Pandemic, you say? Well then we’ll just make sure health officials can’t take necessary steps to deal with it.

Republican legislators in more than half of U.S. states, spurred on by voters angry about lockdowns and mask mandates, are taking away the powers state and local officials use to protect the public against infectious diseases.

Because what mad impetuous fool wants to be protected against infectious diseases?

A KHN review of hundreds of pieces of legislation found that, in all 50 states, legislators have proposed bills to curb such public health powers since the covid-19 pandemic began. While some governors vetoed bills that passed, at least 26 states pushed through laws that permanently weaken government authority to protect public

… Read the rest

Trivia, but too funny to pass up.

Daily Wire host says Barack Obama destroyed rock 'n roll because "rock 'n roll was about white male angst…Barack Obama came along and said young white men aren't allowed to have angst" pic.twitter.com/hhmXcwEEKo

— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) September 15, 2021

There’s plenty of ahem ahem Chuck Berry HELLO – and I would add Motown I mean come on – but also when did Obama ever say young white men (or any other people) aren’t allowed to have angst? When did he ever say anything that even vaguely resembled it?

I will say this: a lot of rock & roll is about what whores women are. That aspect can get pretty annoying.… Read the rest

Funny how states and provinces that are particularly heavy on the anti-vax trend are also heavy on the getting Covid trend. Alberta for instance:

A surge in coronavirus cases has pushed the healthcare system in the Canadian province of Alberta to the verge of collapse, as healthcare workers struggle against mounting exhaustion and a growing anti-vaccine movement in the region.

More and more cases, so let’s get more and more people campaigning against vaccinations. Brilliant. As the fire consumes more and more of the house, throw more and more stones at the firefighters.

The province warned this week that its ICU capacity was strained, with more people requiring intensive care than any other point during the pandemic – nearly

… Read the rest

No shit. In a world that still watches placidly as cruise ships burn 80 thousand gallons of fuel a day each, it turns out that nobody, nobody, is living up to the Paris climate agreement.

Every one of the world’s leading economies, including all the countries that make up the G20, is failing to meet commitments made in the landmark Paris agreement in order to stave off climate catastrophe, a damning new analysis has found.

Less than two months before crucial United Nations climate talks take place in Scotland, none of the largest greenhouse gas emitting countries have made sufficient plans to lower pollution to meet what they agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

This

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She’s still at it.

A thread on Brit. The literary narrative in the UK is controlled by white men and women. When the @thetimes assigns Against White Feminism to an avowed anti trans white woman committed to the status quo-It is NOT a fair review it IS “putting brownie in her place” 1/

— Rafia Zakaria (@rafiazakaria) September 14, 2021

That’s a stupid way to describe Joan Smith. I don’t know if Rafia Zakaria is really stupid or not but by god she says a lot of stupid things. That’s one of them. Joan Smith is the author of the classic Misogynies. She’s a feminist thinker and columnist and activist. She’s a star. She’s not “anti-trans,” she’s skeptical of … Read the rest

The voting rights struggle continues:

Senate Democrats united on Tuesday around a pared-down voting rights bill, escalating their efforts to build a case for aggressive action by Congress to push past Republican opposition and counter a rash of new G.O.P.-written ballot restrictions in states around the country.

Why do Republicans write all these voting restrictions? Because they can’t win if everyone can vote without interference.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, quickly dismissed the measure, reiterating his view that the legislation represented unnecessary federal meddling in elections that have historically been the province of the states.

Yes and historically some of the states allowed slavery, too. Fuck “historically.”

