Go to the mating center and turn right

Apr 2nd, 2017 4:21 pm | By

I saw this cited as a useful source for explanation of “gender identity” and all that: Transgender Identity Formation. In it I read this claim:

Biological

We are just beginning to understand the various aspects of the biological components of who and what we are, and how they interact.

In an invited paper published in the December 2001 issue of Neuroendocrinology Letters, Dr. Gunter Dorner and his colleagues outlined two probable causes of transsexualism that fall into two general categories: 1) genetic enzyme mutations and 2) epigenetic effects which can include stressful prenatal situations and fetal exposure to endocrine disruptors i.e. the breakdown products of DDT (DDE which is estrogenic in nature).

Gender and sexual brain organization is dependent

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Millicent Garrett Fawcett

Apr 2nd, 2017 12:42 pm | By

Caroline Criado-Perez does it again: Parliament Square will add to its eleven (11) statues of men one (1) statue of a woman.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Sunday that Millicent Garrett Fawcett, who campaigned for the right of women to vote, will be honored with a statue to stand in the company of giants like Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.

Mrs. Fawcett formed the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in 1897 and died at age 82 in 1929, a year after all women in the United Kingdom were granted the right to vote.

It’s only the right to vote for half of all human beings. No biggy.

Fawcett, a political and union leader, is not

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Have you heard of Susan B. Anthony?

Apr 2nd, 2017 11:50 am | By

The White House published Trump’s remarks at the “Women’s Empowerment Panel” the White House held the other day. They are rather stupid remarks, as you’d expect. Already it seems almost quaint to expect a president to sound intelligent and informed. No no, a president sounds like any other carnival barker.

So as you know, Melania is a very highly accomplished woman and really an inspiration to so many.  And she is doing some great job.

Is she? Accomplished? At what? And what job is she doing?

And I’m so proud that the White House and our administration is filled with so many women of such incredible talent.  This week, as we conclude Women’s History Month, we honor a great woman

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48 hours to find a new place

Apr 2nd, 2017 11:25 am | By

Administrators at a Louisiana university are busy sweeping away pesky useless shit like scientific specimens to make room for athletic facilities.

The curators of the Museum of Natural History at the University of Louisiana-Monroe got grim news last week from the school’s director: The museum’s research collection had to be moved out of its current home. The reason? The space was needed for expanded track facilities.

The curators were given 48 hours to find a new place on campus to store the collection — something they weren’t able to do. Now they must get another institution to take their several million specimens. Their hard deadline is July, when the track renovations are slated to begin. And if the collection

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Trump repeatedly said “get ’em out of here”

Apr 2nd, 2017 10:44 am | By

It may yet turn out that Donald Trump is subject to the law just like everyone else.

The courts keep taking Donald Trump both seriously and literally. And the president’s word choices are proving to be a real headache.

A federal judge in Kentucky is the latest to take Trump at his word when he says something controversial. Judge David J. Hale ruled against efforts by Trump’s attorneys to throw out a lawsuit accusing him of inciting violence against protesters at a March 2016 campaign rally in Louisville.

At the rally, Trump repeatedly said “get ’em out of here” before, according to the protesters, they were shoved and punched by his supporters. Trump’s attorneys sought to have the case dismissed

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Timothy Caughman

Apr 1st, 2017 5:09 pm | By

The violence on Westminster Bridge last week was a horror, but so was this:

His name was Timothy Caughman. He was from Manhattan and was 66 when he died. The police say he was stabbed on Monday night by a 28-year-old man who had come to New York City from Baltimore looking to kill black men. It was Mr. Caughman’s misfortune to be male and black when the stranger with a 26-inch sword approached on Ninth Avenue near 36th Street, around the corner from where he lived.

We don’t know much else about Mr. Caughman, but the persona he shared with the world on Twitter was that of a man of buoyant outlook and varied interests, who was amused

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Career diplomats have been instructed not to speak to him directly

Apr 1st, 2017 4:13 pm | By

Lordy lordy lordy.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes a private elevator to his palatial office on the seventh floor of the State Department building, where sightings of him are rare on the floors below.

On many days, he blocks out several hours on his schedule as “reading time,” when he is cloistered in his office poring over the memos he prefers ahead of in-person meetings.

Most of his interactions are with an insular circle of political aides who are new to the State Department. Many career diplomats say they still have not met him, and some have been instructed not to speak to him directly — or even make eye contact.

If he happens to pass them in … Read the rest



What she represents

Apr 1st, 2017 3:51 pm | By

Lordy. Lor-deee.

Why is Omarosa Manigault there?

Manigault, 43, is fiercely loyal to Donald Trump, whose decision to cast her as an alpha-female villain in the first season of “The Apprentice” more than a decade ago made her a reality television celebrity.

Apparently that’s the reason right there. But I was asking about what qualifications she has to be there. Being a reality television celebrity isn’t a qualification.

But because she is one of the few African Americans in Trump’s immediate orbit, others caution against dismissing her.

“It’s important that we take Omarosa seriously, irrespective of how we feel about her,” said Leah Wright Rigueur, a professor of public policy at Harvard. “The idea of having access to the White

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Shouts from the residence

Apr 1st, 2017 11:22 am | By

Trump has been especially loathsome on Twitter this morning. He’s probably cranky because the grownups won’t let him go to Taco del Mar this weekend, on account of how the news media keep pointing out how very much time he is spending on vacation at our expense.

It makes me want to smash things to see our head of state publicly deploying rude nicknames as if he were five years old. He is degrading us all, and it makes me furious.

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Entanglements

Apr 1st, 2017 11:01 am | By

The sleaze continues to deepen, now that both Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are what the Times calls senior federal government officials.

But the financial disclosure report released late Friday for Mr. Kushner, which shows that he and his wife still benefit financially from a real estate and investment empire worth as much as $740 million, makes clear that this most powerful Washington couple is walking on perilous legal and ethical ground, according to several prominent experts on the subject.

Unlike Mr. Trump, who is exempt from conflict of interest laws, both Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump — who took a formal White House position this past week — are forbidden under federal criminal and civic law to take

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