Cheered me up for the moment.

Trying to persuade people that a deranged man should not be running the USA for the next four years is not a laughing matter https://t.co/Asc6KdTQWC

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) September 3, 2024

… Read the rest

Why are men?

A man has gone on trial in France for repeatedly drugging and raping his wife as well as arranging for dozens of other men to rape her. The defendant, named as 71-year-old Dominique P, is accused of recruiting strangers online to come to his home and sexually assault the victim for over a decade.

…

Police identified at least 92 rapes committed by 72 men. Fifty were identified and charged and are standing trial alongside the husband.

The victim, now 72, only learnt of the abuse in 2020 after being informed by police. The trial will be “a horrible ordeal” for her, said her lawyer Antoine Camus, as it will be the first time she sees video

Interesting in what sense, creepy guy?

Interesting observation https://t.co/xHD5VeS1IC

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2024

Onlee hi stattus men kno how to think good.

Such an interesting observation.… Read the rest

Musk is more evil and alarming than I had realized.

Elon Musk is rapidly transforming his enormous wealth – he’s the richest person in the world – into a huge source of unaccountable political power that’s now backing Trump and other authoritarians around the world.

Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter. He publicly endorsed Donald Trump last month. Before that, Musk helped form a pro-Trump super political action committee. Meanwhile, the former US president has revived his presence on the X platform.

Musk just hired a Republican operative with expertise in field organizing to help with get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of Trump.

…

At least eight times in the past 10 months, Musk has prophesied a future civil

Oliver Brown is icily clear:

“This was a dream,” says Valentina Petrillo, who today became a Paralympic sprinter at the age of 51, “that I had since I was a little girl.” Except this is an athlete who was never a little girl in the first place. The Italian is a father-of-two who was still competing at 45 as a male, who won national titles in men’s track and field, and whose self-portrayal in 2021 was of a “tough guy who would speak dismissively of women, who would have given you the idea he was sexist”. And yet on Monday morning at the Stade de France, Petrillo, courtesy of institutional cowardice at every level, lined up in the

Another one from the “let’s build a house in an area prone to drought/tornadoes/earthquakes/wildfire and have a blissful life forever after” file.

Perched atop a majestic cliff, Rancho Palos Verdes is a stunning city by the sea. Those who live here do so for the grand views of the ocean, the lush valleys, the breeze that sweeps away the heat of the sun.

But the scene on this peninsula 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles comes with a caveat. Underneath the multimillion-dollar homes is a large complex of landslides. Every day, the ground moves.

That’s some “caveat.” The earth under your house is constantly sliding – no big deal.

For a long time, that movement was so glacial —

The BBC somehow manages to talk about it while not talking about it.

Mariuccia Quilleri, a lawyer and athlete who has represented a number of fellow athletes who opposed Petrillo’s participation in women’s races, said inclusion had been chosen over fairness and “there is not much more we can do”.

Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Ukraine Oksana Boturchuk, who is racing in the semi-final heats, said: “I find this not fair, in my opinion. I am not against transgenders in general but in this situation I do not understand and don’t support it.”

Inclusion of what? Fairness to whom? What are “transgenders in general”?

It’s not an accident, this constant lack of specificity. They do it on purpose because they do … Read the rest

So let’s take a look at this “Valentina” Petrillo issue.

The Guardian of course does the usual –

Transgender sprinter Valentina Petrillo reaches 400m semi-finals on Paralympic debut

Tactfully concealing the relevant fact: he’s a man in the women’s semi-finals.

• Italian sprinter qualifies for T12 400m semi-finals
• ‘For me, it’s the realisation of history’

For women, it’s the realisation of being cheated.

The Italian transgender sprinter Valentina Petrillo said that her debut at the Paralympic Games was “the realisation of history” after she qualified for the semi-finals of the T12 400m on Monday.

Petrillo, 51, finished second in her heat at the Stade de France, but qualified for the semi-finals as one of the four fastest runners-up. She said that

Well of course he does.

I defend trans paralympic athlete Valentina Petrillo

The sports governing body says her testosterone levels are low enough to compete alongside women

Since she transitioned, she's lost energy, strength & male advantage. Her body shape & size is similar to non-trans women https://t.co/1OwsWfUqiv

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) September 2, 2024

Just sit down and shut up, Peter. You’re not the boss of women. You don’t get to tell women it’s tough shit when some man decides to invade their sport and destroy their chances. It’s obviously unfair and we shouldn’t have to see you gloating about it like the woman-hating pig you are. Just sit down.… Read the rest

Robin DiAngelo has hit a bump in the road. It’s about goddam time. Hadley Freeman writes:

Last week DiAngelo was accused of plagiarism. To understand why that’s interesting, you need to know that DiAngelo is the most successful anti-racism trainer in the world. Her book White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Race became a blockbuster bestseller in 2020, after Floyd’s murder.

And of course she donated most of the profits to anti-racism efforts by non-white people, right? Right?

Nah, we know she didn’t. We’ve talked about her massively successful grift before.

She charged up to $20,000 to hold anti-racism workshops at companies like Microsoft and Google, where — in the words of one

More on the bullying and persecution of Jenny Lindsay:

A series of often dumbfounding reports over recent days about the crisis in Creative Scotland included a revelation that shows why the organisation must be closed, immediately.

