I saw a couple of hours ago that Daniel Dennett has left the stage, and I put off mentioning it because it displeases me.

Let’s turn our minds back to December 2006 and the day Judge Jones issued his ruling in the Kitzmiller case. It inspired me to fire off an email to Richard Dawkins inviting him to comment for publication here, which he immediately did, eloquently.

Judge John Jones has given the Founding Fathers the first really good reason to stop spinning in their graves since the Bush junta moved in. It would have been a scandal if any judge had not found against the ID charlatans, but I had expected that he would do so with equivocation: some

Victoria Smith on Scotland’s belated “pause”:

This is a tremendous relief and, to some of us, a surprise. As Dr Hilary Cass noted, evidence-based care for vulnerable children has been disrupted by those who prefer “a social justice model”. Being in favour of the sterilisation of autistic and gay children — or “protecting trans kids”, as it’s been known — has long been a way to advertise one’s right-side-of-history credentials. It has also, in the eyes of certain Scottish politicians, been a way to indicate that one’s own country is young, progressive, and forward-looking, rather than mired in stuffy old principles such as “child safeguarding”.

It’s worth pausing over that third sentence for an hour or two. All these … Read the rest

The BBC reported yesterday:

Scotland’s NHS has paused prescribing puberty blockers to children referred by its specialist gender clinic. The Sandyford clinic in Glasgow also said new patients aged 16 or 17 would no longer receive other hormone treatments until they were 18. It follows a landmark review of gender services for under-18s in England. Dr Hilary Cass’s review said children had been let down by a lack of research and there was “remarkably weak” evidence on medical interventions.

And very drastic “medical interventions” they are, too – and in fact they’re not really “medical” as commonly understood. More like anti-medical.

Like other parts of the UK, Scotland has seen a rapid rise in the number of young people

Labour has a new campaign ad.

Thinking about all the new homes we’ll build. pic.twitter.com/ME2TJGngFn

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) April 19, 2024

Replies are scathing.… Read the rest

I find myself wondering why, when we’re told that the feeling of being trans is so real and overwhelming that it trumps the dull facts, it’s so urgent and imperative to change the body so that it matches the feeling.

Unless, of course, it turns out that this real and overwhelming feeling is solely about the appearance.

But then what becomes of the core claims about the self, the identity, the soul?

These thoughts arose as I was reading a rant by Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir on the Cass Report evil terfs etc etc etc.

Waiting lists for trans-related healthcare in the UK are atrocious, with people in England waiting an average of seven years for a first appointment, despite

Simon Edge on why Ruth Hunt should not continue to be a peer:

[It’s a Twitter thread but I’m turning it into a short essay so as not to annoy.]

In May 2019 Ruth Hunt, who had just resigned as CEO of Stonewall, did a Q&A at the Oxford Union. Asked for tips on how to argue with people who didn’t agree with Stonewall on trans issues, she said: ‘Those who think transwomen are men? I wouldn’t even bother. Leave them to us.’

If that sounds faintly menacing, consider this: a few months later, the @AllianceLGB held its inaugural meeting, at a secret location. None of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people attending believed Hunt’s mantra that transwomen

So the question becomes how do you then find jurors who are mentally competent?

Jury selection resumed Thursday in a trial over allegations that Trump falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign. Ultimately, 12 jurors will determine the verdict, with six alternates on standby.

Nearly 200 potential jurors have been brought in. All potential jurors will be asked whether they can serve and be fair and impartial. Those who have said “no” have been sent home.

Lawyers on both sides then comb through answers prospective jurors provide orally in court to a set of 42 questions that probe whether they have been part of various extremist groups, have attended pro- or anti-Trump rallies, or

Straight man Jeremy Corbyn tells lesbians and gay men they can’t have solidarity for and with lesbians and gay men unless they include straight people who pretend to be the opposite sex.

I don’t think that’s his call, myself.

There is no LGB without the T.

My speech at the Council of Europe. pic.twitter.com/LKckcbPgXT

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) April 18, 2024

… Read the rest

Today in You Cannot Be Serious: one Lloyd Evans, who writes for The Spectator.

The setup: a historian named Lea Ypi gave a lecture at Darwin College, which Lloyd Evans attended but didn’t actually listen to, because he was too preoccupied with her hair. It got him all worked up, so he bought some sex, and then he wrote this piquant episode up for The Spectator.

Advice for scholars: next time you lecture on Kant and revolutions at “Downing” (@DarwinCollege) Cambridge, make sure your hair is neatly tied and that you’re not blonde. Or else your research impact will be on the @spectator libido section. pic.twitter.com/j9qbo0p2Ai

— Lea Ypi (@lea_ypi) April 18, 2024

It’s interesting for a lot … Read the rest

Grooming much?

Scottish primary schools are appointing children as “LGBT champions” and are being urged to ask pupils as young as four if they are gay, lesbian or trans, The Telegraph can reveal.

Documents show that schools are setting up LGBT clubs and “gender and sexual orientation alliance groups” for pupils as part of their membership of a scheme run by the charity LGBT Youth Scotland.

The charity, which received nearly £1 million of taxpayer’s money last year, also urges head teachers to install gender neutral toilets and mark Transgender Day of Remembrance, an event critics say is designed to reinforce myths spread by trans activists.

Wait, I have an idea. Here’s what you do: just change every child’s genitalia … Read the rest

More stupid stuff to round out the day:

Humza Yousaf has hit back at [retorted to] JK Rowling over her “ludicrous” outspoken attack on his plans to ensure biological men identifying as female are protected by a new misogyny law.

