The Texas “no people like you can’t vote” bill has been blocked for now, because the Democrats walked out. The Gov is mad.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he intends to withhold paychecks to state lawmakers after House Democrats staged a walkout to block voting restrictions proposed by their Republican counterparts.

I wonder if he has that power. It’s not as if he sits up there every Friday handing them their checks.

A large group of Democrats walked out of the House chamber in Austin late Sunday, so there was no quorum and that prevented a final vote on the proposal, Senate Bill 7. The bill, which had appeared poised for passage, would cut back polling hours, reduce access

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Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Life-changing opportunities are missed.

Wallwork says it’s the IOC’s doing, and that’s true, and they suck, but it’s Hubbard’s doing too, and I think we absolutely can keep saying so. He’s blatantly cheating, and he knows it, and it’s simply revolting

Yeah, he didn’t end up on that podium accidentally, nor was a gun held to his head. “Validation” trumps fairness.

Also, would the New Zealand Olympic team be as silent if other nations fielded male ringers, if their own women’s team was made up solely of, you know,women? Or what if other countries had bigger, burlier, stronger TIMs on their “women’” weightlifting rosters? Are they good with … Read the rest

An item from the (very conservative) Federalist a week ago:

An exclusive New York City high school hired an educator to teach students about pornography, and it did not go over well with parents.

Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, an institution with a price tag of about $47,000 for the highest grade offered, held a sexuality workshop for all students in the junior class. Parents were not made aware of the training, and students were misinformed about the explicit content.

It seems to me there is a place in high schools for a certain kind of teaching about porn, though it would probably be futile. Porn-critical teaching could elucidate the ways porn … Read the rest

Making history.

A Scot has made history by becoming the first transgender woman golfer to win a professional tournament in the US.

That’s not making history, it’s cheating. Different thing.

Ayrshire-born Hailey Davidson claimed victory in a mini-tour event at Providence Golf Club in Polk County, Florida.

Hailey, 28, was finally given the green light to compete in National Women’s Golf Association events after the United States Golf Association and the Ladies Professional Golf Association changed eligibility rules to make it easier for trans athletes to compete.

That is, after the United States Golf Association and the Ladies Professional Golf Association changed eligibility rules to make it easier for men to cheat by competing against women.

Hailey said she

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Stonewall is melting, melllltiiiinnnggg…

Liz Truss, the equalities minister, is pushing for all government departments to withdraw from Stonewall’s employment scheme following a row over transgender rights.

…

The Times understands that responsibility for co-ordinating participation in the scheme rests with the Cabinet Office. The scheme counts 250 government departments and public bodies among its 850 members, which pay for guidance on issues such as pronouns and gender-neutral spaces.

Why pay for that? There are a million sources on it that don’t charge anything, besides which, it’s all nonsense anyway. Nobody needs “guidance” on pronouns.

Stonewall says the scheme is “the leading employers’ programme for ensuring all LGBT staff are accepted without exception in the workplace”. 

Oh yes? What … Read the rest

Seriously bad joke.

A Belgian weightlifter says dealing with transgender issues in sport is “impossible” but the presence of Laurel Hubbard in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games is “like a bad joke” to women athletes.

The women athletes have been keeping quiet, though, for all the reasons we know about.

Anna Vanbellinghen of Belgium has broken the athletes’ silence with a considered statement on Hubbard’s achievement.

Vanbellinghen has a chance of qualifying in the same weight category, the over-87-kilogram super-heavyweights, and is therefore directly affected by the presence of Hubbard, who transitioned to female at the age of 35.

Others have voiced outrage at Hubbard’s presence in women’s sport, most often on social media, but Vanbellinghen is not making

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The people who get elected to Congress these days…

At about midnight four years ago, restauranteur Lauren Boebert, in her words, “turned too sharp,” and rolled her truck into a ditch near her home in Rifle, Colorado. She faced a careless driving and unsafe vehicle charges, and a court date was set for three months later.