In June, Lindsay announced the forthcoming publication of her book Hounded, which examines the troubling modern phenomena of women being bullied out of jobs and public life for expressing views about gender and sex that don’t align with voguish opinion.

Five years ago, Lindsay – then one of the country’s leading performance poets – publicly called out a trans-identifying male writer for urging attacks on lesbians at a Pride march. Thanks to the bestupiding effects of trans ideology, Lindsay was swiftly identified among

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Blame feminists.

What has Western society *overall* been able to do?

Saudi Arabia (and any other state that enshrines in law the subordination and oppression of women) should be a pariah state the way South Africa was under apartheid. But, as in many other instances, geopolitics trumps human rights, unless the human rights abuse can be turned to tactical geopolitical advantage and used to embarass an opponent. Saudi Arabia sits on top of an ocean of oil, so it gets a pass because oil. But given many cultures’ blindness to sexism (as opposed to racism, which “everybody” knows is “bad,” such that most try to keep their racist thoughts private … Read the rest

Maybe the way to break Trump is to shrug him off.

The standout moment in Kamala Harris’s first interview as Democratic presidential nominee consisted of a mere seven words: “Same old tired playbook. Next question, please.”

That was her answer when CNN’s Dana Bash brought up Donald Trump’s recent outrageous suggestion that the vice president, who is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican parents, “happened to turn Black” as a matter of political expediency.

Let’s hope Harris continues to shrug off Trump’s racist and misogynist attacks. It’s clearly driving him crazy.

I’m no good at shrugging things off, myself. I prefer to try to hammer them into the ground like a frustrated Bugs Bunny. But if Harris is driving … Read the rest

Seattle Center – the site of a long-ago world’s fair, with theaters and galleries and landscaped open space – has a large block of restrooms aka toilets, with one set labeled women and the other men, in the familiar way, but also now sporting a sign that says (paraphrasing from memory) “you can use whichever restroom you feel comfortable in.” Of course it enrages me anew every time I walk past it, but not just for the obvious reason. The slightly less obvious reason is the idiocy of the wording, because if some hulking guy “feels comfortable” stomping right on into the women’s toilets then guess who no longer does “feel comfortable” – eh?

So. Yeah.

Hey ladies, do you

Some men harass women in the street because “spread your legs for me right now” and some men harass women in the street because “you are a whore and God hates you.”

Unbelievable but true—Germany now has its own morality police. A Muslim man in Berlin is chasing down two women for their ‘improper hijab,’ lecturing them on how to dress ‘correctly.’ This isn’t just harassment; it’s a terrifying echo of the Hijab police we’ve battled in Iran and Afghanistan—now taking root in the heart of Europe. For years, we’ve been silenced, accused of ‘Islamophobia’ when we dare to speak out against the brutality we endure for refusing to cover ourselves ‘properly’ in the name of religion. But silence

Peter Boghossian raging at “western” feminists for what Allah-botherers do to women.

Don’t play the clip. Word is it’s as horrible as you’d expect.

There continues to be near total silence of western feminists about these barbaric practices. Feminists’ failure to advocate for the rights of these women is so shameful as to completely undermine their judgment and discredit their movement. pic.twitter.com/FGjafjncKv

— Peter Boghossian (@peterboghossian) August 31, 2024

I’m a feminist, and I suppose I’m “western.”

Not one but two men beating women in a women’s race.

Originally a comment by KBPlayer on The magic in everyday life.

During the Edinburgh Festival I saw Jenny Lindsay in a talk with a guy called Darren McGarvey. McGarvey was host of a series of talks on the Industrial Trauma Complex, i.e. how people frame their traumas, and the dangers of airing them (see a quote below about the lived experience and how airing it can harm the sufferer). McGarvey is from a very tough Glasgow background (and looks it) and a recovering addict. He got known as a rapper and then as writer and talker on social issues eg The Poverty Safari and The Social Distance Between Us, about class poverty and class differences.

The talk was well … Read the rest

The tedium gets ever more tedious.

A women’s college in Virginia has instituted an admissions policy that bars transgender women next school year because of a new interpretation of the founder’s will.

Sweet Briar College, a private women’s liberal arts school, said the policy stems from the legally binding will of its founder, Indiana Fletcher Williams, who died in 1900. Sweet Briar’s leadership said the document requires it to “be a place of ‘girls and young women.’”

So in other words they’re not changing anything, they’re just pointing out that the college is still a girls’ college, as it’s been all along.

The phrase “must be interpreted as it was understood at the time the Will was written,”

Another woman marked out for silencing:

As a self-styled witch, Dr Alice Tarbuck offers online Tarot card readings for £50 an hour and courses in how to embrace the ‘magic’ in everyday life. Her freelance lessons run throughout the year and are described as ‘perfect for anyone with an interest in the history, ethics and practice of witchcraft’. But the rest of the time the author and poet has another role – as a ‘literature officer’ for controversial arts quango Creative Scotland, currently at the centre of a political firestorm.

…

Her role was to provide backing for writers as part of Creative Scotland’s mission to help people and organisations to ‘make work of quality and ambition that enriches