Queen’s University Belfast Trans Equality FAQ:

As part of its wider Equality and Diversity Policy, Queen’s University (“the University”) is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming community where staff and students are enabled to meet their full potential and are treated as individuals.

This includes providing advice, support and understanding to those individuals who have transitioned, are transitioning, or are planning to transition, are non-binary, intersex or gender non-conforming.

That’s nice. Does it also include those individuals who are women?

It doesn’t seem to. On the Diversity and Inclusion page (which links to the Trans Equality page which links to the Trans Equality FAQ page) we get a link to Menopause, but we do not get a link … Read the rest

Buffoon of the ages talks to TIME magazine, with the usual result.

TRUMP: Well, I think we ran a flawless campaign. It was, it was really quite something. I called it 72 Days of Fury. There were no days off. There were no timeouts. If you made a mistake, it would be magnified at levels that nobody’s ever seen before. So you couldn’t make a mistake. And I think we just really ran well. It was a drive to go through it. It started 72 days out. For some reason, it just seemed to be it. And I worked very hard. I’ve been, I’ve been given credit by, actually, the reporters that followed me, because it was, you know,

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Nobody asked for this tragedy.

I’ve introduced several people to basic trap shooting. One thing that often happens is they’ll shoot once and then find that the shotgun won’t fire the second shot, no matter how hard they squeeze the trigger. Some of them even try to turn to me, and I have to physically hold the muzzle downrange. There’s nothing wrong with the gun or the ammunition—they simply were so overwhelmed by the pressure that they couldn’t release the trigger enough to allow it to reset for the second squeeze. This has even happened when it’s just me and one other person in a field out in the middle of … Read the rest

Stop right there, bro.

He says all his parts are female, so why can't he be in the lesbian group…..

He's dangerously deluded… pic.twitter.com/EqZi7omQZk

— Jonny Bell (@Jonnywsbell) December 16, 2024

The guy wanted to join a lesbian group on Facebook. The group had requirements; he had to answer a bunch of questions, which he seems to think is an outrage in itself.

So, the requirement was that you hadda check all the right boxes or they weren’t gonna let you in. So the requirement was that you had to say that you were ccccccccis gender born. So in other words, a transgender lesbian was not gunna be accepted into this group. [dramatic pause] Why not?? I’m just as much

Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on Reward.

Indeed, there is an awful lot of armchair generaling and Monday morning quarterbacking going on, not just in this thread but all over, almost all of it from people who have never been placed in mortal peril by another human being and who have no training in self-defense. I freely admit that I have relatively little experience with such peril, and have thus far only had the merest physical training, though I have read fairly extensively on the philosophy of self-defense and had discussions with people who’ve trained much more thoroughly than I have.

The first duty in any altercation where you believe your life or health to be in jeopardy … Read the rest

Five weeks ago:

A man was taken into custody after five people were stabbed in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District Friday afternoon.

The stabbings happened near the intersection of 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street around 2 p.m. Friday.

That intersection is a bus stop. I was at that stop a week or two ago, on an outing to I forget where, and it was off the charts horrible. It’s always horrible, and has been for years, but that day it was extra horrible, with too many ruined people performing their ruin in full public view. Have I mentioned that Seattle’s a mess? I have. It’s incredibly beautiful, and it’s a mess.

The Seattle Police Department confirmed four victims were

The Guardian and Nicola Sturgeon get together to scowl at the stubborn women some more.

“Scotland is a country where, within our lifetimes, gay male relationships were still criminalised. So the significance of that journey is impossible to overstate.”

Although the legislation has had a profound impact – “there’s no doubt we are a much more equal and tolerant society than we were 10 years ago” – Sturgeon said the past few years had been a reminder of the need for vigilance. “When rights are under threat, whether it’s abortion rights in America or LGBT rights in other parts of the world, that’s when it really matters to stand up and be counted.”

Objection your honor.

There is no such … Read the rest

Another bum-kissing paean to Judith Butler, this one from EL PAÍS.

Butler — a pioneering voice in feminism, gender studies, critical theory, and contemporary philosophy — registered as non-binary in California years ago. While their pronouns changed to they/them, they chose to keep their name, a decision, they say, [that] surprised the courthouse clerk at the time.

Really??? How fascinating. Can you tell us more? What was she wearing? What was the clerk wearing? What was the weather like? Were there refreshments?

To be fair, most of the interview is unsurprising and not terrible. Even Judith Butler can talk sense some of the time. But then we hit a bump.

Q. Do you understand the concerns of

Golly gee, suddenly the Catholic church in Ireland is more progressive than those dreary old feminist women.

Well maybe not more progressive exactly, but more something. Adventurous? Excitable? Generous with other people’s rights?

BREAKING: Last night a Catholic church in Dublin, Ireland (@donoreaveparish) platformed a woman who advocates for the sterilisation and mutilation of children.

Aisling "Noah" Halpin – a disturbed woman who calls herself a "self-made man" – spoke about "gender affirming care"… pic.twitter.com/LZw5MJSY3F

— Brandubh (@brandubh4) December 15, 2024

It’s so fascinating, because the church has always treated women like rebellious stupid garbage, but women who pretend to be men are a whole other story.

