like SMART Recovery and LifeRing Secular Recovery, but his doctor rejected them, according to emails Wood provided to CBC News.

He also asked to see a new doctor but the union told him nope, it’s 12 steps or nothing.

The AA meetings didn’t help, Wood said, and he lost his job as well as his registration as a nurse when he stopped going.

Since then, he’s been fighting to get his job back while dealing with his addictions using a drug called naltrexone, which blocks the intoxicating effects of alcohol and opiates. He says he is healthy and no longer meets the criteria for substance use disorder.

Better living through chemistry, that’s what I say.

While many people say AA has been instrumental in their recovery from addiction, scientists have long questioned the overall effectiveness of the program, and say choice in treatment plans is key to recovery.

Wood’s complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal was bolstered by letters of support from scientists, doctors, psychotherapists, lawyers, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the B.C. Humanist Association, and the Centre for Inquiry Canada, an Ontario-based humanist charity.

Good.

Boris Johnson did what now?

Labour has accused Boris Johnson’s campaign of “lying and cheating” to try to distract attention from the prime minister’s insensitive reaction to a sick four-year-old boy forced to sleep on a hospital floor.

With just days to go until polling day, the Tories suffered one of their worst days of the campaign as Johnson refused on camera to look at a picture of the poorly child and pocketed the phone of the reporter who tried to show it to him.

But wait, there’s more.

Bots sending out identically-worded fake tweets saying the photo of the child on the floor was FAKE NEWS.

Isn’t it funny how Joe Tulip and Tim Curtis have the same friend and the same experience in the same words.

Religious programs intended to cure or manage addiction should never be forced on anyone, because they are religious (and religion should never be forced on anyone). One small step in that direction:

Health-care professionals who work in Vancouver-area hospitals and medical clinics will no longer be required to attend 12-step programs if they want to keep their jobs after being diagnosed with addiction.

The change comes as a result of a settlement between public health authority Vancouver Coastal Health and former nurse Byron Wood, who filed a human rights complaint alleging he was discriminated against as an atheist when he was fired for quitting Alcoholics Anonymous.

The settlement doesn’t allow him to talk about all the details.

But he did say Vancouver Coastal Health employees who require addiction treatment will now have a way of “meaningfully registering their objection” to 12-step programs.

They won’t have to attend AA and similar programs “if that approach to treatment conflicts with their religious or non-religious beliefs,” Wood said.

Which is good because 12 step programs don’t even work. Medication works, and it not only works, it takes the struggle out, because that’s what it does – it squelches the cravings. With 12 steps the cravings remain and you have to fight them. That’s the religious way to do things: painfully! Suffer, damn it, that’s what god wants!

The settlement could have implications in other professions and across the country. Researchers who study addiction treatment for health-care workers say it’s common for employees to be required to participate in 12-step programs in the interest of protecting public safety.

Which is idiotic seeing as how they don’t work.

Vancouver lawyer and workplace consultant Jonathan Chapnick said mandatory AA has long been the standard approach for workplace addiction issues in Canada.

“I think it makes sense for employers to look at something like this and do their own research and make their policy better reflect the research evidence that’s out there,” he said of VCH’s change in policy.

“Twelve step does not work for everyone. And, in fact, it doesn’t work for most people.”

Around 92%, I believe.

Six of AA’s 12 steps directly refer to God or a higher power, including one that requires members turn their will and lives “over to the care of God.”

“The 12 steps are a religious peer support group, not a medical treatment. They shouldn’t be imposed on anyone,” Wood said.

Especially when they don’t.even.work.

Local tv news station – not the Sinclair one – reports on the outburst of stupid over the WoLF event at the library.

The not at all tendentious or well-poisoning headline:

Event at Seattle Public Library causes firestorm, group accused of being ‘hate group’

Aka Trans activists lose their shit because feminists meet to discuss what we mean by “gender.” The event isn’t causing any firestorm, stupid angry unreasonable people are creating a firestorm out of nothing. Group is accused of being a hate group by stupid angry unreasonable people who are stupid and unreasonable. Group is not a hate group. People protesting group are much more like a hate group than group is.

An event is causing backlash at the Seattle Public Library.

See above. The event is not causing it. People are choosing to cause it because they dislike feminists who don’t endorse every word of trans ideology.

A group called the “Women’s Liberation Front” booked the Microsoft auditorium at the library for an event that critics say is anti-transgender. It has many people calling for the library to cancel the event.

What does “anti-transgender” mean though? If it means we hate trans people as such then it’s a lie. If it means we think many of the claims of the ideology are wrong…then why aren’t we allowed to think that and even to say it?

On the library’s Facebook page there are more than a thousand comments with many people asking, how can a group that’s spreading what they consider hate speech be allowed in a city building?

Artfully put; captures the solipsism nicely. “I consider this hate speech therefore you are required to shut it down.” Nah.

The Eventbrite page for the event questions transgender activism, saying, “are the claims made by these activists actually true, or even coherent? What does it mean to say that people can be ‘born in the wrong body’?”

Well? Are they? What does it mean? We get to ask.

Trans rights activist group, the Gender Justice League said in a statement on their website, “A hate group using the library as a venue to ‘critique’ the existence of a minority group creates a hostile environment and is unacceptable.”

Is that right? How does the Gender Justice League feel about, say, the Proud Boys?

Everybody critiques the existence of some minority group or other. Some minority groups are racist; some are terrorist; some are murderous. There’s nothing wrong or “unacceptable” about critiquing the existence of minority groups and in fact the protesters are doing exactly that while telling this other minority group that it is not allowed to.

