Why we can’t do anything about climate change chapter eleventy billion:

Within days, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision that could severely limit the federal government’s authority to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants — pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

It shouldn’t be optional. It shouldn’t be up for grabs. We shouldn’t have the power to decide future generations have to face the full horror show.

The case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, is the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders, several with ties to the oil and coal industries, to use the judicial system to rewrite environmental

Who does this guy think he is??

Hi Eliza, you talk about "taking the high road."

Magdalen Berns called trans women "pathetic, sick f*cks" and "blackface actors."

When she died, Julie Bindel did a tweet looking GC people's favourite Berns' quote and it was "f off, you w*nker."

And for that, she is a "Shero"?

— Aidan Comerford (@AidanCTweets) June 17, 2022

Nice to know you namesearch yourself.

And she called all trans women "blackface actors" and "pathetic, sick f*cks."

The point is that she spoke abusively, as do you, and a lot of GC people.

— Aidan Comerford (@AidanCTweets) June 18, 2022

Who does he think he is interrupting women on Twitter to demand when they are going to … Read the rest

Wo, here’s a crack in the ice: academics refused to sign a new Trans Declaration of What You Have To Do. Just up and said no, as if they had a right to.

A programme to encourage universities to follow guidance on trans discrimination is to be changed after Cambridge academics refused to sign it.

“Here’s our guidance on how you have to coddle us, sign right here.”

“No.”

Advance HE, a charity that advises higher education institutions, has bowed to pressure and pledged to alter its guidelines requiring universities to foster a “collective understanding” on the belief that gender can be chosen.

Should universities foster a collective understanding that the sun circles the earth every day? How about … Read the rest

Climate disaster hasn’t thrown anything at us here in the PNW so far this summer – it’s been unusually cool and cloudy, which is fine with me. Elsewhere though it’s not so mellow.

Summer in the American west is off to an explosive start, with extreme weather events ravaging multiple states in recent weeks. In Montana, historic flooding devastated communities and infrastructure in and around Yellowstone national park and forced a rare closure. Further south, reservoirs sank to new lows, triple-digit heatwaves left millions sweltering, and wildfires ripped through Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and California.

Natural disasters, from floods to droughts to wildfires, have always occurred in areas across the west, and it will take time for scientists to

The Post of course thinks this is a good thing, or at least wants to appear to. Gender idennniny taught in schools:

Some lessons are direct: “Who can describe what transgender means?” In other classes, the discussion is more subtle: “Remember, families can come in all shapes and sizes!”

Yes all! In some families the parents are shaped like pyramids and the children are shaped like orcas!

In Florida and several others states, educators are restricted in teaching about gender identity, but elsewhere, teachers are embracing the topic as the number of transgender and gender nonbinary children rises.

If it’s true that’s unfortunate, because transgender is a fiction and “gender nonbinary” is simply meaningless. If the number of transgender … Read the rest

Even at his dumbest and most dogmatic and fingers-in-ears how can he think he knows this?

Ok, so we are both agreed that trans women are NOT a rape threat. So there is no disagreement between us and this discussion is over.

— Jason Stanley (@jasonintrator) June 17, 2022

He can’t know that; no one can; it’s not possible. It’s not knowable that zero men who identify as women will ever rape anyone or that zero men who identify as women ever have raped anyone. There are in fact reports of trans women raping women. I would love to know how he, a philosopher, thinks he can know that it has never happened and will never happen.… Read the rest

Financial Times reporter Edward Luce talks to Hillary Clinton over lunch:

With an eye on the likely coming reversal of Roe vs Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that enshrined women’s right to abortion, I ask Clinton how far such unfinished business is likely to go. “If you go down the rabbit hole of far right intellectuals, you see that birth control, gay marriage — all of it is at risk,” she replies.

What is the Christian right’s endgame, I ask. Presumably they would not be able to create the theological dystopia depicted in Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale? My question triggers a passionate response. Clinton speaks about how some states will make it illegal to abort

Many are telling Jesse it’s not becoming religious, it’s been religious all along.

Anyway. Planned Parenthood is firmly in the cult.

This is becoming religious and religion makes me uncomfortable pic.twitter.com/8RF7rUO7Xh

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) June 17, 2022

… Read the rest

Being a woman is an inner experience (a lived experience, of course, as opposed to the other kind), a feeling, a sense, a gnosis, a revelation. It’s nothing to do with genitalia or any other physical attribute.

Unless…

But the truth is i’m ‘she’. Truth matters. It’s sad you’re so twisted up by this. What happened? pic.twitter.com/fi6ieMHkcn

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) June 18, 2022

It’s ‘she.’ You just misgendered me 🤷‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/cOyEU5tJ3N

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) June 18, 2022

It’s “she,” he says, I’m “she,” he says, but to emphasize or illustrate or verify his claim he includes a photo of himself, as if to say “LOOK, you can see for yourself I’m she, in a tight dress, with long … Read the rest

This PrideMonth, the Audobon Society partnered with a man who pretends to be a woman to bring us a message of hope future planet climate change yadda yadda. God knows why a real woman talking sense wouldn’t have done just as well or in fact much better.

