Oh and what else is Rowling up to today? Nothing much…

I will personally match donations to this appeal, up to £1m. Thank you so, so much to all who’ve already donated, you’re enabling @lumos to do crucial work for some of the most vulnerable children in Ukraine. https://t.co/XK8yTtB1nl

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 7, 2022

… Read the rest

Never?

I’ve never, to my knowledge, encouraged anyone to bully anyone else. And I can imagine only too well what Julie has had to face in her years of feminist activism. I think she’s more resilient than me- but she should not have had to be. Nor does it excuse the way she’s acting now.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 7, 2022

Where have I said that?

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 7, 2022

See TERF Wars: Why Transphobia Has no Place in Feminism, from June 2020:

Last week, beloved children’s author J.K. Rowling briefly became the world’s most famous transphobe. After the Harry Potter writer spent days defending transphobia on Twitter and in her blog, writing that she

Or to put it more succinctly –

oh. https://t.co/s4B6q5Cdfw https://t.co/pgcSLHNrGk pic.twitter.com/SVYkiOiTzz

— Admiral Invalidator KPSS (@GNARLYlSSTALKlN) March 7, 2022

… Read the rest

Another chapter in the crisps on a train saga.

Thoughts and prayers, Julie.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 7, 2022

Just in case you missed Apparently it’s considered unprofessional, or have forgotten the details, Laurie Penny tweeted to the world yesterday that bad reviews of her book set off her (putative) CPTSD. Julie is satirizing that absurd claim, and JKR is sharing the joke. So what does the putative CPTSD sufferer do? She makes a public fool of herself all over again. Somebody really should tell her she’s the source of her own CPTSD.

Hi Joanne. I’ve loved so much of your writing over the years. I’m the person whose mental health history is being mocked in this tweet,

How to react when your book is greeted with harsh reviews:

Wildly hateful reviews and straight-up personal attacks were placed prominently in a number of major broadsheets. The focus was almost wholly on my sexuality, my gender identity and sexual history. Everyone- my agent, my publishers, me- was taken by surprise at the viciousness. >

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 6, 2022

Apparently it’s considered unprofessional to respond to reviews. But in this case, those involved in the hit-job are the ones who behaved unprofessionally. I’m done pretending otherwise. They knew exactly what they were doing, and frankly they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 6, 2022

It’s unprofessional to write a review saying Laurie … Read the rest

The ACLU tells us:

Families in Texas are worried that supporting their transgender kids will lead to a report of child abuse. We are already seeing families being investigated. Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, saves lives, and shouldn’t be the subject of an investigation.

Supporting transgender kids is one thing, and letting them get amputations and/or puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones is another. The ACLU does not know that what it calls “gender-affirming care” (i.e. amputations, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones) is medically necessary, nor does it know that it saves more lives than it puts at risk. This is all new territory and it’s just not obvious, let alone established, that there won’t be thousands of people who regret … Read the rest

Trump said we should bomb Russia and pretend China did it. Sound and reasonable as ever.

Former president Donald Trump mused Saturday to the GOP’s top donors that the United States should label its F-22 planes with the Chinese flag and “bomb the shit out of Russia.”

…

“And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch,” he said of labeling U.S. military planes with Chinese flags and bombing Russia, which was met with laughter from the crowd of donors, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post.

Hahahaheehee it is all such a great joke.… Read the rest

Charlie Porter is a fashion journalist who thinks he’s a gender-rebel.

I am 48, a midlife point that gives me perspective on what I maybe didn’t realise before. I have always used clothing to poke at the assumptions of gender. As a kid, I had safe parameters from my whiteness and middle-class upbringing within an accepting family. Where I sit on the gender spectrum is like a comedy version of “male”, which has allowed me to pass lightly in this patriarchal society.

Others, he hints, are not so capacious in their thinking.

According to gender-critical feminists, men who voice their trans-inclusive beliefs on gender identity are bullies and misogynists. It is common among such men to desire the dismantling

Originally a comment by Green Eagle on Capture.

“Gender” is a linguistic term, not a biological one. Words may have a gender; something which is far more understandable to people who speak languages like French, German or Italian, where many words have genders unrelated to the sex of the creatures they refer to. “Equus,” or “Alumnus, for example are words of the male gender, regardless of whether they refer to male or female horses or graduates. There is no such thing as an equua, and the term alumna is a construct.

Whether a person is male or female is a biological question, not a linguistic one, and is capable of being answered correctly by any minimally qualified geneticist. People … Read the rest

How not to help refugees fleeing a war on civilians:

France has accused Britain of “lacking humanity” in helping fleeing Ukrainians join their families in the UK via the French port city of Calais.

French interior minister Gerald Darmanin, in a strongly-worded letter to his British counterpart Priti Patel, urged London to set up a proper consular presence in Calais to issue visas after 150 Ukrainians were turned away and asked to obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.

Paris and Brussels are not across the street or around the corner, they are a hefty train journey away. These are refugees, not tourists.