“There is no reason for the federal government

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I was listening to a useful and interesting conversation on Fresh Air about the Supreme Court’s intention to kill Roe v Wade and then I hit a bump.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Let’s get back to my interview with Ian Millhiser, who has been writing about the recent Supreme Court order allowing a restrictive Texas abortion law to go into effect. He’s also been writing about the court’s voting rights decisions, the increasing use of the shadow docket and the court’s larger move to the right. In his new book “The Agenda: How A Republican Supreme Court Is Reshaping America,” he writes that while Congress has become increasingly polarized and dysfunctional, the Supreme Court has become

… Read the rest

Billingham continues his persecution of feminist women:

Marion Millar's new crowdfunder is platformed by @givewp in WordPress. I don't think they intend to be used by people circumventing a ban from Crowdfunder for funding a criminal hate crime case? You can ask them here – https://t.co/U94uN5IYEA pic.twitter.com/xeWzlQXbNL

— James Billingham (@oolon) September 14, 2021

Thanks to @GiveWP for the quick action here, I hope they can see "LGB Alliance" are an anti-trans hate group too and rescind their donations page too – https://t.co/flS3RbNFfEhttps://t.co/QVz7hbd2nf

— James Billingham (@oolon) September 14, 2021

He hopes they will silence ALL the feminist women.… Read the rest

Astounding. And horrifying.

Am in a meeting with Mridul Wadwha. Already want to scream at the things being said by organisers

— Jean Hatchet (@JeanHatchet) September 14, 2021

Inc “work to ensure LGBT is embedded across South Yorkshire” ….they intend to target all commissioners

“At Edinburgh rape crisis we had to cleanse our history of not being trans inclusive” JFC – Wadwha is talking about “cleansing” the women’s movement.

Not sure of the stats on this…. “The rape crisis movement is largely run by white, cis, heteronormative women”….

No, really?! The rape crisis movement is run by women? What an outrage!

Desperately want to say something …. Wadwha talking about how Scotland is engulfed in transphobia and suggesting *this* is

… Read the rest

Laurie Penny decided to go all-in.

Imagine you’re throwing a party and somebody kicks off. It was going so well. You spent ages deciding on drinks and making a playlist, and now some blowhard is off on a homophobic rant. He’s not holding back, either. He’s getting loud and mouthing off with the vilest bigotry you can imagine, and people are getting uncomfortable. It’s your party. What do you do?

Well, one, it wouldn’t happen, because I don’t throw parties, and I have zero interest in drinks or playlists. Two – why would you invite “some blowhard” to your own party? If he’s “some blowhard” to you – some random unpleasant guy you don’t even know – what’s he … Read the rest

A pretty story:

A former Met Police counter-terrorism officer has admitted using spy cameras to secretly film naked models.

What kind of models?

Pretending to be a pilot, Det Insp Neil Corbel arranged fake photoshoots in hotel rooms, flats and Airbnbs.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard he hid devices in tissue boxes, phone chargers, an air freshener and glasses to video his victims.

He was caught after a woman became suspicious of a digital clock and found it was a spy camera.

Oh a woman – that kind of model. I wonder if he asked them how they identified first.

Police found images of some 51 women on Corbel’s hard drive and were able to identify 19 victims willing to

… Read the rest

A Golden Retriever at the Museum, 2013,
Painting by Pittsburgh, American Artist, Tom Mosser… Read the rest

Ah well who would know better than Amy Coney Barrett?

Claiming the supreme court “is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks”, Amy Coney Barrett told an audience at a Kentucky center named for the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell that “judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties”.

For sure, and she was not nominated and approved for the court by partisan hacks from a political party but by disinterested legal experts like for instance Mitch McConnell. Yup yup yup yup.

Speaking alongside McConnell a little more than a week after she and four other conservatives on the court declined to block a Texas law which all but outlaws abortion in the state, the devout Catholic also

… Read the rest

Rafia Zakaria apparently deleted the stupidest of her tweets from yesterday attacking Joan Smith for her review of Zakaria’s book on “white feminism.” Or most of them, but not quite all.

I don’t really care what the rest of the review says…but it’s true Against White Feminism does go for the jugular and I’m terribly proud of it :-) @thetimes pic.twitter.com/0hy09FC8Uy

— Rafia Zakaria (@rafiazakaria) September 12, 2021

She doesn’t really care what the review says, which is why she composed all those childish “nyah nyah Karen na na Boomer” about them.