Not an uncommon slip-up on rural roads at night. But Boebert, who’s now a Republican candidate for Congress, never showed up for her court hearing on October 5, 2016, according to records obtained by the Colorado Times Recorder from Colorado’s 9th Judicial District.

Now, nine months after the article appeared, she’s in Congress.

So there was a warrant for her arrest. The court … Read the rest

It’s not in the future, it’s not 20 or 10 years from now, it’s now. The Himalayas are losing their ice.

When Padma Thinles was 11 years old, he lived in a city called Leh, in the northern Indian territory of Ladakh, on the Western side of the Himalayas. Then, it was a small village with streams brimming with freshwater. Now, “forget the streams,” said Thinles, who is now 21 and still lives in the region.

“There’s no water left in the sewers, either,” he said.

Despite the location of Leh in the upper Indus River Valley, which is usually flushed with water, global warming has caused an immense water shortage that has led to the shutdown of

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The Tulsa massacre almost got buried. One future historian got curious.

The white schoolboy Scott Ellsworth of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was left to wonder what the city’s darkest secret could be.

“As a 10- and 11-year-old, I would occasionally hear older adults, neighbours, talking about what we then called ‘the riot’ and they would always lower their voices or change the subject,” recalls Ellsworth, now 67. “I started to catch wind of these stories about bodies floating down the Arkansas River, machine guns on the roofs of town, but you couldn’t really find out anything about it.”

All that changed one day in 1966 when the local library installed a microfilm reader and Ellsworth and friends fed in daily newspapers

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International embarrassment.

A hat shop in Nashville, Tennessee, has drawn condemnation and protests after it advertised an anti-vaccine yellow star like those forced on Jews by Nazi Germany.

The shop, Hatwrks, said in a now-deleted Instagram post that it was selling the patches for $5 (£3.50).

The shop was criticised online and targeted by protesters, who held a sign saying “no Nazis in Nashville”.

A local rabbi said the star was an insult to Jews killed under the Nazis.

Being urged to get a vaccination against a lethal pandemic is not very comparable to being murdered by a fascist antisemitic state.

In a later Instagram post, the shop apologised “for any insensitivity”. It said it did not “intend to

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Inspirational?

It’s always special to be part of the #prideofmanchester awards, but this year I was especially proud to present the Lifetime Achievement award to the inspirational @christineburns. https://t.co/dM5Pp75wn5

— Lisa Nandy (@lisanandy) May 28, 2021

Many women ask what’s inspirational about him.

Wow. @Keir_Starmer how dare you allow someone so harmful to the most vulnerable women in your party. I can't believe you obviously haven't warned this MP after last time. No wonder #LabourLosingWomen – we're all watching the polls

— Jayne (all the little Terven rise up, rise up) (@ScouseJayne) May 29, 2021

A reminder that Lisa Nandy said last year that rapists should be allowed to go to women's prisons if they say they identify as

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About those anti-vax yellow stars…

A few guys are trading off holding this banner in front of #hatwrksnashville in Nashville.

Yesterday, the store owner posted on Instagram about selling gold stars reminiscent of the Star of David, that say “unvaccinated.”

I spoke to a few Jewish people today who were furious. pic.twitter.com/RnRZo2aOFk

— Chris Davis NC5 (@ChrisDavisMMJ) May 29, 2021

For those who somehow thought that the Nashville woman was just misguided (or that it is an over-reaction on my part to be so incensed):

This was a Star of David; yellow; & a patch. This was not an error. This was vile. https://t.co/Ikxbn5FQrW pic.twitter.com/akCwpaQC9z

—1) (@thehowie) May 29, 2021

Republicans: Criticizing Israel in any way is antisemitic.

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More passengers are disembarking.

A string of high-profile public sector employers are cutting ties with the LGBT charity Stonewall amid mounting disquiet over its diversity training on transgender rights.

Campaigners have warned of a “flood” of departures from the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme, after the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the equalities watchdog, did not renew its membership over “value for money” concerns.

The Telegraph says it knows of at least five more leavers.

