Oh give it a REST.

Narcissist comes out as first openly self-involved twerp shock-surprise.

American figure skater Timothy LeDuc is set to become the first openly non-binary athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games.

They might as well say he’s the first openly breathing athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games. He’s the first openly two legs-having athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games. He’s the first openly anthropoid ape athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games.

Unfortunately he’s not the first person or athlete to seek extra attention by claiming to be the first ever something or other, even if the something or other is of absolutely no consequence or interest to anyone at … Read the rest

Our friend latsot has signed up for various wheelchair distance events in 2022 including the Leeds and Sheffield half marathons, the Middlesbrough 10k and (fingers crossed) the Great North Run.

He’s raising money for nia, a women-led, women-only, secular, rights-based registered charity which has been delivering services to women, girls and children who have been subjected to sexual and domestic violence and abuse, including prostitution, since 1975.

His crowdfunder for the Sheffield event (in March) is here.

He urges you to donate if you can and share the link if you like!… Read the rest

Liberal shmiberal – union-busting at the NY Times:

Last April, 650 tech employees at the New York Times announced that they were unionizing. Rather than applauding them and proceeding to negotiate a contract, the company instead refused to voluntarily recognize the union. This is despite its own editorial board supporting a bill that would have made it legally binding for employers to voluntarily accept union requests when they are backed by a majority of the staff.

As the paper’s own editorial explained: “Under current law, an employer can reject the majority’s signatures and insist on a secret ballot. But in a disturbingly high number of cases, the employer uses the time before the vote to pressure employees to rethink

… Read the rest

The questions around Trump’s encouragement or otherwise of the insurrection are boiling down to: was he evil or just stupid? Did he deliberately delay telling the insurrectionists to go home, or was he just having too much fun watching them on tv to get off his ass?

Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois who sits on the committee, underlined the laser-like focus of the investigation on Trump’s potential complicity.

Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said the key question now was: “What did the president know about 6 January leading up to 6 January?”

Kinzinger added that the panel wanted to know why Trump failed to take any action for almost three hours while the violence at the

… Read the rest

Politifact has more on this Robert Malone fella:

Video of Spotify host Joe Rogan’s controversial interview with a doctor known for making false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines was removed from YouTube, just days after Twitter banned the doctor’s account for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.

Dr. Robert Malone, who gained hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers in recent months as he promoted anti-vaccine falsehoods, drew a comparison in the interview between COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the U.S. and the environment in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Nazi party rose to power.

I’m not seeing it. Not seeing the similarity between Weimar Germany and the effort to vaccinate populations against a dangerous virus. Also not … Read the rest

Also in Y R people so dumb, a made-up mass delusion is made up.

An unfounded theory taking root online suggests millions of people have been “hypnotized” into believing mainstream ideas about COVID-19, including steps to combat it such as testing and vaccination.

In widely shared social media posts this week, efforts to combat the disease have been dismissed with just three words: “mass formation psychosis.”

Sounds technicalish and sciencey and psychologicalesque, doesn’t it. That was Freud’s way of bullshitting too.

The term gained attention after it was floated by Dr. Robert Malone on “The Joe Rogan Experience” Dec. 31 podcast. Malone is a scientist who once researched mRNA technology but is now a vocal skeptic of the COVID-19

… Read the rest

Back in 2014 local public radio did a story on The Little Street at the Bottom of a Landslide-prone Bluff aka Y R people so dumb?

It’s no secret that Western Washington is prone to landslides. The combination of glacial soils, steep slopes and water creates a risk that’s greater than in other parts of the U.S.

And it’s not just river valleys like the one near Oso: The region’s coastal bluffs are also danger zones that have experienced large landslides in recent decades.

But that still doesn’t deter people from living in those slide-prone areas.

Because people are just that dumb.

Ruth Trail has lived in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle for 23 years.

She said she loves it

… Read the rest

Just a little local story of no particular significance for once, simply because I saw some of it. I was out for a walk with a dog friend (or dog client, or something), on a boulevard that runs along the top of high bluffs at the western edge of Seattle, where Elliott Bay meets Puget Sound, and we came to a place with a lot of yellow tape between the sidewalk and the edge of the bluff. Part of the bluff there had collapsed recently, I’d noticed it some weeks or months back when walking the dog there, but it wasn’t yellow-taped then. Clearly this was new collapse, which was completely unsurprising given the record rains we’ve just had, and … Read the rest

Heh.

https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1479853371930644482 https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1479854435341897736 https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1479859700103618561 https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1479888087945826304… Read the rest

A new treat for your schedule:

https://twitter.com/V_Lundsten/status/1479788989846597640

“Feminist Gender Equality” – starring three men and Sally Hines talking about feminism. It doesn’t get much more equality than that.… Read the rest

Vandalism or termination of a hate crime?

THE Attorney General is considering referring the case in which four people were cleared of tearing down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston to the Court of Appeal.

