Filia reports:

On 29th January I attended an event organised by the local council and billed as one of a series, with the aim of ‘hearing your ideas’ to ‘create the positive change you would like to see’ in Brighton & Hove.

This particular evening, the focus was supposedly on making the city safer for Women and Girls, which is why I was there. I’m the co-founder and CEO of a Feminist charity called FiLiA. Many of our team members are survivors of male violence, and we work to amplify the voices of Women, particularly those less often heard or purposefully silenced. What I witnessed during the course of the two-hour workshop left me shocked; silencing, intimidation

How dare she.

Women and girls are whipped, beaten up, imprisoned, killed for not wearing that loathsome snuffer. What is the purpose of it? To keep men from getting erections because a woman has hair on her head. How about forcing men to wear iron underpants instead of forcing women to wrap blankets around their heads?… Read the rest

And so we arrive at full circle: contempt for and mockery of lesbians by The Most Oppressed of Them All.

'Lesbians are dying out' portrays lesbianism as a fear of penises, rather than a sexual orientation. pic.twitter.com/E63uZhQU2W

— Scottish Lesbians (@ScotLesbians) February 1, 2024

I’m gobsmacked by that, I must say. The new contempt for lesbians just like the old contempt for lesbians. Don’t worry: just be sure to mock and dismiss women and you’ll always be on the right track.… Read the rest

That Tweet is providing cover.

The fact that this tweet has already amassed thousands of quote-retweets — far more than replies, even, & virtually all of them are positive — shows how many people want to speak up, but feel they can only do so when they've got an authority like @richarddawkins backing them. https://t.co/C5NkUu5Dfl

— Arty Morty (@artymortyarty) February 1, 2024

Dawkins is now a human shield!… Read the rest

Bloomberg on the cruise ship question:

When Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas embarks on its first official voyage on Jan. 27, the journey is sure to make waves. The world’s largest cruise ship, the Icon is over 1,000 feet long (360 meters) and weighs in around 250,000 gross registered tons. It boasts 20 different decks; 40 restaurants, bars and lounges; seven pools; six waterslides and a 55-foot waterfall. Royal Caribbean says its boat will usher in “a new era of vacations.”

Maybe so. But the Icon is also a doubling down on a negative aspect of cruising’s current era: greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2022, Bryan Comer, director of the Marine Program at the International Council on Clean

Joan Smith on Keir Starmer’s buddy relationship with the People of Gender:

[G]ender-critical women’s organisations and even some of his own MPs struggle to get a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer. 

Not so trans activists, for whom Starmer apparently has all the time in the world. This week he welcomed members of the lobby group LGBT+ Labour to a reception at Westminster and offered them everything the most dedicated trans activist could want, short of self-ID. Starmer was accompanied by a raft of frontbenchers including his deputy, Angela Rayner, and the Shadow Women and Equalities Minister, Anneliese Dodds.

“Together we’ll ban conversion therapy, strengthen hate crime laws and tackle health inequalities,” Dodds posted excitedly on X.

But the “conversion therapy” … Read the rest

Trump loses another fight. Loser.

Donald Trump’s attempt to bring a case in the UK against a former MI6 officer who compiled a salacious dossier linking him to Russia has failed. The former president had been seeking to use data protection laws to sue the company run by Christopher Steele but the High Court has thrown out the case.

Mr Steele compiled the dossier which contained unproven allegations about bribing officials and sex parties. It was leaked to the media just before Mr Trump was sworn in as president.

It was BuzzFeed that leaked it, not Steele.

Trump filed the case too late. He says that’s because he was too busy being president. Too busy tweeting is more like … Read the rest

Dawkins is prodding the gender ideologues.

The way the non-binary faithful obsess about intersexes, and about individuals who can’t produce gametes, amounts to a pathetic clutching at straws while they drown in postmodern effluent. Yes, some fish change from sperm-producing male to egg-producing female (or vice versa). That very statement relies on the gametic definition of male & female. Ditto hermaphroditic worms & snails who can produce both male & female gametes.

In any case, the existence of intersexes is irrelevant to transexualist claims, since trans people don’t claim to be intersexes. Also, as if it matters, humans are not worms, snails, or fish.

The rare tetra-amelia syndrome (babies born without limbs) does not negate the statement that Homo

More on that “trans people have worse mental health” gotcha:

Two of the study’s five authors are not scientists but activists: a ‘pride in practice manager’ at the LGBT Foundation with an anthropology BA, and an organiser for the Proud Trust (purveyor of misleading sex ed materials for schools) with an English BA. (Source: Times comment)

— Outspoken Women (@women_outspoken) February 1, 2024

Well, yeah, obviously people who think they're in the wrong body and want to chop bits off of their body normally are suffering from mental health issues..we use to understand this however now we call it a identity and celebrate it pic.twitter.com/XG8LeU0nuz

— Aja the Empress ♀️🇬🇧🇯🇲 (@Aja02537920) February 1, 2024

In fact there’s a large stream … Read the rest

The Guardian tells us:

Transgender people in England are much more likely to have a long-term mental health condition, the first study of its kind shows, with some facing a risk five times higher than cisgender people.

