A new Pliny:

Mike Davis: “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn” from 30-odd years ago:

Malibu, meanwhile, is the wildfire capital of North America and, possibly, the world. Fire here has a relentless staccato rhythm, syncopated by landslides and floods. The rugged 22-mile-long coastline is scourged, on the average, by a large fire (one thousand acres plus) every two and a half years, and the entire surface area of the western Santa Monica Mountains has been burnt three times over the twentieth century. At least once a decade a blaze in the chaparral grows into a terrifying firestorm consuming hundreds of homes in an inexorable advance across the mountains to the sea. Since 1970 five such holocausts have destroyed more than one thousand

Leave Title IX alone, Joe.

A federal judge in Kentucky on Thursday struck down President Biden’s effort to expand protections for transgender students and make other changes to the rules governing sex discrimination in schools, ruling that the Education Department had overstepped and violated teachers’ rights by requiring them to use students’ preferred pronouns.

It’s not “sex discrimination” to decline to call a boy “she.” It’s more the other way around. Boys demanding to be called “she” are undercutting girls’ and women’s rights.

The ruling, which extends nationwide, came as a major blow to the Biden administration in its effort to provide new safeguards for L.G.B.T.Q. and pregnant students, among others, through Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. 

Arwa Mahdawi on the fires and women and Musk:

On Wednesday, for example, Musk took some time out from obsessively tweeting about whether the US should “liberate” Britain to proclaim that the Los Angeles fire department (LAFD) “prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes”. He has continued to post spurious claims about diversity initiatives (for example, “DEI means people DIE”) for days now, along with posts insinuating that if LAFD’s fire chief weren’t a woman, then things would be very different.

If only no one were a woman. You know? Wouldn’t that be great? Male competence replacing female incompetence everywhere? Imagine the efficiency, the inspiration, the superhuman strength.

There are, to be clear, various nuanced issues

This is truly staggering.

When I asked my 46th District legislators about the lawsuit from the former female prisoner forced to share a cell with a 6’4” male who sexually assaulted her, their response was … interesting. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/NuaBFUoATi

— Beth Daranciang (@bethsd) January 11, 2025

Updating to add transcript, thanks to NightCrow.

Question: Hi. Washington State is being sued by a woman who was forced to share a jail cell with a six foot four male who sexually harassed and assaulted her over many days and weeks. And she was told by the prison the Washington State Prison to not report it because she might get retaliated against. She had to suffer that for a long

Another conversation with Humanists UK:

Gender identity is an absurd dualist claim that relies on the proposition that boy gender souls end up in girl bodies and vice versa. There is no scientific test for a gender identity and it cannot be falsified. You are practicing cult level religion.

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) January 10, 2025

You are rather avoiding my point.

You appear to be saying the criminal law of the United Kingdom should concern itself with gender souls where it would not with the equivalent religious concept.

Do I have your position correct?

A yes or no please

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) January 10, 2025

With the greatest of respect, the term we were discussing was

Forced teaming creates yet another mess.

This is the mentality that permitted the chemical castration of Alan Turing and thousands of other gay and bi men

This is the mindset of the abusers in church robes who subject people to ‘conversion therapy’ torture for their innate sexual orientation

Shocking policy from Meta https://t.co/fiGrdClA8R

— Humanists UK (@Humanists_UK) January 10, 2025

There are no “LGBTQ+” people. It’s an impossibility. No one can be lesbian and gay male and bisexual and trans and “queer” and +. (And what does “+” mean anyway?)

Humanists UK can’t explain.

We don't believe in 'innate gendered souls' and we aren't 'mandating' anything. This is a post about Meta equivocating re the false belief that being LGBT

Hm. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say don’t do this.

The pink hair ribs-deficient person is male.

From a physiology standpoint, this individual has just turned his T10-T12 vertebra into L zero, L minus 1, and L minus 2. What? The human body has 5 lumbar vertebrae, which are enough to let us pivot at the waist, but our own natural lumbar vertebrae get SO MUCH stress T11 and…

— Jonathan Clemens, PA-C (@jpclemens) January 10, 2025

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Coel on Brought to you by.

Since climate change matters and since the science of climate change is important:

Whenever there is a cold snap or a snow storm some will inevitably quip “so much for global warming” and use one weather event as an excuse to ignore the settled opinion about climate change. They are very wrong to do so.

It is equally wrong to point to a drought event, a drought-caused fire, or indeed a hurricane, and suggest that it is due to climate change, or even to suggest that climate change has made those events much more likely. We don’t know enough to know that. After all, California is a semi-desert and … Read the rest

I was reading someone burbling about trans women menstruating and blah blah blah and a thought suddenly occurred to me (weirdly late, I think) – we’ve heard a lot about gender dysphoria, and especially a lot about men who have it, but what about other kinds of dysphoria? Specifically what about gay men who have to tell people they’re gay? You know what I mean? Gay men who appear straight – not necessarily football playerish, not necessarily muscular or domineering or anything else in particular, but just not clockable as gay.

