Mikhail Iossel shared a remarkable piece of street art from Lyon:… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Never mind Ukraine what about trans people?

It’s probably not helpful to make this about intelligence. I have been interested in cults for a while now*, and one particularly pernicious myth is that only weak or stupid people (or at the very least people who suffer from other major problems) join cults, when in fact cults are usually not interested in “damaged goods”: They are mainly interested in strong, healthy, intelligent, highly functional people who can go out there and recruit others (not a simple task!) and put down countless hours of voluntary work (including some highly specialized tasks that require great skill and competence) for the cults. In fact, I seem to … Read the rest

I get the feeling the venom is getting more venomous.

As a woman I am not being erased by the inclusion of my trans sisters.

As a woman I am not at increased risk of physical harm by the inclusion of my trans sisters.

As a woman I do not welcome the policing of our bodies as a means to define us.

As a woman transphobes are cunts.

— Mitten d'Amour (@MittenDAmour) March 27, 2022

I guess that’s the “d’Amour” part? Very lovey-dovey I must say.

Anyway Philip Pullman approves of it.

Go to hell then.

— Philip Pullman (@PhilipPullman) March 27, 2022

Feminist women are cunts, and Philip Pullman tells us to go to hell if we object to … Read the rest

They’re obsessed.

You’d think this was the only civil liberties issue on the planet. I see variations on this ad often and I don’t see ACLU ads that talk about mass incarceration or abortion rights or workers’ rights or any other civil liberties you’d think the ACLU would care about. Maybe this is because of Facebook’s algorithms but I talk about women’s rights a lot more than I talk about trans rights yet the ACLU seems to want to convert me. All it’s doing is convincing me it’s completely lost the plot.… Read the rest

Nancy Kelley says look look it’s all been proven look for yourself.

Great data driven article on Lia Thomas. Please read. 🙂

Why the data shows trans swimming champion Lia Thomas didn’t have an unfair advantage https://t.co/sJsqjaOHgD

— Nancy Kelley (@Nancy_M_K) March 27, 2022

So I’m reading. First item: the title, subtitle, and first sentence all carefully obfuscate the issue in the way the obedient media outlets always do.

Title: Critics accuse trans swimming star

But the issue isn’t “trans” it’s man. He has an unfair advantage because he’s a man competing against women.

Subhead: The NCAA champion has sparked controversy and become a hate figure among conservatives, but statistics show little evidence that she performed any differently … Read the rest

The Washington Post on Putin’s repression of all traces of dissent:

The speed of Russia’s transformation to Soviet-style “self-purification” has been astonishing. When Russia invaded Ukraine last month, state TV went to wall-to-wall propaganda blaming Ukrainian “neo-Nazis” and “nationalists.” Now, shadowy pro-Putin figures are daubing the words “traitor to the motherland” on the doors of peace activists and others.

The propagandists are seriously busy – I’ve even had a couple here trying to post the “Ukraine–neo-Nazis” crap in comments.

Despite the risk of fines and jail time, others keep protesting. More than 15,000 people have been arrested since the war started.

Anastasia, wearing a jacket with the words “No to War,” was grabbed by riot police earlier this

And speaking of the worship of Peak Bullying, Trump is still flattering his tits-out hero.

Donald Trump chose a rally in Georgia on Saturday night once again to praise Vladimir Putin, calling the Russian president “smart” even as he said the invasion of Ukraine amounted to a “big mistake”.

Putin is “smart” the way any successful crook is “smart.” It’s not a very admirable form of intelligence.

The Republican former president also had warm words for China’s president Xi Jinping and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and referred to such leaders collectively by saying: “The smartest one gets to the top.”

The “smartest” in the sense of the most ruthless, shameless, brutal, determined, conscienceless.

He spoke admiringly of Xi

There’s conservatism and then there’s whatever this is:

After Donald Trump lost the November 2020 election to Joe Biden, Fox skewed further from news to comment, ending its 7pm nightly broadcast, firing the political editor who had been part of Fox accurately projecting on election night that Trump had lost the crucial state of Arizona and promoting Tucker Carlson, the populist commentator and host who has consistently downplayed the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by extremist Trump supporters, the New York Times noted.