"Noah" experiences regular bone fractures, likely as a result of early

Yes that’s a good idea, let’s eliminate the FDIC and all other protections from banking.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is exploring ways to significantly reduce, merge, or even eliminate the top bank regulators in Washington, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.

Trump advisers and officials from the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) inquired about the possibility of abolishing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), according to the newspaper.

Good good good so banks can lose all our money and we have no recourse. Fabulous plan.

Advisers have asked the nominees under consideration for the FDIC, as well as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, if deposit insurance

Nick Fish at American Atheists tells us in AA’a latest newsletter:

American Atheists doesn’t always weigh in on presidential cabinet nominations, so when we do, you can trust enough evidence has mounted to warrant a response. 

For example, we issued a statement last month regarding the selection of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. We received some flak for that, but as an organization that values reason and science, ignoring his long history of spreading dangerous misinformation is not an option. 

Granted, atheism is not the same thing as reason & science, but they are related. Theism is a form of Big Lie, so it’s not surprising that atheists can be interested … Read the rest

That’s nice. Invite a guy who killed a homeless person to the game. How very trumpvance.

A New York City subway rider who was acquitted this week of killing a homeless man during a confrontation on a train has joined US President-elect Donald Trump as a guest of honour at a popular American sporting event.

Daniel Penny, who became a conservative cause celebre, was pictured attending the Army v Navy American football game near Washington DC with Trump and Vice-President-elect JD Vance.

…

A jury cleared Mr Penny of criminally negligent homicide on Monday for using a fatal chokehold to restrain Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, who had been shouting at other passengers and asking for money, last

Well, you can call it a “light jab,” or you can call it a stupid childish insult from the stupidest, most childish, peak epically vulgar head of state on the planet.

US President-elect Donald Trump took a light jab at his Canadian counterpart on Tuesday, referring to Justin Trudeau as the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada”.

Imagine Trump considering it a “light jab” if some wag said he was the governor-elect of Florida.

At Mar-a-Lago, Trump remarked that Canada should become the 51st US state – something that was “in no way a serious comment”, said Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc, who accompanied Trudeau to the dinner.

“The president was telling jokes, the president was teasing us,” he

Yeah this is totally normal, this is not disgusting at all, women have no reason to object to this, Yellow Shirt dude just wants to have fun.

Not creepy AT ALL, do you understand?… Read the rest

I’m not surprised. I’d be happy to be surprised, but I’m not.

A defence of trans ideology really has sent people down some curious alleys, hasn't it? I'm quite surprised at the attempt to normalise the mocking of the trauma of sexual violence. https://t.co/wf6CDx4dl6

— Helen Staniland (@helenstaniland) December 14, 2024

Remember Joyce Carol Oates when Charlie Hebdo was given an award by PEN America? She protested the award. Not the murderous attack on Charlie Hebdo, but the award to Charlie Hebdo.

Also, she’s a very bad writer.… Read the rest

Dim Kennedy wants to bring back polio.

President-elect Donald Trump has praised the polio vaccine as the “greatest thing,” but a lawyer affiliated with Trump’s pick to lead the country’s top health agency has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of the vaccine used in the United States.

The lawyer, Aaron Siri, filed the petition in 2022 on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN, a nonprofit that challenges the safety of vaccines and vaccine mandates. Siri has been working closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – a vaccine skeptic and Trump’s pick to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services – to choose officials to serve in the incoming administration.

Amnesty International is not an adult organization.

Once is enough.

Peaceful protest is NOT a crime.
Peaceful protest is NOT a crime.
Peaceful protest is NOT a crime.
Peaceful protest is NOT a crime.

— Amnesty International (@amnesty) December 13, 2024

… Read the rest

Amy Hamm in The National Post a couple of weeks ago:

Is it discrimination when doctors make care decisions that account for a patient’s extreme obesity? In British Columbia, astoundingly, it might be.   

A Canadian woman who identifies as an “unapologetically fat intersectional feminist” won her bid to bring an obstetrician to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) for alleged discrimination on the basis of her size and body mass index (BMI), of 46, after the physician referred her to a high-risk birth centre during her pregnancy. 

Sigh. He’s a doctor; he’s an obstetrician. He’s not some random person shouting insults, he’s not a bunch of people bullying her, he’s a doctor whose job it is know what’s a risk … Read the rest

Whaddya know, Wisey the Pretty is still at it.

The tundra has flipped.

The Arctic tundra is undergoing a dramatic transformation, driven by frequent wildfires that are turning it into a net source of carbon dioxide emissions after millennia of acting as a carbon sink, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Tuesday. This drastic shift is detailed in Noaa’s 2024 Arctic Report Card, which revealed that annual surface air temperatures in the Arctic this year were the second-warmest on record since 1900.

“Our observations now show that the Arctic tundra, which is experiencing warming and increased wildfire, is now emitting more carbon than it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts,” said Rick Spinrad, a Noaa administrator.

…

Human-caused climate change is also intensifying