Oh really. Is that true?

Single sex spaces or services can be unlawful sex discrimination if they are not a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This is an objective test. You can't have a single sex space just because you want one.

— SpeakOutSister (@speakoutsister) October 26, 2025

That’s objective how exactly?

The trouble is, the two parties are not symmetrical. Men who want access to women’s spaces want the access in order to dominate or rape. Women want access to men’s institutions in order to have equality. The motivations are radically different. Women are locked out of men’s institutions because of entrenched sexist and misogynist attitudes. Men are locked out of women’s physical spaces for safety reasons.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Strange man.

“I believe, in the next couple of decades, there will be millions of people living in space. That’s how fast this is going to accelerate,” he said.

There’s a small problem with this. We don’t know how to live in space. I believe it was from someone posting here on B&W that I learned of the book A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith. Their conclusion? Not soon, not likely. The problem? It’s not only the Rocket Science, it’s the Us Science.

A short list of things we don’t know about (not all from the book, and in no particular order):

Part 1) Rocket science… Read the rest

Trump seems to think tariffs are like spankings or being sent to your room without dessert.

Trump has said he is increasing tariffs on goods imported from Canada after the province of Ontario aired an anti-tariff advertisement featuring former President Ronald Reagan. In a post on social media on Saturday, Trump called the advert a “fraud” and lashed out at Canadian officials for not removing it ahead of the World Series baseball championship.

“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” he wrote.

But that’s not what tariffs are for. They’re not punishments for being naughty. They’re really not punishments … Read the rest

Fiyaz Mughal on the disaster of communniny thinking:

Over half a decade of working with the Home Office on countering extremism, I saw it for myself, time and time again: a civil service culture that instinctively resists scrutiny of anything involving religion or ethnicity.

The moment you even suggest that the ethnicity or faith of perpetrators might be one factor among many worth examining, certain civil servants recoil. They tell you that looking into it might “inflame community tensions”, or “increase hate crimes against Muslims” or “cause policing issues”.

He doesn’t in fact actually mean religion or ethnicity as such, he means specifically that one religion, the one he names. I don’t think UK civil servants freak out … Read the rest

So bright.

Jeff Bezos says the future is so bright, he “doesn’t see how anybody can be discouraged who is alive right now.” Speaking at Italian Tech Week 2025 earlier this month with Ferrari and Stellantis chair John Elkann, the Amazon and Blue Origin founder laid out a plan to launch humanity into orbit — literally.

I wonder if being a billionaire makes it difficult for him to see how other people can be discouraged. Several of those people are not billionaires. Several people have no money at all. Several people have health issues. Several people have problems of various kinds, which can lead to being discouraged.

The conversation started on Earth but didn’t stay there long. Bezos dove

Graham Linehan talks to Julie Bindel:

When I ask if he has any regrets about any of it, he says: “People often ask me this, and to be honest, not really. Some of my tweets are angry, and invective.

“But I genuinely do hate this evil, misogynistic, homophobic movement. And I want to destroy it.”

When people criticise his conduct or tone, he thinks, “Well, they nailed dead rats to the doors of rape crisis centres”.

And if, one day, the trans rights movement ends and it has anything to do with this “big stubborn Irishman”, he will feel “as much satisfaction as from having written Father Ted. It’s a noble endeavour that I’m involved in. I’m like a

Oops no food for you next month, sorry, start saving those bread crusts now.

The US Department of Agriculture says it will not tap into its $6 billion contingency fund to cover food stamp benefits next month, according to an agency memo obtained by CNN. That means that roughly 42 million Americans will not receive critical food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in November, unless the agency shifts its position.

Never mind. It’s only a month.

The loss of the critical safety net program ramps up pressure on Congress to end the federal government shutdown, which began on October 1, by agreeing to a federal spending package. Democrats have said they will not support

Another extinction:

Elkhorn and staghorn corals used to carpet Florida’s reef system, rising like antlers from the seabed — but not anymore. These crucial coral species are now “functionally extinct” in the region after record-breaking ocean temperatures, according to a study published Thursday.

The corals, which have been dominant reef builders in Florida for the past 10,000 years, were already critically endangered due to a host of factors including disease, pollution, hurricanes and ocean warming. But an unprecedented marine heat wave may have delivered a fatal blow.

In the summer of 2023, Florida’s water temperatures peaked at more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest recorded in the region for at least 150 years.

…

The heat wave marks

Trump has tantrum chapter eleventy million.

Donald Trump has announced an immediate end to “all trade negotiations” with Canada over a television advertisement opposing US tariffs that quoted the former US president Ronald Reagan.

The ad, which was paid for by the government of the Canadian province of Ontario, uses excerpts of a 1987 speech where Reagan says “trade barriers hurt every American worker”.

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Canada had “fraudulently used an advertisment[sic]”, which he called “FAKE”, and accused the country of trying to interfere with US court decisions on the levies. “Based on their egregious behavior, all trade negotiations with Canada are hereby terminated,” he wrote.

He doesn’t even know the difference between … Read the rest

Whatever, bro. You’re still a man.… Read the rest

A tiny bit callous maybe?

Apparently, one of the Darlington Nurses was claiming she was having possibly a panic attack because she was in the presence of a trans woman colleague. Well, she is either lying, or, she has a trauma that is personal to her and it needs sorting. It’s not anyone else’s issue.