Carlson and other voices aired by Fox have spent the past four weeks playing down Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, going soft on Putin, and undermining the messages of the invaded country’s

Another Lia Thomas looms into view.

Top women cyclists who have helped Great Britain to historic triumphs face losing their team places after a trans woman announced she would now compete in female events.

Emily Bridges has continued to race against men for the past year while undergoing hormone therapy, and her successes include a gold medal at the recent University Championships in Nottingham.

However, her testosterone levels are now low enough to meet the criteria set out by British Cycling, the sport’s governing body, for her to compete against women.

So he’ll be guaranteed to win everything in sight! Progress!

The 21-year-old recently spoke candidly about her transition and revealed it was ‘always the plan’ to compete in

More war crimes:

There have been more than 70 separate attacks on hospitals, ambulances and doctors in Ukraine with the number increasing on a “daily basis”, says the World Health Organization (WHO).

…

Since 24 February, the WHO has reviewed and verified 72 separate attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine causing at least 71 deaths and 37 injuries.

Most have damaged hospitals, medical transports and supply stores, but the WHO has also recorded the “probable” abduction or detention of healthcare staff and patients.

“We are concerned that this number is increasing daily,” the WHO’s Ukraine country representative Jarno Habicht told the BBC.

“Health facilities should be safe places for both doctors and nurses, but also patients to turn to

The BBC has lost its damn mind.

Heavy periods, debilitating pain and infertility – those are some of the causes of endometriosis, a condition that affects one in 10 people of any age in the UK, who are assigned female at birth.

They mean women. Endometriosis affects one in ten women in the UK. Simple, clear, easy to understand. The way they put it not so much.

But what is it really like living with the gynaecological condition?

Two women shared their story for Endometriosis Awareness month.

There you go! Gynaecological; women; you can say it.… Read the rest

A Russian-Canadian academic (he emigrated to Canada from the Soviet Union) writes a public Facebook post about Putin’s absurd invocation of JK Rowling:

Earlier today, Putin railed against the alleged “Russophobia” in the West and, moronically enough, attempted to compare Russia to J.K. Rowling in that context.

He shared JKR’s prompt response. The rop comment on his post? Rebecca Solnit libeling JKR.

What a stunningly ugly and untrue thing to say – especially to a Russian-born critic of Putin at this particular time.

She goes on in the same vein, on and on. Kill the witch blah blah blah kill her some more.

She recommends a piece by Laurie Penny of all people.

More from Solnit:

Leaving aside that this

There are some very strange ideas about rights and entitlements out there.

Russia has approximately 6,000 nuclear warheads – the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. In an interview on Saturday, Medvedev said Russia’s nuclear doctrine did not require an enemy state to use such weapons first.

It’s a nuclear doctrine, you see. Bullies have a fist doctrine, murderers have a gun doctrine, Russia has a nuclear doctrine.

He said: “We have a special document on nuclear deterrence. This document clearly indicates the grounds on which the Russian Federation is entitled to use nuclear weapons. There are a few of them, let me remind them to you: number one is the situation, when Russia is struck by a

Here’s a surprise. Protesters in Ukraine did such top quality protesting that they got Russian soldiers to go away.

A mayor in a Ukrainian town occupied by Russian forces has been released from captivity and the soldiers have agreed to leave after a mass protest by residents.

Slavutych, a northern town close to the Chernobyl nuclear site, was taken by Russian forces but stun grenades and overhead fire failed to disperse unarmed protesters on its main square on Saturday.

The crowd demanded the release of mayor Yuri Fomichev, who had been taken prisoner by the Russian troops.

Attempts by Russian troops to intimidate the growing protest failed and on Saturday afternoon Fomichev was let go by his captors.

I find … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The obvious rejoinder.

