Time to launch the Patreon.

I tested it on Facebook the other day to see if I’d done it right and people started pledging right then but this is the actual launch.

I’m going back to the original B&W, with NO ADS and no fatuous people announcing that I’m a transphobe because I have my own ideas about gender. I earned a little income blogging at Freethought Blogs and I need to replace that. Think of me as like a public radio station but without voices and without the “you owe us, please call now” drives. You don’t owe me. Don’t donate unless it’s easy for you and you want to. I like doing this and I like … Read the rest

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People are so nice.

Ed Brayton is not the person I was hoping to hear was leaving Freethoughtblogs.com. I can certainly understand why, though.

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Amnesty’s prostitution policy document.

Zip down to page 5, and read note 2.

 ²As noted within Amnesty International’s policy on sex work, the organization is opposed to criminalization of all activities related to the purchase and sale of sex. Sexual desire and activity are a fundamental human need. To criminalize those who are unable or unwilling to fulfill that need through more traditionally recognized means and thus purchase sex, may amount to a violation of the right to privacy and undermine the rights to free expression and health.

Ok wait. If sexual activity is a fundamental human need, then what happens in cases where there are no prostitutes available? What would happen if all women had job … Read the rest

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Today in my Inbox an email from one of my heroes – John Lewis. It is, of course, a public mailing, so I’ll share it right here.

Every year, I head back to the birthplace of a new America — Selma, Alabama — where a determined struggle for voting rights transformed our democracy 50 years ago.

On March 7, 1965, Hosea Williams and I led a band of silent witnesses, 600 nonviolent crusaders, intending to march 50 miles to Montgomery — Alabama’s capital — to demonstrate the need for voting rights in America.

At the foot of the bridge, we were met by Alabama state troopers who trampled peaceful protestors with horses and shot tear gas into the crowd. I

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The NSS reports that the UAE has tightened up its laws by making it illegal to “offend” God.

Wouldn’t you think if there’s anyone who can rise above being “offended” it would be God? I mean – ants can say harsh things about me all they want to; it won’t offend me. Why? Because they’re ants. Their concerns are not my concerns, and vice versa. Our concerns are too different in nature to be subject to emotions like being “offended.” Ants are going to think I’m way too big and ugly and misshapen, aren’t they, because if the criterion is Ant, I don’t meet it. But I don’t care. I don’t particularly want to meet the Ant criterion, and I’m … Read the rest

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Chris Clarke has news.

The California Fish and Game Commission voted 3-2 Wednesday to ban bobcat trapping everywhere in California. The vote, which took place at the Commission’s regular meeting in Fortuna, caps a controversy that started when a Joshua Tree resident found traps illegally placed on his land less than a mile from the National Park.

Concern over the threat to bobcats in Joshua Tree and elsewhere in the state prompted the California Legislature to pass AB1213, the Bobcat Protection Act of 2013, which directed the Fish and Game Commission to establish trapping-free buffer zones around national parks, wildlife preserves, and other areas where trapping is already prohibited.

After studying a pair of proposals for those buffer zones’

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Originally a comment by John Horstman on A horribly effective silencer.

I was just reminded of this excellent article from a year ago (looking at some of the theoretical underpinnings/implications of the rise of use of “triggering” as a silencing tactic, among other subjects) by Jack Halberstam, a radical queer anti-capitalist anarchist who may or may not be considered trans. I’m a product of the 90s scene and theoretical perspective Jack describes in that first link, and indeed influenced by zir writing directly, which likely explains a fair amount of my views on the subject. A not-insignificant part of what makes arguments like this (which Jack notes go back decades – a point I and others have raised) … Read the rest

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No. No no no no no.

Pumpkin spice Kandy Kale.

 … Read the rest

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I have to reply to some of the garbage that’s being spewed on PZ’s post about me from yesterday. I’m going to do it here because – oh well the reason’s obvious.

It’s all people who have been examining everything they can see of my Facebook activity going back months – which is creepy and disgusting all by itself. Even if I’m a raving Republican, that’s creepy and disgusting. Since I’m not, it’s all the more so. (If I were a Republican lobbyist or politician or influential think-tanker, ok, fair game, but a minor blogger? Not such fair game.)

One major item in the indictment: I read and sometimes comment in a Facebook group called Discussing gender critical & gender … Read the rest

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Alice Through the Looking Glass chapter 9:

However, there would be no harm, she thought, in asking if the game was over. `Please, would you tell me — ‘ she began, looking timidly at the Red Queen.

`Speak when you’re spoken to!’ The Queen sharply interrupted her.

`But if everybody obeyed that rule,’ said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, `and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that — ‘

`Ridiculous!’ cried the Queen. `Why, don’t you see, child — ‘ here she broke off with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, suddenly

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I just said this in a comment, and now I want to say it more conspicuously.

Imagine for a second what it would be like to have total strangers cross-examining every trivial remark you’ve ever made in an effort to find things you said that could be seen as politically suspect in some way.… Read the rest

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Are you eating high vibrational food? Are you sure?

The ancient Greeks introduced the world to the concept of energy and its effects on humans, animals, plants and health. We’re all connected spiritually by energy, whether we choose to believe it or not. We all form a part of the circle of life, which revolves in a circular motion with no beginning and no end, particularly when it comes to cooking, eating and respecting our food and where it comes from.

I can think of some beginnings and some ends.

The ancient Greeks knew that if the food they were cooking had good energy and brought “agapi” (unconditional love), their dishes would be masterpieces and would heal them at

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Something Lady Mondegreen said on a post of PZ’s about (unfortunately) me:

I’m getting tired of this assertion that “troubling remarks,” or Ophelia’s perverse desire to listen (without necessarily agreeing) to people who have been declared “known TERFs,” somehow harms trans people or puts them “at risk.” That vague accusation is a good way to justify hyperbolic attacks, and a very good way to shut down discussion, but it’s unconvincing argument.

I’m pretty sure the people who actually beat, rape, and murder trans people are not reading B&W, or asking themselves, “what is gender, really?”

And can we please stop speaking of “trans people” as a monolith, all of whom feel the same way? Over at Butterflies and Wheels, there

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First, a comment by themadtapper on The art of the question on July 24:

This is some Glenn Beck level ass-hattery. “I’m just asking questions! Why won’t Ophelia Benson confirm she’s not a transphobe?”

I love how Joe says “it was just the polite way of asking if you are a transmisogynist”. As if anyone, even an actual transmisogynist, would ever answer anything but ‘no’ to that question. No, what Joe was doing was fishing for something to accuse her over. When challenged on the claim that Ditum and Lewis were “obvious bigots” and the assumption that following on Twitter amounted to an endorsement, Joe promptly blocked Ophelia and then lied about her reply. And in true Beck style he … Read the rest

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