Nearly a billion.

Jurors ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Wednesday to pay nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims’ relatives and an FBI agent, who said he turned their loss and trauma into years of torment by promoting the lie that the rampage was a hoax.

The $956 million verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host for spreading the myth that the massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.

The verdict came in a defamation lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the 2012 shooting, plus an FBI

Originally a comment by iknklast on You have to get water there.

This is my field, building and restoring ecosystems. Doing it on Earth we get it right less than 3% of the time. It is more than just water, and how likely are the lunar poles to provide enough water to keep more than a handful of humans for a short time? Who knows? There is research going on to determine how much water is on the moon…and other planets.

But there are a myriad of things we depend on, many of which we might not even know about. Fungus. Bacteria. Plants. Animals. Protozoans. Water. Soil. Atmosphere.

A moon colony – or any other planet – would not … Read the rest

The Independent tells us:

Transgender prisoners “with male genitalia” should no longer be held in women’s prisons, the justice secretary has announced.

That is, men should no longer be held in women’s prisons, even if they claim to be trans.

In a parliamentary statement, Brandon Lewis said he would bring forward a new policy on the issue later this year.

“Under the reforms, transgender prisoners with male genitalia should no longer be held in the general women’s estate,” he added.

“This will not be a blanket rule; exemptions to these new rules will be considered on a case-by-case basis. This will also apply to transgender women who have been convicted of a sex offence.”

What will? The rule, or … Read the rest

I don’t think this claim is true:

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis has spoken out against violence against trans people in a revealing interview with Spain’s Cadena SER radio network. The 63-year-old performer explained how her trans daughter receives death threats, and expressed alarm about the “terrifying” rise in transphobia.

“I have a trans daughter. There are threats against her life just [for] her existence as a human being,” she told Cadena SER on Tuesday. “There are people that want to annihilate her and people like her. The level of hatred… [It’s] as if we haven’t learned from fascism, [as if] we haven’t learned what the result of that is: the extermination of human beings. That is terrifying.”

I … Read the rest

About this “statement” of Munroe Bergdorf’s, which was apparently made on Instagram, which makes it a pain in the ass to quote or cite – it’s interesting that it starts with insulting women.

Note the disdain – “spurred on by a group of middle-aged cisgender women.” As if there’s something obviously contemptible and illegitimate about adult women having opinions and goals, and acting on them. He sounds like people ranting about “the Jews.” Yes, women are interested in this political movement, partly because it has such immense hostility and disdain toward women. Jews are interested in anti-Semitism and women are interested in men who claim to better women than women are.

Munroe Bergdorf is a man who performs “being a … Read the rest

LGBT+ Labour @LGBTLabour is “The Labour Campaign for LGBT+ rights. Campaigning for equality since 1975. Affiliated to @UKLabour.” Yesterday it went all-in for Mermaids.

Munroe Bergdorf couldn’t have outlined our thoughts any better. We wanted to share with you what she’s written.

The attack on Mermaids is as unsubstantive as the attack on Stonewall. We stand in solidarity with @Mermaids_Gender. pic.twitter.com/MxHna0yXt1

— LGBT+ Labour (@LGBTLabour) October 11, 2022

Team Urge Children to Destroy Their Bodies. Yay.… Read the rest

This seems a bit clumsy.

So Jameela Jamil & Munroe Bergdorf have both issued statements in defense of Mermaids.

What's interesting about the two statements is that they are IDENTICAL.

Mermaids is obviously issuing a pre-written statement for its patrons to post.

Desperate. #SafeguardingFail #Mermaids pic.twitter.com/w9RjF5k9UW

— Bessie Braddock (@BraddockBessie) October 12, 2022

It’s not just a quick concise statement, either, but a long (to the point of tedium) detailed self-important little essay.

And why are random people issuing “statements” on the subject anyway, as if they were important or informed or otherwise relevant? Why is anyone supposed to care what Jameela Jamil thinks? Why are we consulting her about whether it’s ok to ruin teenagers’ bodies for the sake … Read the rest

Originally a comment by KB Player on You have to get water there.

All the effort to make something which on earth nature does it by itself even on unpromising sites.

This morning I walked past a piece of “waste” ground, a slab of concrete about two feet from the ground, about 100 yards long and 10 yards wide. It was put in as part of the tram works, probably around 10 years ago.

It is now covered with buddleia, which attracts insects in the summer. There’s a cotoneaster with berries. Soil is building up from the leaves that have fallen and rotted. I did a little guerrilla gardening the year before last and planted some daffodil bulbs, and … Read the rest

Talking about women’s rights is transphobic.

Teachers who discuss sex-based women’s rights with transgender colleagues would be considered “transphobic” under a policy proposed by members of Britain’s largest teaching union.

That is, feminist teachers who talk about feminism with colleagues who call themselves transgender will be branded evil by their own union. People who call themselves trans have all the rights and women have none.

The National Education Union’s trans and non-binary network has proposed that anyone who expects trans people “to participate in discussion or debate about their rights and/or identities” is transphobic.

I wouldn’t want to talk to trans people about it, frankly, because they wouldn’t listen. The trouble is it will probably come up, because … Read the rest

How “skepticism” has fallen.

One more for the GC idiots. No one is saying that trans people change their chromosomes. What people are saying is that identity matters. You are what’s in your head, not what’s between your legs.

— Tom Williamson (@skepticCanary) October 10, 2022

You are what’s in your head, not what your body is. Could it be any more “spiritual” and religion-like? Thoughts determine physical reality; physical reality does not.