This #PrideMonth, Audubon partnered with drag queen and intersectional environmentalist Pattie Gonia to bring you #BirdsTellUs: The Song of the Meadowlark, a message of hope for the future of our planet as we face climate change—if we choose to listen: https://t.co/RGHzJTXGgS pic.twitter.com/UxNW066NL4

— Audubon Society (@audubonsociety) June 13, 2022

Your Name’s not Bruce? tells us they’ve blocked a lot of people as a precaution against hearing any impertinent questions on this … Read the rest

My opinion of people has just shot up. I thought I’d be the only one to say “Ew he thinks he’s doing Fine Writing,” but on the contrary, most people out of a large number said so, and more wittily. I hate hate hate wannabe Fine Writing except from geniuses.

Along with the bogus Fine Writing of course there’s the Don’t you wish you could have a nice vaycay in Cyprus? along with the Get me I’m writing, I’m a writer, you thought I was just a QC but I’m also a writer.

Just pick the bloody fruit already. pic.twitter.com/sry6msI2LB

— Simon Myerson QC (@SCynic1) June 17, 2022

… Read the rest

Transgender Trend summarizes some of what is known about puberty blockers and brain development:

When a child’s natural puberty is blocked we can expect to see effects not only on the body but on the developing brain. It is the surge of sex hormones at puberty which triggers the important changes in the adolescent brain which only reach completion in the mid-twenties. Hormonal changes at puberty  are thought to influence the development of both brain structure and function.

Recent research indicates that there is a window of development for some cognitive functions, and if this window is missed, cognitive development does not resume later even if blockers are discontinued. A reduction in long-term spatial memory was found to persist after

We need more oil to get those prices down but don’t go producing more oil because climate.

Next up: fly us to the moon on gossamer wings.

The Post:

Battered politically by high gasoline prices and pressed to increase oil and gas production, Biden nonetheless attempted to convince countries to keep pursuing policies aimed at combating climate change.

“We cannot, we cannot afford to let the critical goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to slip out of our reach,” the president said to leaders at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate. “The science tells us the window for action is rapidly narrowing.”

And the news media and vox pop tell us we have to … Read the rest

It’s not just a few wannabe-Hitlers, it’s the Republican party.

[T]he immediate danger to American democracy stems from the fact that the Republican party is justifying all this, remains united behind the man responsible, and, worst of all, actually wants to put him back in power. This is about Trump, but not just about Trump. This is what the Republican party is: the very few voices siding against Trumpism are being shunned and ostracized, and most Republicans are united in their quest to install authoritarian rule by a reactionary minority.

And even if conservatives aren’t necessarily on board with all the specifics of Trump’s conspiracy claims, the right in general is united behind the idea that progressives are out

If they could at least manage to talk about it honestly that would be a start.

First sentence of Libby Brooks’s article on a survey of attitudes toward trans people:

The British public are not bitterly polarised over trans equality, according to new research, which found a majority agreed schools should talk to pupils about transgender issues and that one in four knows a trans person personally.

But “equality” has nothing to do with it. Nobody wants trans people to be “unequal” in some never-specified way. The well is poisoned in the title and the very first sentence, and of course goes on being poisoned throughout.

Thought to be the most in-depth UK study to date of public attitudes

Sometimes NOW remembers who women are and what the National Organization for Women is.

This is another supply chain problem where women are bearing the brunt of the cost. Because of these shortages, we are seeing a major hike in prices for tampons, a product that is already unaffordable for many. https://t.co/nhWIMkuIag

— National NOW (@NationalNOW) June 15, 2022

Just women. Not men, not trans women, just women. It’s women who need to soak up menstrual blood without getting it all over the furniture, not men.

Other times they struggle a bit.

Climate change-induced socioeconomic instability, structural power inequalities, health-care inaccessibility, resource scarcity, as well as breakdown in safety all leads to an increased rate of gender-based violence. https://t.co/9hAam7On4k

—

I remember when the National Organization for Women was an organization for women. Seems like only yesterday.

When will this childish shit stop. Yes of course women are the only people who need access to abortion care. Men don’t need it because men don’t get pregnant. (There’s plenty to say about how abortion rights benefit men too, but that’s a different subject, and not what NOW means.) Women need access to abortion and women need a lot of other things too. The fight has not been won. It is not time to move on from feminism and give the men who want to pretend to be women a chance.… Read the rest

A Holyrood equalities committee is discussing reform of the Gender Recognition Act while refusing to talk to women. It’s talking about giving away women’s rights while barring women from their talk. How do they justify this to themselves?

A former Olympic athlete turned politician has slammed Holyrood’s equalities committee, describing its scrutiny of a bill to reform the Gender Recognition Act as a “sham” after it refused to hear from female atheletes concened about the impact of legislation on women’s sport.

Brian Whittle, a gold medallist in the 4x400m relay at the 1986 and 1994 European championships, and a competitor at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, said the committee was only inviting people “who give the answers they want

At last, the man says, finally, FINALLY, after all these years dragging ourselves through the sand, longing for water – finally a man steps in to bestow clarity on all this womany screeching.

At last, some hope of consensus rather than division on the issue of trans rights.
Navigating the detail still requires careful thought, but these findings are basis for common ground. https://t.co/r6IjAJ2e4H

— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) June 16, 2022

Responses are somewhat acerbic.… Read the rest

Billy Bragg is happy about it though. Well he would be.

I am a discrimination lawyer. I think it is unlawful https://t.co/531FZiftYo

— Audrey Ludwig (@AudreySuffolk) June 16, 2022

Imagine working in local government (as I have, working for the Zoo and the Aquarium and the Parks Department) and having your union make declarations of belief in obvious lies. The union’s position is clear: men are women. Brilliant. … Read the rest