Suella Braverman said the verdict is causing “confusion” and she is “carefully considering” whether to use powers which allow her to seek a review so senior judges have the chance to “clarify the law for future cases”.

…

The verdict prompted a debate about the criminal justice system after the defendants – dubbed the Colston Four – opted to stand trial in front of a jury and did not deny involvement in the incident, instead claiming the presence of the statue was a hate

… Read the rest

He’s unhappy about the Wes Streeting interview.

I think what I found hardest to take about the interview is his framing of women's rights versus trans rights. No attempt to interrogate that proposition. From there, there is nowhere good to go.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) January 7, 2022

When’s the last time Jolyon Maugham “interrogated” the proposition that trans dogma takes nothing from women at all whatsoever in the least? My rough estimate is that would be never.

I was trying (a bit ineptly) to emphasise a slightly different point, which was that only some women and some feminists (a minority as I understand the evidence) feel as he describes all women and all feminists feeling.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham)

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on More emp and und.

There was an essay on Forbes the other day about gatekeeping in fandoms, which I actually think is kind of relevant.

…the accusations of gatekeeping are being used to leverage access to effectively run each fandom and acquire power as a result.

I think there is a lot of truth in the complaints fans of various properties have about “wokeness” invading their spaces. A lot of the time, the issue keeping people out of specific hobbies isn’t that the hobbyists are saying “This isn’t for you” – it’s that the hobby just isn’t the “excluded” person’s bag.

Which is fine. You’re not being excluded if the thing isn’t … Read the rest

The Women’s Sports Foundation? Are they sure about that?

Kudos to @Penn and @IvyLeague for standing up for inclusion. We need to create sport environments that allow athletes to be their authentic selves. Having supportive schools and organizations behind them is critical.

All girls. All women. All sports. https://t.co/WFvuq3Zq7O

— Women's Sports Foundation (@WomensSportsFdn) January 7, 2022

The Women’s Sports Foundation says we need to create sport environments that allow athletes to be their authentic selves – by which they mean we need to let men pretend to be women so that they can steal all the prizes. What a peculiar thing for a Women’s Sports Foundation to mean. You’d think they’d be cheering on women rather than men who … Read the rest

Progress, but…

“Do you really think the way to win an argument for trans equality is to try and shut [J.K. Rowling] down?”

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting says “there’s got to be a lot more empathy and understanding” on both sides of the trans debatehttps://t.co/SoNEDDXZel pic.twitter.com/56SQmtNbHI

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 7, 2022

On both sides? I don’t think they’re equivalent. I don’t think you see as much testosteroney rage on the feminist side of the argument.

Still. It’s a step.… Read the rest

What are we talking about when we talk about ideology?

Joe Biden marked the first anniversary of 6 January with a powerful, ideological speech about the choice between democracy and autocracy.

Is the choice between democracy and autocracy really a matter of ideology? I think of it as more basic than that. Do you want someone like Trump making all the rules, or do you prefer a system where more people get a say?

Every major news network opted for somber programming and roundtable discussions about the fragile nature of American democracy.

Except for one.

Fox News’s primetime lineup of rightwing hosts used rock guitar licks to introduce a different narrative: one of hysterical Democrats “jilling up noise” and crying

… Read the rest

Trump issued a “statement” (i.e. a rambling incoherent page of words) in response to Biden’s speech yesterday.

As reasonable and responsible as ever.… Read the rest

Elite institutions fall all over themselves to support men destroying women’s sports.

https://twitter.com/IvyLeague/status/1479165876007886852

Harvard Athletics stands with Penn Athletics, and the Ivy League, in the support of all student-athletes and in rejecting hate and transphobia in our community. https://t.co/6Gw0PSHuTu

— Harvard Athletics (@harvardcrimson) January 6, 2022

“Unwavering commitment” to destroying women’s sports.… Read the rest

An interesting, teasing conundrum here. Is it possible to be insulting and ragey in public for hours every day while not actually being as insulting and ragey as that would seem?

Seen on Twitter today: “I’m not nearly as mean as I probably seem on Twitter.”

The tweeter, as you’ll have guessed, is someone who is insulting and ragey on Twitter for hours every day, so much so that that “probably seem” is laughable. Probably? Probably?

Anyway, is that possible? I’m not sure it is. I think if you act “mean” (i.e. sadistic and belligerent) a lot of the time then…well, you are sadistic and belligerent, aren’t you. Acting it is being it. “Seeming” it is being it. Doing it … Read the rest

Ah yes setting aside their differences.

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and her UPenn teammates set aside their differences over the last week to train for their final home meet of the season behind a cloak of secrecy.

It’s not really something the women can just set aside, is it. He’s intruding on them and stealing their chance to be first.

The twice-daily winter practice sessions passed without incident but the 41-strong team remains bitterly divided over Thomas’s record shattering feats as a newly-transitioned female, according to insiders.

They’re not actually “feats,” are they. He didn’t have any “feats” on the men’s team, so he’s not really racking up feats now that he’s competing with people who have multiple disadvantages … Read the rest