Maybe the trans people aren’t getting enough recognition after all, so let’s create trans athlete divisions…. Give them what they want; proper divisions with little sexless statuettes for the winners.

But that’s not what they want. Having a separate trans division would deny them their validation as “women” in exactly the same way that “third space” toilet facilities would. Trans activists don’t want a solution that’s “fair” that does not give them the hit of affirmation they crave. They don’t want to put a spotlight on their “transness”, they want to be centered, celebrated, and rewarded for their “womanliness.” The idea behind TWAW and “NO DEBATE” … Read the rest

Sometimes it just takes the breath away. This isn’t some pink-hair young adult, this is a middle-aged man with a book to advertise, and this is how he presents himself to the world.

coming to love Manchester, a place I have always assumed is terrible, through the experience of standing outside a Women’s Place UK conference in a big crowd of legends all chanting “you’re a bunch of wankers”

— Peter Mitchell (@pdkmitchell) March 24, 2022

He brags of standing outside a feminist meeting with a bunch of people shouting in order to drown them out and disrupt their meeting. He brags of it.

Anyway this was good and inspiring and I'm glad I went https://t.co/L7266GsKO3

— Peter Mitchell (@pdkmitchell)

Megan McCardle writes about Lia Thomas:

I’ve now written two columns about Thomas, and it is striking how many people — almost all of them liberal — have spontaneously erupted when I told them what I was writing about. All made the same complaint: It’s not fair.

What’s striking about that? Of course it’s not fair. The unfairness is laughably (enragingly) obvious. He’s mocking us.

There’s little question that Thomas has retained some of the many biological advantages conferred by male puberty, such as height, heart and lung capacity, and strength. But the obvious rejoinder is that of course biology isn’t fair; it never was, and never can be.

That rejoinder is not obvious at all. It’s flippant … Read the rest

How is it their “turf”?

“Terfs get off our fucking turf”. #WPUKManchester. pic.twitter.com/43GH5WJIIh

— Belstaffie (@Belstaffie) March 25, 2022

#WPUKManchester #Manchester #Misogyny ⁦@AndyBurnhamGM⁩ trans extremists try to silence, intimidate and disrupt women speakers inside the Mechanic’s Institute this evening, by converging on it for the ⁦@Womans_Place_UK⁩ event. Around 200 protesters. One arrest made. pic.twitter.com/ewI7SxwUQe

— Belstaffie (@Belstaffie) March 25, 2022

#WPUKManchester Around 200 trans rights activists, gathered in St Peter’s Sq, Manchester at 7pm, to attempt to silence, intimidate and disrupt a WPUK meeting, at the nearby Mechanic’s Institute. pic.twitter.com/s1sBW4atUm

— Belstaffie (@Belstaffie) March 25, 2022

… Read the rest

Some background from way back on February 21:

Three decades ago, the newly independent country of Ukraine was briefly the third-largest nuclear power in the world.

Thousands of nuclear arms had been left on Ukrainian soil by Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But in the years that followed, Ukraine made the decision to completely denuclearize.

In exchange, the U.S., the U.K. and Russia would guarantee Ukraine’s security in a 1994 agreement known as the Budapest Memorandum.

Oh really. That’s not going all that well.

It is clear that Ukrainians knew they weren’t getting the exactly legally binding, really robust security guarantees they sought.

But they were told at the time that the United States

Department of really bad analogies department:

JK Rowling has hit back at Vladimir Putin, after the Russian president cited her in a wide-ranging speech that saw him criticise “cancel culture”.

Pause for correction: she hasn’t “hit back”; she has rejected the comparison.

At a televised meeting on Friday, Mr Putin compared recent criticism of the Harry Potter author to that faced by pro-war Russian composers and writers.

“Pro-war” is sloppy too, since the issue isn’t war in general but this specific “war” which is an unprovoked attack by a massive nuclear-armed country on a much smaller one with no nukes.

In the lengthy speech, which was given to the winners of various cultural prizes, President Putin claimed Russian composers