The Oregonian:

In taking control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, militants occupying the site have also taken over the desks of the people who work at the site – their cubicles, their computers and, evidently, their personnel files.

Oregon Public Broadcasting visited the compound Friday and reported that militants appeared to be using federal computers inside the compound, machines that can be accessed only with employees’ ID badges. Lists of names and Social Security numbers were visible, alongside government ID cards.

They say no no, they haven’t done that, they haven’t touched anybody’s stuff. Right, because they’re so scrupulous that way.

Seventeen people work at the refuge headquarters, administering the 190,000-acre site. Their responsibilities include overseeing

Erik Wemple at the Washington Post:

One year ago, the Associated Press was among the outlets that censored certain cartoons of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after the murderous attacks on its Paris offices. “None of the images distributed by AP showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. It’s been our policy for years that we refrain from moving deliberately provocative images,” said AP spokesman Paul Colford at the time, in a rationale that reflected the (less than courageous) thinking of many prominent U.S. news outlets.

So much for journalism – the AP doesn’t show images at the heart of important news stories, because it pretends to consider them “provocative.” So much for not letting violent bullies tell us all … Read the rest

Guest post by Magdalen Berns

I was first accused of being a “TERF” by a self-identifying gay M2T student at the University of Edinburgh (UoE) after I disagreed with Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA) LGBT Liberation group’s statement of support for infamous drag ‘ban’ of Glasgow LGBT Pride 2015. He was offended by the suggestion that T ought to have sought a mandate from the rest of LGB before publishing under the LGBT banner. He also felt that “cis” women were irrelevant to a conversation about misogyny in drag. After being branded a “TERF” due to my non-compliance, I was compelled to look up the Anti-Feminist Trans Activist (AFTA) war on feminist gender … Read the rest

Real? Or Poe?

I can’t tell. It seems very Poe-like, but then so do a lot of things that are all too sincere.

Trans male privilege

Every time you talk about trans men in social justice activism or discussions, you’re taking up time that could be spent talking about trans women. Activism that helps trans womyn by centering them will also help trans men, probably even faster and better than it helps trans womyn. Don’t allow blood on your hands by centering men.

…

There is virtually no need to talk about trans mens issues. Their issues are mix of AFAB issues and trans women issues, which are addressed by movements already. Talking about trans men is a redundant waste

Andrew Gilligan at the Telegraph:

A crown court judge has been allowed to rule on sharia cases, in the first case of its kind.

District Judge Shamim Qureshi, who sits at Bristol Crown Court, received permission from the Judicial Office to double as “presiding judge” at the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT).

The MAT was established in 2007 by a hardline cleric, Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, who led an anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstration after 11 of the magazine’s staff were murdered by terrorists.

So the real law is getting mixed up with the unofficial, religious law?

Judge Qureshi has overseen MAT, which is based in Nuneaton, Warks, and has four other branches.

It states that it serves Muslims “seeking to resolve disputes

At the New Statesman, Musa Okwonga has thoughts on how to deal with the New Year’s Eve assaults on women in Köln and Hamburg.

The volume of sexual violence against women worldwide is extraordinary: it is horrifying, heartbreaking, and finally it is enraging. Whether women are in public or in the supposed safety of their own homes, the offences committed against them are off the scale.

To quote the United Nations, “It is estimated that 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lives. However, some national studies show that up to 70 per cent of women have experienced

More news from ISIS: one of their soldiers has publicly murdered his own mother for “apostasy.”

The activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RIBSS) said 20-year-old jihadi Ali Saqr al-Qasem shot his mother Lena, 45, in the head with an assault rifle in front of a large crowd.

Lena al-Qasem is understood to have been accused of apostasy – a crime that usually means leaving one’s religion but in practise is used by Isis as a justification for murdering anybody who doesn’t support or speaks out against the terror group.

Naturally. There is The One True Group in Purity and Righteousness, and everyone else is an apostate. Such a view is efficient and, in the short term, good … Read the rest

Important news from the Independent:

Eddie Redmayne has criticised the prominent feminist Germaine Greer for claiming Caitlyn Jenner changed her gender in order to steal the limelight from her co-stars.

Ok. Who the fuck is Eddie Redmayne? Why should we care?

Redmayne, who plays transgender artist Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl, said he disagreed with her provocative comments.

Oh, that’s who he is – the one who isn’t trans.

The 34-year-old London-born actor told British GQ: “I completely disagree with what she has to say about Caitlyn in relation to why she is making her show.

“It’s a shame to see an instance of feminism and trans issues diminishing each other. But also, it’s quite important

Have a Snowy Owl, courtesy of the Quebec Minister of Transportation Robert Poëti. The photographer was a traffic camera.

 … Read the rest

At Open Democracy: Karima Bennoune on the truth about Charlie.

Two French Islamist gunmen of Algerian descent entered a newspaper office in Paris a year ago today and gunned down a generation of Europe’s greatest political cartoonists – many from an anarchist, anti-racist tradition  – along with their co-workers and those protecting them, who also included people of Algerian descent.  In case anyone is confused about the politics of this – it was a far right attack on the left.

So many people are so very confused about the politics of this. So many are convinced it was an anti-racist attack on racists.

At first the world reacted with justified horror and a solidarity which is not always

Another visit to Rebecca Reilly-Cooper’s post on “Gender is not a binary, it’s a spectrum” because there are so many lines I long to quote I can’t leave it at just one.

If you identify as pangender, is the claim that you represent every possible point on that spectrum? All at the same time? How might that be possible, since the extremes represent opposites of one another? Pure femininity is passivity, weakness and submission, while pure masculinity is aggression, strength and dominance. It is simply impossible to be all of these things at the same time. (If you don’t agree with me – if you’re angry right now about my “femmephobia”, because I’ve defined femininity as weakness and submission –

Think Progress on the Supreme Court abortion case.

A looming Supreme Court case that could severely undermine the right to an abortion has attracted an unprecedented amount of opposition from across the country.

A slew of organizations and individuals filed 45 legal briefs in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, each brief examining the case through a unique lens and each coming to the same conclusion: State laws that restrict abortion access are unconstitutional.

The case will examine the validity of a Texas law, known as HB2, that places burdensome, unnecessary guidelines on the state’s dwindling abortion clinics. These regulations, while framed as improvements to safeguard “women’s health,” ultimately have nothing to do with patient safety — and were instead

For the hip trendy fashion-forward woman forced to wear a black tent from head to foot – Dolce and Gabbana has the latest thing!

Exclusive: The Dolce & Gabbana Abaya Collection Debut

Mind you – in actual Saudi Arabia as opposed to whatever fantasy version Dolce and Gabbana is working with, those shoes would get that woman arrested if she didn’t get beaten to death first. Also? Her bare face would too. But no matter, because at least the black shroud is pretty.

Storied Italian House Dolce & Gabbana has launched its very first abaya collection and makes its global reveal here on Style.com/Arabia. For the most part, the collection comes in neutral hues—luxe black and sandy beige—while

I suggest you drop everything and read Rebecca Reilly-Cooper’s latest: “GENDER IS NOT A BINARY, IT’S A SPECTRUM”: SOME PROBLEMS.

Fans of gender identity think that gender is not a system of arbitrary rules imposed on all of us but “an internal, essential facet of our identity” that is much bigger and richer than any stinkin’ binary.

That idea is full of holes, and politically it’s a disaster.

First, if gender is a spectrum, then we’re all non-binary.

I would be happy with this implication, because despite knowing that I am female and calling myself a woman, I do not consider myself a one-dimensional gender stereotype. I am not some ideal manifestation of femininity, and so I am non-binary,