Climate change in action:

Wildfires in California and Montana exploded in size amid windy, hot conditions, forcing evacuation orders as they quickly encroached on neighborhoods.

In California’s Klamath national forest, the fast-moving McKinney fire, which started Friday, went from charring just over 1 sq mile (1 sq km) to scorching as much as 62 sq miles (160 sqkm) by Saturday in a largely rural area near the Oregon state line, according to fire officials.

Meanwhile in Montana, the Elmo wildfire nearly tripled in size to more than 11 sq miles within a few miles of the town of Elmo. And roughly 200 miles to the south, Idaho residents remained under evacuation orders as the Moose fire in the

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Oh so Keir Starmer isn’t terminally confused about what women are? Whaddyaknow.

The @Lionesses, you have inspired a generation of women and girls.

My daughter and her friends have strong, successful role models in sport because of you.

The entire nation is so proud. #WEuro2022Final

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 31, 2022

In case like me you haven’t been following – Carrie Dunn at the Guardian reports:

Sarina Wiegman’s team have done just what Gareth Southgate’s men did last summer – they’ve captured the imagination of the entire country with their determination, happiness and outrageous skill. Not only that, they went one better – although they went to extra time, Chloe Kelly scored to make England the champions

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Sorry sorry sorry!

I was worried that y’all might worry, because when I know I won’t be posting I let you know.

The internet in the big house went out (and mine is parasitic on it so mine went out too). This was yesterday morning, and as soon as it was almost 10 I hustled over to the library so that I could at least say why I was silent, but oh ha guess what, it was CLOSED because of the heat. Old Carnegie branch, you see, very elegant but no AC. Closed until Monday.

Sorry!… Read the rest

That’s not representation.

A record number of trans and nonbinary candidates are running for public office. Representation is so important! https://t.co/kGqk4R0VKv

— National NOW (@NationalNOW) July 29, 2022

Representation of women is so important, especially, one would hope, if you’re the National Organization for Women.

The reporting on this is so moronic, and so dishonest, it doesn’t qualify as reporting at all – it’s more like lying to the readers. The Post drivels like any barely adult “trans ally” squealing about pronouns.

In 2017, former journalist Danica Roem made history when she was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, making her the first out transgender state legislator in the United States. 

A man was elected to the Virginia House … Read the rest

Times reporter on Magistrates’ Court news:

I'm at Westminster Mags Court where three Metropolitan police officers are accused of sending grossly offensive messages in which they joked about sexually assaulting domestic violence victims and much more. This will be a thread.

— Fiona Hamilton (@Fhamiltontimes) July 28, 2022

Ah yes that’s what you want in cops who deal with domestic violence.

Jonathan Cobban, charged officer: That's alright, DV victims love it. That's why they are repeat victims"

— Fiona Hamilton (@Fhamiltontimes) July 28, 2022

Met PC William Neville: "3 domestics back to back today"
Borders: "I bet they all had one thing in common
Women that don’t listen"

— Fiona Hamilton (@Fhamiltontimes) July 28, 2022

Court told that Neville acted

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Janice Turner on the closing down of the Tavistock Gender Identity clinic:

Writing on this topic, I’ve often encountered facts so dangerous and beliefs so bizarre, so beyond science or reason, it’s been hard to convey their existence.

Listen, you say, British doctors are prescribing a drug used to chemically castrate rapists to halt puberty in children as young as 11. The drug isn’t even approved for child gender dysphoria. It reduces growth and bone density, sterilises and kills future libido. And, get this, we don’t know what it does to teenagers’ developing brains, or even if it works and they become happy, fulfilled trans adults. Because there’s no data, no long-term research.

Well when you put it like … Read the rest

Originally two comments by Bjarte Foshaug on These two loudmouth mammals.

I’m not at all a cult expert, but as an interested lay person who has read both Lifton, Singer, Ross, and Hassan, I think the importance of “saving face” can hardly be overestimated. How cult members respond to a major crisis depends heavily on how easy or difficult it is backpedal without too much public humiliation and loss of face. Those who haven’t made too much of a public commitment tend to just slip away quietly and pretend nothing ever happened. The people you really need to worry about are the ones who have made a strong commitment in public, invested everything they have in the cause, burned … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Comparisons are odious.

…more blunt than the Guardian.

The Guardian left that bit out. It’s rather important.

The Guardian left that bit out too.

It’s impossible to view this editorial decision making as anything but ideological. Newspapers aren’t usually in the business of “being kind,” but in this case they’re soft pedaling the story (perhaps for their own sake as much as for anyone else’s). It’s like the unspoken agreement between the press and JFK in regards to his infidelity and womanizing. But this isn’t about turning a blind eye to a politician’s extramarital affairs, it’s a story about the health and safety of children. It’s not just word … Read the rest

Pink News is eager to see men taking over women’s sports.

A women’s rugby union team has explained why it is passionate about including trans women as the RFU votes on banning them from the sport.

No the RFU doesn’t vote on banning them from the sport. As usual.

The York RI Ladies team took to Twitter ahead of a Rugby Football Union (RFU) vote on an outright ban on trans women and girls, taking place on Friday (29 July).

No it’s not an outright ban on women and girls. That’s the usual lie. It’s a ban on men in women’s rugby.

The RFU, which governs rugby union in England, will vote on a recommendation for a “policy change

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The jargon always distorts the “journalism.” Haroon Siddique at the Guardian doing a legal analysis of the Allison Bailey ruling:

The most significant ruling came in the Forstater case when, in June last year a panel led by the president of the employment appeal tribunal (EAT) held that gender-critical views were a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act.