The phrase is probably meant to imply that WoLF is saying trans groups shouldn’t exist and thus that trans people shouldn’t exist, which is dishonest and manipulative.

The ACLU reminds you – if you’re upset, you can exercise your right to free speech and protest.

The WOLF event is scheduled for February 1.

If you’re upset, you can exercise your right to free speech and protest, but it would be a good plan to get your facts straight before deciding to be upset. Thinking men are not women is not the same as thinking trans people should not exist. The distinction is quite important.

Trump breaking yet more new ground in Repulsion Farm:

Not long after Donald Trump took to the stage at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night, the president launched into one of his biggest crowd-pleasers: pillorying the “deep state,” particularly by performing fan-fic-style dialogue between the “FBI lovers” Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.

It’s a routine that he’s been honing on the re-election campaign trail for months, perhaps most famously during an October campaign event in Minneapolis, where he appeared to make orgasmic, panting noises—much to the audience’s delight—while doing a mock-dialogue between the two “lovers” about how much they “love” each other and hate that “son of a bitch” Trump.

And that, in turn, is what caused Lisa Page to go public, and to file suit against the DoJ people who, contrary to regulations, gave the Page-Strzok texts to journalists at a secret meeting in the dead of night. Trump is using illegitimately-released private communications to whip up hatred against Page and Strzok, both of whose careers have already been trashed thanks to him.

And on Tuesday night, the president went a step further, claiming he’d “heard” gossip about previously unknown relationship woes between the two former FBI employees—though Trump conceded he could just be spreading pure disinformation.

“So FBI lawyer Lisa Page was so in love she didn’t know what the hell was happening,” Trump blared. “Texted the head of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, likewise so in love he couldn’t see straight! This poor guy. Did I hear he needed a restraining order after this whole thing to keep him away from Lisa? That’s what I heard. I don’t know if it’s true. The fake news will never report it, but it could be true.”

George Conway pointed out on Twitter that Strzok could sue him for defamation for that, all the more easily since he (Trump) admitted he doesn’t know if it’s true.

After pointing out the reporters gathered in the back so the audience could loudly boo them, the president continued to make the baseless claim that a restraining order was put in place. At the same time, Trump gave a contorted explanation of the alleged restraining order.

“Now that’s what I heard, I don’t know,” he added. “I mean, who could believe a thing like that? No, I heard Peter Strzok needed a restraining order to keep him away from his once lover. Lisa, I hope you miss him. Lisa, he will never be the same.”

Can we get a restraining order against Trump?

Behold the festering garbage pile of a human:

Conway on the slander case:

Trump and Lavrov had a reunion.

Donald Trump held a closed-door meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, at the White House on Tuesday, but the two men gave diverging accounts of what was discussed, on a day articles of impeachment were announced against the US president.

Maddow pointed out the scorching ironies of having a closed-door meeting with Lavrov of all people on the day articles of impeachment were announced. Last time Trump met privately with Lavrov was that time he blabbed top security secrets to Lavrov and Kisliyak. The secrets were so top and Trump’s blabbing them was so horrifying that the US intel people were forced to extract their best source from Russia. What does that mean? It means that source is not there any more, so we miss the crucial information about Putin the source had been providing. The source could take photos of what was on Putin’s desk; that’s how high up the source was.

The last time Lavrov visited the White House, in May 2017, Trump was reported to have disclosed highly classified information to him about US intelligence-sharing arrangements.

On this occasion, the press were barred from the meeting, and were handed a White House statement saying, that among other topics: “President Trump warned against any Russian attempts to interfere in United States elections.”

Asked about the statement at a press conference in the Russian embassy later the same afternoon, Lavrov claimed: “No we haven’t even actually discussed elections.”

And even if we believed that Trump did say that – which we don’t – would we believe Lavrov would believe he meant it? Of course not.

Life in Sydney right now:

I can’t breathe. They say something like 100 bush and grass fires are raging across the state. The city I live in feels like a scene from Blade Runner 2049 come to life in 2019. There is no other way to see it: our dead future is here.

The mornings are smoky and grey. The afternoons distinctly eerie with the sun a shrunken disc that is by turns eggishly sick, bright pink, or burning orange in the seemingly permanent haze.

Seattle was like that for a couple of weeks in August 2018. We had, literally, the worst air in the world for a few days. It was forest fires rather than bush fires, but the result was much the same. It was nightmarish even without asthma.

My eyes water. My breathing is shallow. My throat trickles with foreign matter. On my back verandah, the washing machine and wooden shelves are covered in a gritty film of ash. I see what I am breathing in. Like tea leaves left in a cup predicting bad things.

Last week, I struggled so badly for air I had to leave work early and drive back home 10 minutes away. Yes, I am mildly asthmatic. Yes, I am vulnerable to air pollution. But this was different to anything I’ve experienced before.

Same here back then. It always gets grubby here in July and August, because there is little to no rain and often no wind, but smelling smoke outside for days on end was new.

This week temperatures are soaring again. Friends say the fires will burn for weeks, maybe months. It’s likely there will be no rain till the end of January. On social media, everybody keeps taking pictures of the sky and the sun. Someone writes a note: “How long before the birds start dropping from the sky?”

Pollution levels are rising to 22 times the accepted safety levels. Driving over the Bridge, the great cloud that occupies my city reminds me of past visits to Tehran and Beijing. I associate the pollution with something totalitarian I can’t put my finger on, a form of oppression manifest in nature.

Climate change is a very totalitarian thing.