The scheme counts 250 Government departments and public bodies among its members. They pay thousands for guidance on gender neutral spaces, pronouns and trans inclusion and are ranked on the charity’s Workplace Equality Index.

Imagine paying thousands for “guidance on pronouns” – i.e. on using … Read the rest

Stonewall boss is fine with comparing gender-skeptical women to antisemites.

The new EHRC chair, Lady Falkner, has said women have the right to question transgender identity without being abused, stigmatised or risking losing their job.

Or threatened. All those “kill a terf” shirts and signs and posters – those are threats.

Ms Kelley said while Stonewall believed in freedom of speech, it was “not without limit”.

“With all beliefs including controversial beliefs there is a right to express those beliefs publicly and where they’re harmful or damaging – whether it’s anti-Semitic beliefs, gender critical beliefs, beliefs about disability – we have legal systems that are put in place for people who are harmed by that.”

That’s nice.

Challenged as to

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Sport builds character.

On 17 May, 2021, it was announced that Valentina Petrillo is set to create a world record as the first, and so far only, male to participate in a female sports competition with male documents.

The software programmer and divorced father, who identifies as a woman and has not undergone cosmetic ‘gender’ surgery, is among the athletes chosen to compete in the European Paralympic Athletics Championship in Poland from June 1 to June 5. Seven athletes, including Petrillo, will compete on the Italian Team for Bydgoszcz 2021 in the women’s category, and 16 in the men’s.

The 47-year-old’s goal is to qualify for the Tokyo 2021 Paralympics.

Petrillo, who has a degenerative eye condition, skyrocketed to

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Seen on Twitter:

For people in urban, liberal cities, the mask and associated rituals are articles of faith. It is literally a yarmulke or a prayer shawl. Not hard to understand if we see it as motivated by signaling “I’m part of the good tribe.”

No it isn’t. If the mask were literally a yarmulke or a prayer shawl then it would be literally a yarmulke or a prayer shawl. It isn’t, it’s a mask. You can tell it’s a mask because of the loops for the ears, and the size and shape. It doesn’t look like a yarmulke or a prayer shawl.

But more to the point, there’s no need to attach some weird political idenniny to it. I … Read the rest

Oh so this is who Christian Jessen is.

https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1398414921969418240 https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1398414927421968389

Maybe he never had any critical thinking to begin with.… Read the rest

Via Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany 6 – The Toronto Star reports:

KAMLOOPS, B.C. – The remains of 215 children have been found buried on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation said in a news release Thursday that the remains were confirmed last weekend with the help of a ground-penetrating radar specialist.

Casimir called the discovery an “unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.”

She said it’s believed the deaths are undocumented, although a local museum archivist is working with the Royal British Columbia Museum to see if any records of the deaths can be found.

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The existential threat:

On Friday Republicans in the Senate torpedoed an effort to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the deadly insurrection by Donald Trump’s supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January, deploying the procedural move known as the filibuster to stop it even being debated.

The filibuster is bad and stupid and needs to go away.

Tellingly Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who previously condemned Trump’s role in the riot, reportedly asked senators to nix the commission as a “personal favour”. It was a sign that the rot now goes deeper than a cult of personality into the foundations of the Grand Old Party (GOP).

A personal favor ffs. This isn’t his living room we’re talking … Read the rest

It’s called “Woman’s Hour” for a reason.

BBC Woman's Hour today promoted a book by a male about what it's like growing up as a 'girl', just after doing a segment on men having sex in public toilets. Some women stated that the show is failing to cater to women, despite its name. This is the presenter's response https://t.co/qBVtu7jHxj

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) May 28, 2021

Ah yes the old space to discuss everything approach. We used to understand that woman’s meant woman’s, and that for women meant for women. Now instead we “understand” that woman’s means everyone’s, and for women means for everyone.

https://twitter.com/helensaxby11/status/1398279153149960196

Funny, isn't it. When Jenni Murray expressed an opinion on the trans issue, she was banned

… Read the rest