The decision paved the way not just for Forstater winning her case, which was then sent back to an employment tribunal to be heard in full, but also Bailey’s victory against her chambers, Garden Court.

Lucy Lewis, employment partner at Lewis Silkin, said: “If you want to engage in public debate, if you are clear you are doing that

… Read the rest

The NY Times tries hard to minimize the bad news:

The National Health Service in England announced on Thursday that it was shutting down the country’s only youth gender clinic in favor of a more distributed and comprehensive network of medical care for adolescents seeking hormones and other gender treatments.

“Seeking hormones” as they might seek a new phone or beans on toast. Hormones aren’t like vitamins, you don’t seek them as if they were harmless and benign. People don’t seek diabetes medication or cancer drugs, they get prescribed them if they have diabetes or cancer.

The closure followed an external review of the Tavistock clinic in London, which has served thousands of transgender patients since the 1990s. The review

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Dennis raises an interesting point at about 29 minutes into The Mess We’re In: he says he used to do some family law work and that meant some work with Munchausen’s parents. Funny thing about that: it seems to have dried up. He asked someone else who said Oh yes that’s all gone.

Hmmmm.

Parents who like the limelight just a little too much, he said.… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1552720563772293120 https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1552720569853935616

5./ It's gender identity fanatics who argue it's unethical to run a human trial where a control group of gender dysphoric kids are NOT given blockers. That's why Glasgow University partnered with Norway's biggest gender identity clinic to devise an animal trial. So why sheep?

— Malcolm Clark (@TwisterFilm) July 28, 2022

7./ Also, if you want to study the impact of a chemical on the human body, mice are so different in body mass from us it's hard to get the dose right. Sheep are much closer (average mass 55kg) to humans. And there are less moral concerns than using monkeys.

— Malcolm Clark (@TwisterFilm) July 28, 2022

9./ The young sheep that weren't given blockers, when

… Read the rest

The Telegraph is, to the surprise of no one, more blunt than the Guardian.

The Tavistock transgender clinic is to be shut down by the NHS after a review found it is “not safe” for children.

NHS England will move young people who believe that they are trans into regional centres which will take a more “holistic” approach to treatment and look at other mental health or medical issues they may have.

Emphasis mine. The Guardian of course wouldn’t dream of putting it that way. Yet.

The decision is a response to the interim Cass Review, which warned that medics in the Tavistock had felt “under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach” to gender identity rather than going through

… Read the rest

The Guardian on the Tavistock:

But in recent years, concerns have repeatedly been raised about the service. Inspectors rated it “inadequate” after complaints raised by whistleblowers, patients and families.

The service was criticised for its care of patients both inside and outside the clinic, and it also had record waiting lists. Doctors reported concerns that some patients were referred on to a gender transitioning pathway too quickly.

The waiting lists might be seen as a good thing, given the quality of the “service.”

It followed recommendations from Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading an independent review of gender identity services for children and young people.

She said there was a need to move away from a model of a

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Graham reminds us of the video that should destroy Mermaids:

Now that the Tavistock is to shut down, at such speed that we can only guess the Cass report is to deliver a ferocious verdict on their operations, it’s time to look again at Mermaids, the organisation that has had such a malign influence over the centre.

Even the Alder Hey organs scandal didn’t lead to the hospital having to close. This is an extraordinary moment.

I believe that Susie Green’s Ted Talk provides all the evidence needed to shut Mermaids down.

“My husband wasn’t happy with our gender nonconforming son. So we put him on hormones and then castrated him. “ Not quite how she phrases it but that’s

… Read the rest

This is a must-watch – Dennis Kavanagh explaining what the closure of the Tavistock means.

Updating to quote:

Dennis: Mermaids and Co. telling kids they’ve got the wrong bodies and they should hate their bodies – which I consider a cruelty without equal – I don’t know why they’re allowed to maraud around and do that, but they are it would seem – they succeed by pushing lies. You cannot have gender without lies, it needs lies like a fish needs water.… Read the rest

Is that right?

It’s worth noting that being “gender critical” has the same basis in the English courts as believing that the universe was created 5,782 years ago

— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) July 27, 2022

The English courts consider people who know which sex is which comparable to biblical literalists? Really? Can that possibly be true? Wouldn’t it drive a bulldozer through all English law that relates to women and men? … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Seanna Watson on Then whydja do it?

I find the amount of deference granted to Franky (often even by avowed atheists) to be somewhere between inexplicable and infuriating. Despite all the pomp and ceremony of the apologetic visit (costing Canadian taxpayers ~$35 million), there has been precious little actual action taken by the church – in fact there is continuing resistance by the church to pay any sort of compensation.

Case in point: Parishioners in a Catholic church in Ottawa that is being sold had requested to have the proceeds directed toward reconciliation and residential school survivors. This seemed like a just and reasonable request, especially in view of the fact that the construction of the … Read the rest

The Tavistock is shutting down!

The Times reports:

The NHS is shutting down its gender identity clinic for children after a review found that it failed vulnerable under-18s.

The gender identity service at Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust has been ordered to close by next spring.

It will be replaced by regional centres at existing children’s hospitals offering more “holistic care” with “strong links to mental health services”.

Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic has been accused of rushing children into life-altering treatment on puberty blockers.

In other words into making changes to their bodies they will be stuck with for life.

The paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading a review of the service, issued

… Read the rest