The Harry Potter author accused Mr Yousaf of displaying “absolute contempt for women” on Tuesday after he said transgender women would fall within the scope of the legislation.

…

He insisted that extending the law to transgender people did not diminish the protection being offered to women as he hit out at rebuked “bad faith actors” who are “intent on turning every issue into a culture war”.

Mr Yousaf also accused them of “deliberate disinformation” and argued it made

Originally a comment by Papito on Peaceful but conspicuous.

The greatest amount of coercion employed in this “not very subtle form of proselytising” is against other Muslims, or people who were born Muslim and may be moving away from Islam. The rest of the students are just “kafirs” and the holy rollers don’t really care about them. Group prayer serves a function of guarding a society against apostasy – whoever didn’t show up and participate properly can be persecuted. Unlike in many other modern religions, in Islam apostasy is very strictly judged – it is punishable by death in some countries. Insisting on group prayer is insisting that you can do violence to those who waver.

The ruling was … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on How not to change minds.

I understood that she had received unacceptable abuse…

But some abuse is acceptable?

…and had been taken unawares by the responses to her initial feelings.

I’m sure she had a very good idea of what she was in for when she posted her “This is not a drill” message in support of Maya Forestater. And, she’s received abuse over saying facts, not over “feelings.”

Latterly I felt she could have been calmer & kinder …/

Tell that to those who continue to smear her and heap abuse on her. Tell us why Rowling is not entitled to use all the anger, sarcasm, and disdain … Read the rest

Someone called Kirstie Allsop has been doing a lot of clueless uninformed social media lecturing on How To Be Kind to our trans siblings blah blah blah, so I finally got exasperated enough to find out who she is to be lecturing from such a great height.

She’s a tv personality.

Gareth Roberts at Spiked almost exactly a year ago:

We all know people who are totally unaware of the complexities of a situation, but who are still totally confident in opening their big gob to pronounce on it…For much of the past week, I’ve been watching with a mixture of amusement and horror at the Twitter travails of TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp, who has now entered the trans

Trump thought he was supposed to be able to reject as many jurors as he wanted.

Donald Trump complained Wednesday that his lawyers were not given “unlimited” chances to reject prospective jurors at his New York criminal hush money trial.

Mr Sir, if you could reject prospective jurors without limit, then there would never be a trial at all. That’s not how this works. Hope that helps.

“I thought STRIKES were supposed to be ‘unlimited’ when we were picking our jury?” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Imagine admitting you’re that stupid. Imagine making it public of your own free will.

Samantha Chorny, a criminal defense lawyer in New York City, told CNBC that if there were

Wrong.

Today's High Court ruling sets a dangerous precedent.

It targets Muslim students, and cannot be removed from the ramping up of Prevent and recent govt extremism definition.

No child should be policed for the peaceful practice of their faith.https://t.co/lHUuTRoeo8

— Runnymede Trust (@RunnymedeTrust) April 16, 2024

It’s a secular school, which means it’s open to children from all religious backgrounds and none. Group public prayers go against that. Runnymede Trust should have a long hard think about the moral pressure public prayers exert on other children from Muslim backgrounds at that school.

Public prayer is a not very subtle form of proselytizing. Secular schools should not be forced to allow it.… Read the rest

Joan Smith on Humza Yousaf and misogyny and law:

Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf, let the cat out of the bag when he revealed yesterday the real intention behind the SNP’s proposal to bring in a standalone law on misogyny.

Yousaf claims that men can be victims of misogyny — and that they’re as or more likely to be targets than women. “Trans women will be protected as well, as they will often be the ones who suffer threats of rape or threats of disfigurement for example,” he said, offering no evidence for the assertion.

And also, of course, offering no reason to believe that men can be women.

Yousaf doubled down, repeating one of the most cherished illusions

No YOU are.

One day, GCs & Sex Realists will reflect on how they "once believed something" – that trans people are an ideological cult which recruits children, & harms women – & it will strike them "as absurd, even unhinged" just as those who once believed in Satanic abuse did in the 1980s pic.twitter.com/TStFlKeqY5

— Prof. Stephen Whittle OBE, PhD, DLaws, FAcSS, (@stephenwhittle) April 16, 2024

Whittle thinks that our awareness that people can’t change sex will one day strike us as “absurd, even unhinged.”

That day will not arrive. Why not? Because people can’t change sex, and we won’t one day decide they can, just as we won’t one day decide that people can fly or live under … Read the rest

I remember when Republicans were the Law n Order party. Seems like forever ago.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical of a charge federal prosecutors have lodged against hundreds of people who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

While the court’s three-justice liberal wing signaled support for the charge, the conservative majority raised a series of skeptical questions about its potential scope and whether it would criminalize other conduct, such as protests.

A decision against the government could reopen some 350 cases in which defendants have been charged with “obstructing” an official proceeding by pushing their way into the Capitol in 2021. The charge can tack up to 20 years onto a prison sentence.

I … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on The Three Anti-imperialists.

I’ve never understood people who worship Marx like a god and treat his writings like holy text. The philosophers and thinkers of the past had good ideas and bad ones. As I see it, the general rule is, the further back you go in time, the more surprising it is to find good ideas that hold up today — and the more credit is due to those who came up with them — and the more apt you are to find bad ones that didn’t hold up so well. Because that’s how knowledge is built: over time. So it seems weird to me that anyone would revere thinkers from centuries … Read the rest