It’s all the more fatuous given the emphasis skepticism normally puts on how easy it is to fool ourselves, how difficult it is to see ourselves clearly, how prone we all are to flattering self and disparaging others (like “GC idiots” for instance). There’s all that, but … Read the rest

Mermaids is getting more unwelcome attention:

Parents of children who have used the transgender youth charity Mermaids have complained to the watchdog after a [male] worker posted explicit images and sexualised pictures “as a schoolgirl” online.

Darren Mew, digital engagement officer at the children’s charity and who identifies as “they/them”, posted an image of himself on Instagram with an upwards view through his short skirt with the words “Sorry I can’t hear you. I’m just out here living my fantasy” and the hashtag “nonbinaryfinery”.

Mew was also featured in a collage of six pictures of himself naked, holding his erect penis, from the rear and with pairs of breasts with penises protruding from them for a shot for Haus

Oh hey what do you know, Biden does know what a man is.

Under President Joe Biden’s administration, transgender women who are born male must register for the Selective Service, which provides the Defense Department with troops in the event of a military draft. Transgender men who are born female do not have to register for the Selective Service. While the policy was established before Biden took office, the Biden administration has not changed the standard.

How very interesting. As people are pointing out all over Twitter, Biden thinks it’s fine for men to invade women’s sports and take their prizes and join them in the toilets and locker rooms, but not to refuse to register for the potential … Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknklast on A cold, dark, black emptiness.

It takes MASSIVE amounts of fuel just to get off the planet. Transporting the ingredients of biospheres too isn’t doable.

Not to mention the ecological issues. We don’t have much success building ecosystems on Earth, in places where there is existing soil, a seed bank, and a nearby highway to readily move things from one spot to another. I worked on one demonstration project – just a five mile stretch of a lake, to show it could be done. We moved aquatic plants from south central Oklahoma to south eastern Oklahoma, a three hour drive in good situations, but five hours when you are going slow and stopping … Read the rest

From Pliny:… Read the rest

The abject stupidity around this subject is breathtaking.

Sturgeon is correct: “Abusive men are a threat to women. Trans women are not a threat to women. This is about further stigmatising & excluding an already stigmatised group. Real feminists should be concerned with real threats to women, not with stigmatising trans women.” #r4today

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) October 7, 2022

Fascinating, Sturgeon, but how does anyone know which are the “trans women” and which are the abusive men? How do you know that zero abusive men claim to be trans women? How is anyone supposed to know for absolute certain that all trans women are sincerely deluded as opposed to seizing an obvious opportunity to abuse women and get away … Read the rest

But it’s the right-on kind of misogyny.

Nicola Sturgeon’s Scotland: a place where an Equalities Officer feels free to declare in public how much he wants to beat up non-compliant women.

SNP equalities officer threatened to 'beat the f*** out of terfs' in abusive tweets – Daily Record https://t.co/hQ4fZJvmEd

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 10, 2022

So lets read about this charming young fella. [Updating to say: probably not a fella; see comments.]

An SNP equalities officer has apologised for a series of social media outbursts including one threatening violence against women. In now deleted posts, Cameron Downing, 23, said he wanted to “beat the f[uck] out of some terfs and transphobes”.

The old familiar a man wanted to … Read the rest

Putin responds:

The past few hours have seen wave after wave of explosions, not just here in Kyiv, but all across this vast country, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east and Odesa in the south.

For those of us who were here when Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February, there’s an element of déjà vu. We’ve been told to spend as much time as we can in the basement, as further attacks, using missiles and drones, are expected.

But this is also different. The explosions here in Kyiv are much closer to the centre. Not distant thumps from the suburbs, but loud reverberations close to streets and locations we’ve come to know well in the

Eva Kurilova at Reduxx tells us:

In their push to destroy female sports, gender activists have dropped any veneer of concern about keeping sporting competitions fair and safe for female athletes.

On September 26, Biathlon Canada introduced a new policy on gender inclusion that allows men unrestricted access to the female category on the basis of self-declared gender identity. In other words, all a man has to do is say he is a woman, and he’s allowed to cheat his way to a female athlete’s spot on the podium.

According to the Biathlon Canada website, the policy was passed with the unanimous approval of the board of directors and is intended to outline “how the organization will create respectful

What Ian did:

Hurricane Ian has shown just what Florida is up against in a world where global warming is, as climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe described recently, “putting hurricanes on steroids.” Ian blew ashore with winds of 150 miles per hour, and pushed storm surges of 12 to 18 feet before moving across central Florida, where it caused extensive inland flooding. 

Ian splintered and washed away homes, broke bridges, toppled trees, tossed boats, submerged roads and fell power lines in communities like Fort Myers, Sanibel Island, Naples and the Orlando area. It caused $45 billion to $55 billion in property damage, according to a preliminary estimate from Moody’s Analytics. There are now fears that Ian will make the state’s

Florida public radio told us last February that the state made a lot of star appearances in the latest IPCC report:

Climate change has already changed places like Florida permanently and irreversibly — affecting coral reefs, leading to higher property values and increasing inequality for vulnerable populations in the state, according to a new global report from the world’s top scientists.

The nearly 2,000-page report had a global focus, but Florida was repeatedly used as an example of a place where the impacts of climate change were already being felt, both economically and environmentally.

Which is unsurprising seeing as how it’s a narrow peninsula in a rising sea.

The report specifically mentions Florida multiple times, including:

• Tidal flooding worsened by