… Read the restAs of Friday, the Smokehouse Creek Fire had affected more than a million acres, making it the largest wildfire in Texas history, and one of the biggest in the history of the country. Still only 15 percent contained, it has crossed into Oklahoma, leaving in its wake herds of dead cattle and dozens of burned homes. At least two people have died. The forecast is for what people in the firefighting business call “fire weather” — hot, dry and windy. Under these conditions, the dozen fires in the region could, theoretically, keep burning indefinitely.
Texans know that fires aren’t uncommon in the Panhandle this time of year, and neither is snow. But huge,
All entries by this author
Not a regional aberration
Mar 2nd, 2024 7:10 am | By Ophelia BensonObjection
Mar 2nd, 2024 4:30 am | By Ophelia BensonWaterstones spits in our eye again.
Hi @Waterstones, your promotional page for International Women's Day seems to include a category error. pic.twitter.com/jltqNxhoWE
— Scottish Lesbians (@ScotLesbians) March 2, 2024
Juno Dawson ain’t no female author.
Don’t brag at us about how you’re celebrating female authors and then start with a man who pretends to be a woman. That’s insulting.… Read the rest
Guest post: The BAD PEOPLE BILL
Mar 2nd, 2024 4:14 am | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Artymorty on A new power.
It’s insane. This bill is so childish. It’s basically the BAD PEOPLE BILL. They’ve decided there are BAD, HATEFUL PEOPLE and they must legislate to punish them. But they’re leaving it ENTIRELY UP TO LATER to define who these bad people are.
The people supporting this bill aren’t even asking WHO will be doing this crucial defining. It’s a nightmare.
It’s literally impossible to ethically support a bill that proposes a bunch of penalties — right up to the nation’s maximum penalty of life imprisonment — before anyone has bothered to set the fucking definitional terms of what they’re criminalizing. It’s purely an irrational appeal to emotion. That always works … Read the rest
Iss juss worrrrds maaan
Mar 2nd, 2024 3:39 am | By Ophelia BensonOh dear. That’s such a rookie error. The scorn and hilarity must be scalding for the “Prof”.
Male & female are human constructs so didn’t exist at all before humans
— Prof. Stephen Whittle OBE, PhD, DLaws, FAcSS, (@stephenwhittle) March 1, 2024
O what an ignoble mind is here o’erthrown.… Read the rest
Guest post: Government by da feelz
Mar 2nd, 2024 3:15 am | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Francis Boyle on A new power.
Canada: government by da feelz. Canadians (and everyone really) could do with a crash course in the relationship between sentimentalism and fascism. Unfortunately our standard cultural template for totalitarianism is 1984 and while Orwell had a keen understanding of bureaucracy and the ways it can be perverted I don’t think he had any real understanding of the way propaganda works. (Of course he understood how it was used – he practised it after all – but he didn’t consider it important. In the novel it’s just AI generated mush for keeping the proles in their place. Neither it nor the proles themselves are considered particularly interesting, something I found … Read the rest
A new power
Mar 1st, 2024 5:18 pm | By Ophelia BensonJustice Minister Arif Virani has defended a new power in the online harms bill to impose house arrest on someone who is feared to commit a hate crime in the future – even if they have not yet done so already.
This is Canada we’re talking about. We know it won’t be people announcing on Twitter that they’re going to shoot up a classroom full of women. We know it will be people saying trans women are not women.
… Read the restSince it was published on Monday, some lawyers and constitutional experts have raised fears that Bill C-63 could chill free speech.
The bill would allow people to file complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission
We just want
Mar 1st, 2024 9:49 am | By Ophelia BensonRemember “Katie” Neeves who is so thrilled that he’s been “accepted as a UN Women UK delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women”? Well here he is in action.
"Katie" doesn't like his 9yr old daughter calling him dad, when she's in the ladies toilets with him…🤔 pic.twitter.com/jXFlo50hnb
— Jonny Bell (@Jonnywsbell) March 1, 2024
“We just want to wee in safety, the same as you do.” Yes, dude, you just want to wee in safety by making it impossible for us to wee in safety. In “Katie” world the only women who matter are the ones like him.… Read the rest
It’s not a personal view
Mar 1st, 2024 9:30 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Telegraph on the BBC’s enforcement of lying to the public:
A listener complained that the comment amounted to Mr Webb giving his personal view on a controversial matter in breach of the BBC’s requirements on impartiality.