(I don’t think it works the same way with lesbians. Lots are not clockable. Let me know if I’m wrong.)

I wonder if that can cause a form of … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Francis Boyle on Making everything worse.

The climate catastrophe deniers have long given up on any attempt to argue a case. They tried that long and hard but there’s only so many times you can use sleight of hand* as an argumentative technique. The Trump technique of more or less random abuse of anyone perceived to be less than 100% supportive of your grift is just so much more effective so everyone is doing it now.

*Favourite sleight of hand techniques that I have personally encountered, in most cases multiple times:

1. cite a scientific paper as demonstrating your point when the paper does no such thing. Indeed in many cases the paper is only … Read the rest

News from Sussex:

A mental health nurse has been struck off after asking a Polish colleague whether he was “some sort of Nazi” while out on a Christmas do.

Rachel Hole was also accused of using the N-word while out with work colleagues amid a string of racist incidents spanning a number of years while working as a ward manager on The Hazel Ward, a Low Secure Mental Health Ward at The Chichester Centre in Chichester.

Ms Hole also scared a BAME colleague by putting a white sheet over her head in a Halloween prank but later defended herself by saying she was “hardly one of the Ku Klux Klan”.

And so on and so on – it continues for … Read the rest

The libbruls are burning down Los Angeles, it seems.

Don’t you hate it when climate change appoints a DEI hire to run the fire dept, gives away fire equipment to Ukraine, stops critical controlled burns, defunds the fire dept, refuses to build more water reservoirs and store water, cancels fire insurance, mismanages forests and…

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 9, 2025

…mismanages forests and brush, and fires firefighters for refusing an experimental vaccine?”

President Musk steps right up.

Aren’t they just hilarious?… Read the rest

From the Guardian’s live updating:

[A]mid nightmarish images eerily evocative of Cormac McCarthy’s dark post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, a political firestorm has sparked from Donald Trump and his supporters that seems as scorched earth in its characteristics as the blazes ravaging neighborhoods across Los Angeles.

Far from calling a temporary truce, the president-elect and his Maga (make America great again) acolytes have used the fires to attack the Democratic political ruling establishment in Los Angeles and California – possibly foretelling power struggles ahead over a range of issues after Trump assumes office this month.

The attacks have used disinformation, wild claims, conspiracy theories and extremist culture war tropes. But absent from their critique has been any acknowledgement that climate

Sports matter; women do not matter.

England’s men’s cricket team should play against Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy, despite calls for a boycott in response to the Taliban regime’s assault on women’s rights, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy says.

Female participation in sport has effectively been outlawed since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

A cross-party letter, signed by nearly 200 UK politicians, has been sent to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) calling for England to refuse to play in the Champions Trophy match in Lahore on 26 February.

But Nandy thinks the match should go ahead, because sports.

“I am instinctively very cautious about boycotts in sport, partly because I think they are counterproductive. I think

I’m so tired of this filth.

The Supreme Court didn’t help Donald Trump … this time. The court’s 5-4 decision Thursday to deny the president-elect’s last-minute effort to delay sentencing in his New York hush money case sets up a stunning moment – a Friday court date just 10 days before Trump is sworn in for a second term.

Judge Juan Merchan has already said he won’t impose a jail term. But the sentencing hearing will nevertheless mean that Trump will be the first president to take office with a criminal conviction written into his official record.

Isn’t that just fabulous? Behold: President Convicted Felon.

Behold the US, a failed state.

The proximity of the sentencing to Trump’s inauguration

Be careful what you wish for and campaign for and talk nonsense for, eh James Woods?

God at Letters from God has the details:

James Woods, a man who hath spent his years spouting MAGA rhetoric and raging against reality, a man who blocked God back when it was still Twitter, now tragically reaps the literal whirlwind of his own climate change denial.

His house burned up. It’s gone.

I took this last night from our beautiful little home in the Palisades. Now all the fire alarms are going off at once remotely.

It tests your soul, losing everything at once, I must say. pic.twitter.com/nH0mLpxz5C

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 8, 2025

It’s a very pretty clip. He pans … Read the rest

Pink News is overjoyed.

Awards season is well and truly here, and with it often comes the premise of historical firsts. This year, Karla Sofia Gascón has made history as the first out trans performer to be nominated at the 2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards in a solo category.

The Spanish actress has been nominated at the SAG Awards for Best Female Actor in a Leading Role for her work in Emilia Pérez, making her the first out trans performer to be nominated in a solo category, as per Out Magazine.

In other words, a man has won [been nominated for] an award for best female actor.

As if women don’t have enough trouble getting work … Read the rest