Originally a comment by Athel Cornish-Bowden on It is important to distinguish.

We should never forget the Deir Yassin massacre carried out by Irgun terrorists led by Menachem Begin, who later founded Likud, the current party of government, which continues the ideas of Irgun with less overt violence. Likud is largely responsible for the humiliations and hardships that Palestinians suffer every day, starting with the continuing invasion of the West Bank. If some Palestinians feel pushed into retaliating in horrific ways then we still need to ask who is ultimately to blame. A few years ago we had a colleague older than us — well into her 70s and maybe 80s — who was involved in non-violent support of … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Pliny the in Between on Here’s your amuse-bouche sir.

Being a white haired guy i my ’60s, almost every time I go to a restaurant anymore some 20 something asks if I need help with the QR code menu or ordering. Or in the self-check line at the grocery, or any other place where modern IT is about. I smile, say no thank you, and enjoy my wife’s wry smile at all this ageism, knowing full well that I just spent the last 8 hours analyzing training sequences in an AI system I developed. Or figuring ways to constrain generative AI. They don’t know that, of course and I could get all pissy about it … Read the rest

Fighting for the glorious cause of…this one person.

Double Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya says her focus is now “more about winning battles against the authorities” than collecting medals.

Semenya, 32, was born with differences of sexual development (DSD) and cannot compete in any track events without taking testosterone-reducing drugs. The South African wants to hold World Athletics to account for discrimination against athletes with hyperandrogenism.

“I fight for what is right for humanity and for inclusivity,” she said.

Inclusivity of what though? Of people with extra testosterone? Is that really a glorious cause?

Hyperandrogenism is a medical condition characterised by higher than usual levels of testosterone, a hormone that increases muscle mass and strength.

You can see his … Read the rest

Wow here’s a shocker – “Barbie” Kardashian is less violent when he’s in the men’s prison wing. Who could have predicted that?

Trans inmate Barbie Kardashian’s behaviour behind bars has improved dramatically since being placed into a men’s prison. Sources say there “isn’t a peep” out of Kardashian as the lag lives within a strict and disciplined regime in Limerick prison.

The Irish Mirror revealed in August that the 21-year-old had been transferred there from the women’s wing of the jail. Prison officers in the female wing were struggling to keep her under control, as she threatened staff and fellow lags.

The “fellow lags” who are female and thus extra vulnerable to hulking strong psychopaths like “Barbie.”

Female staff

This is worth watching because…what is he doing? Who is filming all this? Does he just systematically bring someone along when he goes out to eat and instruct that someone to record all interactions with the servers? So that he can bully and punish every single worker who recognizes a man and uses the normal polite subservient language when talking to that man? Yes, clearly that’s exactly what he does. Poisonous scumbag.

This obvious man goes to restaurants and films himself waiting to be 'misgendered' by staff so that he can complain about it. It's clear he's doing this so he can both play the victim and exert power over low-paid workers by shaming and punishing them pic.twitter.com/PF8A9wYk79

— ripx4nutmeg

Trump has a boatload of gag orders and he’s having himself a high old time ignoring them all and telling us he’s ignoring them. Crime boss does whatever he wants all the time and brags about it in public while campaigning all too successfully for a second term as president. We’re locked in a nightmare.

Judge Chutkan gagged Donald Trump tonight.

Anyone else would be sitting in jail pending trial. pic.twitter.com/9faXpseXhv

— Evan (@daviddunn177) October 30, 2023

Trump is already attacking Judge Chutkan's Sunday night decision, reinstating his gag order, in a Truth Social post that he made in the middle of the night. pic.twitter.com/dh1effEkPf

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) October 30, 2023

… Read the rest

The Telegraph reports:

The Welsh government is to redefine women to include transgender females under planned new laws.

The proposal was revealed on Sunday in a leaked draft of its Gender Quotas Bill which proposes that half the candidates in any list to be members of the Senedd must be women.

For the purposes of the proposed legislation this includes transgender women, the report stated.

For the purposes of the proposed legislation this includes transgender women, the report stated.

That is so so so fucking insulting. “Ok ok ok we’ll pass a bill saying half the candidates must be women. But we’ll also say men can be women so ha you lose anyway. Sorrynotsorry bitches.”… Read the rest

First, Julie Bindel in The Spectator last November:

The most important job of any union is to support its members against bullies. So why has the Society of Authors, a sort of posh union for writers, illustrators and translators, failed to support members who are receiving death threats? In August, J.K. Rowling tweeted her sympathy for Sir Salman Rushdie after his attempted murder. Imagine how she felt when she received this response: ‘Don’t worry, you are next.’ Rowling is a member of the Society of Authors and expected the union to put pressure on the authorities by condemning the threats against her. Right? Wrong.

Not only did the Society fail to defend Rowling, but the chair of the management

All in fun! Just joking! Where’s your sensayuma?

More threats. Found by @Aja02537920 pic.twitter.com/hgR2ZrqngX

— J. Dreyfus Esq & Master Hobbes (blue tick each) (@DreyfusJames) October 30, 2023

Etsy sells these shirts with explicity violent messages. pic.twitter.com/Gs2iQFc80s

— Zubi Bubalus (Reality Matters) (@Zubi_Freeman) October 30, 2023

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sackbut on Not Selfridge’s.

It is important to me distinguish:

– the actions of the Israeli government;

– the state of Israel itself;

– Israelis;

– Jewish people;

– Palestinian people;

– the nation of Palestine (whatever that means currently);

– the actions of the Palestinian government;

– the actions of non-governmental groups.

I keep looking for nuance in the various protests, and in reports of these protests. I keep hoping to see protesters make clear that they are criticizing government actions and not damning the civilian populations. I keep hoping for news coverage to make this clear. But it is distressingly rare. Protests like this one are described as “pro-Palestine” rather than “pro Palestinian … Read the rest

Horrific.