I’ll grant her one point: she didn’t care enough to find out who Joan Smith is.

Haha the reviewer is a real angry Karen! They’re so terribly passed

… Read the rest

Zakaria’s book sounds only slightly less contemptuous and hostile than her social media persona. Joan Smith reviewed it in the Times (so Zakaria thought it would be clever to lob stupid insults at her on Twitter in response, which is very adult and sensible).

“White feminism” as a derogatory term, caricaturing it as a movement that imposes its preoccupations on women who are not white or middle class, has been around for a while. People claim it is reflective more of a state of mind than skin colour; even Pragna Patel, a founding member of Southall Black Sisters, has been accused of being a “white feminist”.

In other words it works pretty much the way “terf” does – as an … Read the rest

Many people clearly pride themselves on being unpleasant.

https://twitter.com/rafiazakaria/status/1437145213420589060

No she doesn’t. That’s Joan Smith, and no she doesn’t. “pol” is short for political, and in any case “pol” doesn’t mean pale in the first place. But being told that wasn’t going to stop the snide pissy Zakaria.

I see the army of white feminist trolls have entered the chat!

— Rafia Zakaria (@rafiazakaria) September 12, 2021

How dare the white feminists point out a dishonest smear of the feminist author of Misogynies?

https://twitter.com/rafiazakaria/status/1437157419034025989

Ok boomer :-)

— Rafia Zakaria (@rafiazakaria) September 12, 2021

What a crude vulgar childish brat. I won’t be following her work.… Read the rest

Psychologist Ellyn Kaschak on the trans dogma:

… there is a deafening silence on the part of most individual psychologists and an enthusiastic, unquestioning and unresearched explosion of support for transgender motives, actions and people by others. I too want to offer support for human rights, but uninformed and unquestioning support may actually involve harm, so instead, I am asking for psychology to step up and take on its responsibilities in this regard.

Not only the conferences, but the classroom and the laboratory are appropriate places to be asking important questions. Yet the inhabitants of these venues are being silenced in the name of human rights and a purported bias named “transphobia.” Academics have been censored and in some

… Read the rest

The usual complete indifference to the needs of women. Me first me me me me me me me me me.

https://twitter.com/PhilosophyTube/status/1436379858007904259

By “women like me” he means men. He’s calling Labour MP Rosie Duffield “awful” (calling her thread awful, but you know we’re meant to think she’s awful for tweeting it) for saying that abused women need women-only services. It’s all about him and zero about the thousands of women who need such services.

You can’t build a progressive movement on this kind of blind relentless egotism and selfishness.… Read the rest

Naomi Cunningham at Legal Feminist:

Legal Feminist tweeted a short thread starting like this the other day:  

How to offer your gender critical employees an employment tribunal claim on a plate: don't wait for them to say or do anything – just gratuitously insult and bully them. https://t.co/kWzf7BPaSZ

— Legal Feminist (@legalfeminist) September 8, 2021

Cunningham first notes that the tweet hasn’t been verified, she doesn’t know who Mother Cecily is, she doesn’t know the story is true. But as a hypothetical, it’s what not to do.

It’s an extraordinarily bad idea. Any HR director tempted to organise training with this kind of content needs to catch up with the implications of the judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal

… Read the rest

Meanwhile, if we get tired of banal formulaic denunciations of “white feminism” by white women who write columns for the Independent, we can turn to Ex-Muslims of North America for some real oppression.

https://twitter.com/ExmuslimsOrg/status/1437046193419390991

The Islamist organization is Hizb ut-Tahrir, and the theocrat who answers the question says: “The ruling of apostasy of Islam is clear, again that’s one of the things the west doesn’t like and seeks to change the ruling of apostasy. As such in Islam it is clear that apostates do attract capital punishment and we don’t shy away from that.”

It’s telling that he shifts the agency onto the victim – it’s the “apostate” who “attracts” murder for leaving the religion. Islam is not to blame, … Read the rest