But it’s not a “view”; it’s reality. It’s “controversial” only because way too many damn fools have made it controversial. News organizations can’t be letting damn fools make basic facts about reality “controversial.” Next it will be controversial to say evolution is true.
… Read the restThe BBC’s complaints unit, in a ruling published on Thursday, said it was not in a position to determine Mr Webb’s personal opinion on the issue but that it was not necessary to do so in order to judge
You get what you vote for
Mar 1st, 2024 7:23 am | By Ophelia BensonLie down with rats, get up with fleas.
Lauren Boebert has said she is heartbroken over her teenage son’s arrest but that he will take responsibility for his actions and should be held accountable. The Colorado representative’s son is accused of taking part in a series of car break-ins and credit card thefts in his mother’s home state.
Trashy enough yet?
… Read the restTyler Boebert, 18, appeared in court virtually from jail on Wednesday but was later released to return in April. He is facing multiple felony charges.
The list of 22 charges include four felony charges of criminal possession of ID documents, one count of conspiracy to commit a felony, and over a dozen misdemeanour charges, the Rifle Police Department
You DO NOT
Mar 1st, 2024 7:00 am | By Ophelia BensonSo we’re literally not allowed to talk about LGB without any T. It’s literally mandatory to paste the T onto any mention of LGB. We will literally be called names and accused of evil intentions if we try to talk about LGB without any T.
Alicia Kearns's virtue signalling is interupted by Neale Hanvey, who talks about his differing views & being subject to horrific bullying
Ms Kearns angrily asserts "You DO NOT remove the T – u are suggesting trans people do not exist & trans ppl stood with gay ppl at Stonewall" pic.twitter.com/0tqMsBdNqK
— Emily Wilding Davison (@Wommando) March 1, 2024
Another one
Feb 29th, 2024 5:14 pm | By Ophelia BensonMeanwhile…
A male has just been appointed "UN Women UK delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women"@UNWomenUK are mocking women again.#misogyny pic.twitter.com/MbfdsMVNsW
— Alan Henness (@zeno001) February 29, 2024
Not a joke, apparently. He has a public post about it on Facebook.
I am delighted to announce that I have been accepted as a UN Women UK delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
The UN CSW is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
And it sees fit to disempower women by giving their roles to men.… Read the rest
Crucial to understanding
Feb 29th, 2024 4:47 pm | By Ophelia BensonSome reactions.
This is outrageous over reach by the BBC. Being clear that a ‘transwomans’ sex is male is crucial to understanding why women are concerned about trans inclusion in female sport. This is fact not opinion. https://t.co/tpRgZjbCiz
— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen) February 29, 2024
Women’s rights clash with trans rights because the sex of a transwoman is male. That’s what it’s all about. If the BBC doesn’t allow this to be spoken then women get excluded from the conversation. That’s the opposite of impartiality. https://t.co/tpRgZjca87
— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen) February 29, 2024
… Read the restUnreasonable, even unreasoned outcome. "Male/female" are, across species, scientific and specific terms. We don't have women sparrows, we do have female sparrows. So TW are male *by definition* @JustinOnWeb
About speech acts
Feb 29th, 2024 4:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore on the Justin Webb issue.
Let's be honest. It's not particularly controversial that TW are male – this isn't contested by anyone serious.
What's controversial is whether, when, we can, or should, *say* this. It's not about facts.
It's about speech acts.
That's why the @JustinOnWeb outcome is so bad.— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) February 29, 2024
Also it’s about what we’re allowed to say, and according to whom.
It’s not a trivial matter, when and if we’re allowed to tell the truth about who is a woman and who is not. It’s extremely important and extremely basic. It’s shocking and dangerous that a news organization, especially one with the clout of the BBC, is telling its personnel that … Read the rest
What are we, chopped liver?
Feb 29th, 2024 2:26 pm | By Ophelia BensonMy thought exactly.
There's not enough hours in the day for North Yorkshire Police to apologise to all the women and girls for all the historical discriminatory behaviour we've been subjected to. #StonewallMilitia
— Ginny Fenwick 🏴 🧙♀️🦋 (@VirginiaFenwic4) February 29, 2024
Looking forward to your sincere and heartfelt apology to all the women you blew off, ignored and mocked during domestic abuse, rape and sexual assault complaints and to all the women in your patch who were murdered by known men.