…

The research, led by the University of Manchester in collaboration with the Proud Trust and LGBT Foundation, was published in the Lancet Public Health journal.

“Trans, non-binary and gender-diverse people across England face widespread discrimination, leading to stressful social interactions and feelings of unacceptance, increasing the risk of poor mental health,” said Dr Luke Munford, a senior lecturer in health economics at Manchester and co-author of the paper.

Or maybe it’s the other way around? Maybe it’s bad mental health … Read the rest

Well capitalism isn’t taking all this climate change stuff lying down. It’s SUING, god damn it.

Business and agricultural groups sued California on Tuesday over the most sweeping climate disclosure mandates in the nation, arguing the policies signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year overstep on the federal government’s authority to regulate emissions nationwide.

While business and agriculture have every right to destroy what’s left of the planet so that they can keep making a profit.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, California Chamber of Commerce, American Farm Bureau Federation and other groups filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. They argue the new rules go too far in part because they apply to

Be sure to keep the causes of climate change a secret so that the causes can continue to cause.

Business and agricultural groups sued California on Tuesday over the most sweeping climate disclosure mandates in the nation, arguing the policies signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year overstep on the federal government’s authority to regulate emissions nationwide.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, California Chamber of Commerce, American Farm Bureau Federation and other groups filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. They argue the new rules go too far in part because they apply to companies headquartered outside of California as long as they do business in the state. The groups also allege the

They knew back in 1954.

The fossil fuel industry funded some of the world’s most foundational climate science as early as 1954, newly unearthed documents have shown, including the early research of Charles Keeling, famous for the so-called “Keeling curve” that has charted the upward march of the Earth’s carbon dioxide levels.

A coalition of oil and car manufacturing interests provided $13,814 (about $158,000 in today’s money) in December 1954 to fund Keeling’s earliest work in measuring CO2 levels across the western US, the documents reveal.

Keeling would go on to establish the continuous measurement of global CO2 at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. This “Keeling curve” has tracked the steady increase of the atmospheric carbon

News from Australia:

Victorian MP Georgie Purcell has hit out [objected] after an edited a picture of her was shown on a commercial television bulletin last night.

The Animal Justice Party MP says an image used by 9News Melbourne to illustrate a story about her opposition to duck hunting featured enlarged breasts, while her dress was altered to become a cropped top and skirt.

Seems too conservative. Why not put her in a bikini?

Ms Purcell says it’s an example of the “ongoing, insidious” treatment of female MPs in the media. 

9News Melbourne director Hugh Nailon apologised in a statement. “As is common practice, the image was resized to fit our specs,” he said. “During that process, the automation

Beyond parody:

The menopause affect's *everyone's* emotional and physical health differently 🤨 pic.twitter.com/lTfyubo7Gq

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) January 30, 2024

But wait! Network Rail can say which people it’s talking about…when they’re the right people.

Where a man identifies.… Read the rest

Oh god what it actually looks like.

You’re trapped with a billion people in their ugliest sloppiest clothes slouching around scavenging for more hot dogs. There’s no escape! Never mind the rain and the slopping water everywhere, it’s the people the people the people.

We’re not women, we’re “bodies with vaginas.”

In

the

Lancet.

Treating the word “woman” as so offensive it cannot be uttered is bad enough. Replacing it with a butcher’s slab anatomical inventory is about as dehumanising as I can imagine.

This is deeply offensive. It is misogynist. It is the lexicon of insult. pic.twitter.com/hxdts05ArZ

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) January 30, 2024

… Read the rest

Science News:

A surge of a hormone made by fetuses triggers the stomach-turning nausea and vomiting of morning sickness, a new study suggests.

People who have naturally low levels of the protein in their blood before pregnancy are more susceptible to a severe form of morning sickness called hyperemesis gravidarum when hit with the rush of protein, researchers report December 13 in Nature. The findings could help identify people at risk of the severe illness and lead to treatments.

Up to 80 percent of pregnant people get nauseous in the early stages of pregnancy, and about half vomit — a combo of symptoms often called (misleadingly) morning sickness. A small percentage of pregnant people — up to 3

Let’s have another casual insult, shall we?

Sutton United appoint transgender former referee Lucy Clark as manager

Of a women’s team, that is.

While of great personal significance to Clark, the appointment is also noteworthy as it makes her the first transgender woman to be appointed as a manager in the top five divisions of English women’s football.

But we hope there will be many many more? Is that the idea?

Clark returns to management at a time when the place of transgender women in women’s football has come under intense scrutiny.

Gee, why might that be, do you think? Possibly because it’s dangerous as well as unfair?

A group of 48 MPs and 27 peers recently signed a letter

Joan McAlpine at Holyrood:

Evidence from the employment tribunal involving Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre stirred some distressing memories. A service designed to help traumatised women appears to have forgotten its core purpose.

In a constructive dismissal case, Roz Adams, a counsellor, said she was told that revealing the biological sex of support workers was transphobic – even if it was done to reassure a rape survivor that she’d be talking to another female. 

Transphobic how? I suppose because doing so reminds people that there is such a thing as biological sex and that women often need to know which is which for our own safety.

But so does Mridul Wadhwa really expect the entire world to pretend there’s no … Read the rest