Berlin 1933.
The brownshirts held their rally then marched to a Jewish owned shop to make the staff & their customers feel unsafe.

Glasgow 2023.
The anti semites held their rally then marched to a Jewish owned shop to make the staff & their customers feel unsafe.#ScotlandsShame pic.twitter.com/7Cs5Ew8s1Y

— Biology Rules Ok (@OkayBiology) October 30, 2023

The Marks in Marks & Spencer was Michael Marks, a Jewish immigrant from Belarus. … Read the rest

Trump again told to shut up, again fails to comply.

A federal judge has reinstated a limited gag order on former President Donald Trump in his 2020 presidential election subversion case. It prevents him from criticising court staff, prosecutors and possible witnesses between now and his trial.

Judge Tanya Chutkan had temporarily lifted the order earlier this month so his lawyers could appeal but reinstated it on Sunday. An hour after the news emerged, Mr Trump called the judge “Trump hating”.

Laura Norder innit.

The former president is also under a gag order in a separate ongoing civil fraud trial in New York.

The judge in that case has issued two separate fines against Mr Trump for violating that

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Protecting the public.

If they are that “acutely vulnerable” then maybe the outside world is not for them. If they really must go out of doors, they should make it brief. They should wear blinkers, lest they be upset by anything alarming coming into their peripheral vision. Looking down at the ground is also to be recommended. For longer, more dangerous journeys, they should be preceded by someone walking 10-20 yards ahead of them, ringing a bell, wearing a sign proclaiming “CAUTION: ACUTELY VULNERABLE PERSON APPROACHING!” This will give people in the vicinity time to hide from view anything that might upset or give offence.

There is no such thing

Yet more solidarity from the boys.

Fred Wallace has gone to #LetWomenSpeak with a speaker shouting Baker's threats against women on repeat.

After this, he hung it in the women's area. Like the obsessive misogynist he is. https://t.co/73Y5N2bywN

— Billy Bragg (@Serena_Partrick) October 29, 2023

… Read the rest

The nightmare returns:

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters stormed the airport in the Russian city of Makhachkala in the predominantly Muslim region of Daghestan, with some shouting anti-Jewish comments at passengers arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv on October 29.

Riot police arrived at the airport after the disturbances, while the Interior Ministry office in Makhachkala said reinforcements, including National Guard units, were being sent to “ensure the safety” of arriving passengers, according to the Baza Telegram channel.

Anti-Jewish protests have broken out in several cities in the region in the face of Israel’s war with Hamas, rulers of the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip.

…

Late on October 29, videos and photos from the scene published by Izvestia indicated

Yay more theocracy for us:

In the moments before he was to face a vote on becoming speaker of the House this week, Representative Mike Johnson posted a photograph on social media of the inscription carved into marble atop the chamber’s rostrum: “In God We Trust.”

That inscription of course should not be there.

His colleagues celebrated his candidacy by circulating an image of him on bended knee praying for divine guidance with other lawmakers on the House floor.

That’s just downright revolting. “I believe in a magic daddy in the sky so I’m better than you.”

And in his first speech from the chamber as speaker, Mr. Johnson cast his ascendance to the position second in line to

Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on More bags.

The trouble with Western democracies is that the people who stand for political office are commonly not themselves democrats. They prefer their own wills to prevail rather than those of the population-at-large. Some prize examples of elected anti-democrats spring readily to mind.

I always wondered what the purpose of a divided government was, why didn’t the founders set up a parliamentary system where the majority party holds the executive? The way it is, the executive branch can be hamstrung as it is about to be when the next U.S. government shutdown battle comes along (and Johnson will not make a deal like McCarthy did). But, when someone like Trump or … Read the rest

That sounds like a brilliant parody:

I wasn't impressed with the first book of the series. Will this one be any better?https://t.co/nGPleYOKdq pic.twitter.com/AoQNHuyJCe

— Miroslav Imbrisevic (@Miroandrej) October 29, 2023

The trans “struggle for justice” hahahahahahahaha hilarious.

Let’s have a look.

Acknowledging the formidable hurdles trans and nonbinary athletes face in their struggles for inclusion, acceptance, and freedom, this book documents and analyses their resistance across a range of social-cultural and geopolitical contexts, from community sport to high-performance competition.

It looks like a parody but apparently isn’t.

So let’s talk about this “struggle” for “inclusion, acceptance, and freedom.”

Inclusion. We’ve been over this. We’ve been over this a billion times by now. Athletic competitions have categories and qualifications. … Read the rest

The list includes Mein Kampf and gender critical books…and nothing else.

Works by authors including Helen Joyce and Prof Kathleen Stock were hidden from view by a library service of the Labour-run Calderdale council, and are now barred from being promoted in displays in order to protect the public from offence.

The only other book similarly censored by the library service by being hidden was Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

So, it seems, the Calderdale library system considers gender-skeptical feminism to be on a level with genocidal Nazism.

That’s puzzling for a number of reasons. Like, for instance, the fact that gender-skeptical feminism is not genocidal or genocidal-adjacent or remotely in any way similar to or connected to genocide. … Read the rest

Sorry but this is too hilarious to pass up.

Fred to Willoughby:

“The less you say now the better”

If only Fred could take his own advice we wouldn’t have to listen to his drunken incoherent misogynist and homophobic drivel… pic.twitter.com/EUW3y82jD5

— The Women Exist Society (@WomensSocIre) October 28, 2023

Like the fact that there were five men and one woman discussing an issue about women? No, of course not that, that’s fine. Fred’s choices on the other hand…… Read the rest