— Joolz Denby (@JoolzDenby) February 29, 2024
When are you going to apologize to women for embracing transgenderism and ignoring sex?
— AConflictofValues (@ConflictOfValue) February 29, 2024
In breach of the BBC’s requirements on impartiality
Feb 29th, 2024 11:33 am | By Ophelia BensonBBC to its talking heads: you WILL say men are women; that’s an order.
The BBC has upheld a complaint against Today presenter Justin Webb after he said “trans women, in other words males”.
Webb made the comment during a discussion about new International Chess Federation (FIDE) guidelines on 22 August last year regarding whether being biologically male can give players an advantage in the game. A listener complained that the comment amounted to Webb giving his personal view on a controversial matter in breach of the BBC’s requirements on impartiality.
The only sense in which it’s “controversial” to say a man is a man is the one where tiresome people make a big stupid stink about saying a … Read the rest
Oh but he has a certificate
Feb 29th, 2024 10:53 am | By Ophelia BensonTransgender women who are convicted of a crime must be recorded as men if they have not legally changed their gender, Downing Street has said.
The intervention comes after The Telegraph revealed that Scarlet Blake, 26, a male-born transgender woman who was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a stranger and killing a cat, has been recorded as a female criminal in official statistics.
And that’s not ok even if he has “legally changed his gender” – which is frankly a meaningless phrase. If “gender” is just the social bit then why tf would it justify falsifying the statistics? If it’s sex we’re back where we started: no he is not.
… Read the restThe Prime Minister’s spokesman
Point missed, Downing Street
Feb 29th, 2024 10:43 am | By Ophelia BensonThis is how we get inched into it.
Well, this IS good news.
'Transgender women who are convicted of a crime must be recorded as men if they have not legally changed their gender, Downing Street has said.'https://t.co/GINxu9zf7l— Ann Sinnott (@AnnMSinnott) February 29, 2024
That’s not good news at all. Who cares if they have “legally changed their gender” or not? It doesn’t matter. Men’s crimes should not be reported as women’s crimes.
Laws aren’t magic. It’s futile to pass a law saying dung is ice cream; you still don’t want to eat it. You could pass a law saying Mars is an easy 5 hour trip by plane, but it wouldn’t be true. Laws can change some … Read the rest
Attention deficit
Feb 29th, 2024 10:05 am | By Ophelia Benson… Read the restA couple of months ago, it was revealed that 1,151 police officers in England and Wales are under investigation for sexual or domestic abuse, including 657 of Couzens’s former Met colleagues. One in seven of the overall total has been allowed to continue working as usual while 428 have been placed on restricted duties. Only 378 have been suspended. Allegations against officers are so widespread that the Met Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, admitted last year that he couldn’t guarantee that a woman reporting a rape wouldn’t be interviewed by a predator. Is anyone surprised that so many rape investigations go nowhere?
It has been clear for a long time that there are failures at every
Opportunities were missed
Feb 29th, 2024 9:56 am | By Ophelia BensonSarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and opportunities were missed to stop him, an inquiry has said. A radical overhaul of police vetting and recruitment is needed now, the independent review found.
…
Police “repeatedly failed” to spot warning signs about his unsuitability to be an officer, the inquiry said, and it identified at least five incidents which were not reported to police. The inquiry said this included evidence Couzens allegedly committed a very serious sexual assault against a child, described as barely in her teens, before his policing career began.
Yebbut boys will be boys. It’s just nature. You can’t correct nature. You want the cops to be tough and … Read the rest
Officially recorded
Feb 28th, 2024 5:17 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe crimes of a transgender cat killer and murderer will be officially recorded as having been committed by a woman, The Telegraph can disclose.
Scarlet Blake, 26, who was born male but identifies as a woman, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 24 years in prison on Monday for the murder of Jorge Martin Carreno in Oxford, having previously mutilated a cat.
Blake has been sent to a male prison, but was referred to as a woman during the trial.
Despite the fact that he is in reality a man.
If just saying things were enough then he could escape all this hassle by simply saying he didn’t murder Jorge Martin Carreño.
… Read the restDr