The French minister, in his letter, said the UK’s response was “completely unsuitable” and

Zelensky did a Zoom call with a group of Congress people yesterday. The Congress people were told, emphatically, not to share anything about the call during the call so as not to endanger Zelensky. Two Republican senators said nah we’ll just go ahead and endanger Zelensky.

Two US senators have come under fire for sharing photos of Volodomyr Zelensky on social media after they were reportedly asked not to for the safety of the Ukrainian president.

Democratic Rep Dean Phillips slammed Republican Senators Steve Daines and Marco Rubio for their “appalling and reckless ignorance” after they each posted screen grabs from a Zoom call between Mr Zelensky and a group of US lawmakers on Saturday morning, where he had

It seems Bill Barr has written a book in which he brags about how fiercely he stood up to Trump.

In excerpts published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump’s former attorney general recounts how he bravely stood up to Trump about his bogus claims of election fraud, telling him: “The fact is, we have looked at the major claims your people are making, and they are bullshit.”

The courageous Barr hit Trump with another expletive: “I’ve told you that the fraud claims are not supported. … But your legal team continues to shovel this shit out to the American people. And it is wrong.”

And another! “’Mr. President,’ I said, ‘the reason you are in this

When even George Will is harsh…

We are the sum of our choices, and Vladimir Putin has provoked some Trump poodles to make illuminating ones. Their limitless capacity for canine loyalty now encompasses the Kremlin war criminal. (The first count against Nazi defendants at Nuremberg: “Planning, preparation, initiation and waging of wars of aggression.”) For example, the vaudevillian-as-journalist Tucker Carlson, who never lapses into logic, speaks like an arrested-development adolescent: Putin has never called me a racist, so there.

J.D. Vance, groveling for Trump’s benediction (Vance covets Ohio’s Republican Senate nomination), two weeks ago said: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.” Apparently upon discovering that Ohio has 43,000 Ukrainian Americans, Vance underwent a conviction transplant, saying

Lessons for invaders: don’t use the elevators.

Russia agreed to a ceasefire in Mariupol and then went on shelling the evacuation corridor.

Russian forces continued to shell the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Saturday, despite agreeing to a ceasefire just hours earlier – throwing an attempted mass evacuation of civilians into chaos.

It would, wouldn’t it.

Three hours after the ceasefire was supposed to begin, at 09:00 (07:00 GMT), Mariupol authorities announced they had postponed a planned mass evacuation because of the continued bombardment.

“We ask the people in Mariupol to head for the shelter, there will be more information on the evacuation asap,” a statement said.

“Due to the fact that the Russian side is not sticking to the ceasefire and continues to shoot Mariupol

They might as well be building their new houses on the slopes of an active volcano, or on a frozen lake that melts every summer, or in the middle of a freeway.

Away from the lights and fountains of the Las Vegas Strip, bulldozers are working overtime as the suburbs of Sin City are bursting out of their seams.

Las Vegas is growing at a staggering rate. Clark county, where the city is located, is home to roughly 2.3 million people, but forecasts predict the population could go beyond 4 million by 2055.

And Las Vegas is where? In. the. desert. And the climate is doing what? Getting. hotter.

What is wrong with people?

Attracted by the lure of

The dog that didn’t bark in the night:

Donald Trump was aware long before he took the stage at the “Save America” rally on 6 January that he would not march to the Capitol to protest the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win, according to his White House private schedule from that day.

The former president started his nearly 75-minute long speech at the Ellipse by saying he would go with the crowd to the Capitol, and then repeated that promise when he said he would walk with them down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol.

But Trump’s private schedule – released by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack in a filing on Wednesday – shows Trump

This again.

Free tickets are available for this talk now at : https://t.co/5MFdTN9F24 #WicklowLibraries #InternationalWomensDay2022 pic.twitter.com/FhqHlQ00LZ

— Wicklow Libraries (@WicklowLibs) March 3, 2022

International Women’s Day they say, but Sara Phillips is a man.

Right there – in celebration of International Women’s Day.

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2022, Wicklow County Council Library Service has invited Wicklow’s own Sara Phillips to the library for what promises to be an interesting conversation with Mary Millett from County Wicklow Partnership. Sara hails from Ashford and is a member of the National Women’s Council of Ireland and also chairperson of The Transgender Equality Network Ireland, TENI.

Sara will be chatting about a variety of topics , in particular those that affect

The Tucker Carlson-Russia-Trump-Bozo the Clown nexus continues to outdo itself in weirdness. Back in December:

“At this point, NATO exists primarily to torment Vladimir Putin,” Carlson said, “who, whatever his many faults, has no intention of invading Western Europe. Vladimir Putin does not want Belgium. He just wants to keep his western border secure.” He insisted that Putin just wanted to secure Russia’s naval base on the Crimean peninsula, which, of course, was already secure from Russia’s 2014 incursion into Ukraine.

He just wants the Sudetenland, really, it will all be fine.

He suggested that concerns about Russia were a function of lobbying from Ukrainian actors and a “hangover” from spending four years on the “Russia hoax” — Donald Trump’s