— Marianne Oakes (@OakesMarianne) October 23, 2025

Ah well, no surprise there, “Marianne” Oakes is a man.… Read the rest

Jail time for saying that men are not women.

A man in Switzerland is facing 10 days in prison after refusing to pay a fine for an “offensive” social media post. Emanuel Brünisholz, a wind instrument repairman from Burgdorf, was convicted under anti-discrimination laws for making [a] statement emphasizing skeletal evidence of binary sex.

It’s a crime in Switzerland to say that there are skeletal differences between women and men. The popes had their inquisitions and now the gender popes have theirs.

Brünisholz’s ordeal began in December of 2022 when he responded to a Facebook post by Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner. In his comment, Brünisholz wrote: “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll

Originally a comment by Artymorty on For rejecting an ideology.

So glad you highlighted this. It can’t be said often enough. Graham is a deeply compassionate, and passionate man. The Glinner we see in his exquisite writing — every single side-splitting joke in every single episode of The IT Crowd was penned by him alone, against all odds and deadlines and budget constraints, and all the other challenges that are faced by a sole showrunner who is also the sole director who is also the sole creator and who is also the sole writer of a hit comedy series that runs for years — is the same Glinner I have the privilege to know in person: he’s a deeply … Read the rest

I’ll just say this – it’s going to look ridiculous. It’s way out of scale, so it looks like a damn warehouse.

That huge box on the right side: that’s the stupid ballroom. The entire population of Queens could fit in there.

Euan McColm in the Scottish Daily Mail on Graham Linehan and the deranged ideology that trashed his life:

By rights, Mr Linehan should be revered, just as contemporaries such as Ricky Gervais and Simpsons creator Matt Groening are, as a visionary in his field. Instead, his career has been destroyed and his personal life upturned after years of relentless harassment by trans activists.

For rejecting an ideology –still hugely fashionable in the showbiz world from which Mr Linehan is now an outcast – he saw projects cancelled and friends turn on him. A long-planned musical based on Father Ted, the hit show Mr Linehan created alongside his one-time writing partner Arthur Matthews, was called-off while former colleagues denounced him as

Wait, who was unreasonable here?

Sandie Peggie’s legal team says it is seriously concerned about the content of secret briefings for SNP ministers prepared by NHS Fife and uncovered by The Herald.

Confidential correspondence between the board and the Scottish Government, obtained through freedom of information, contains unredacted details about the nurse, including references to her occupational health appointments and other internal employment matters.

The documents outline NHS Fife’s account of events surrounding the employment tribunal and seek to reassure ministers that the board acted appropriately throughout.

In them, the board suggest Ms Peggie’s “personal circumstances” may have “contributed to the incident” and that the nurse should have had the “skills and knowledge to de-escalate or remove herself from this

Teen Vogue tells us:

Suing her school was not how Evelyn Parts envisioned her final semester at Swarthmore College. Parts, 22, a distance runner and team captain of the school’s varsity cross country and track team, set big goals for senior year. The Towson, Maryland native had qualified for the 5,000 meters in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)’s Division III Centennial Conference Championship for Women’s Indoor Track & Field set for last March in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. For her, it was the biggest competition of the season.

But she was never given a chance to run. Parts, who goes by Evie, was banned from competing with her team because she is a transgender woman.

Thus Teen Vogue cheerfully admits … Read the rest

Via What a Maroon, Moumen Al-Natour writes in the Washington Post of the two Gazas:

Trump’s ceasefire has split Gaza into two alternate realities on either side of the “yellow line” behind which the Israel Defense Forces have withdrawn under Phase 1 of the ceasefire deal. On one side is a Gaza that is desperate for Trump’s plan to succeed; on the other is a Gaza that is being pulled back into the abyss once again. It is impossible for these two Gazas to exist simultaneously for more than a moment in time, and soon enough one will consume the other. Fighting over the weekend underscores just how precarious the balance remains.

My Gaza, where I wish

Fun fact it just occurred to me to look up to make sure it is a fact.

All of Trump’s grandparents were immigrants. All of them. One two three four.

On October 7, 1885, Friedrich Trump, a 16-year-old German barber, boarded a ship with a one-way ticket to America, escaping three years of compulsory German military service. He had been a sickly child, unsuited to hard labor, and feared the effects of the draft.

…

Trump is the son, and grandson, of immigrants: German on his father’s side, and Scottish on his mother’s. None of his grandparents, and only one of his parents, was born in the United States or spoke English as their mother tongue. (His mother’s

Once again we see that religions have actual substantive beliefs about other people, specifically the kind of beliefs that lead to quarrels, fights, wars, genocides.

We’re supposed to pretend otherwise. We’re supposed to pretend that religions are entirely a force for good.

A pro-Gaza MP who welcomed the ban on Israeli football fans from Villa Park previously cast doubt on the atrocities committed in the Oct 7 attacks. Ayoub Khan, the independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, cast doubt on claims that women were raped during the Hamas-led massacre in 2023.

Religion! Ethnicity! History! Theocracy! Rivalry! A toxic brew. Football doesn’t improve it.

His comments have come to light as he faces a backlash for celebrating the decision to