All entries by this author
May 28th, 2025 10:37 am |
By Ophelia Benson
When it becomes too obvious that climate change is real, the thing to do is say we can’t do anything about it.
The world is facing a new form of climate denial – not the dismissal of climate science, but a concerted attack on the idea that the economy can be reorganised to fight the crisis, the president of global climate talks has warned.
André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian diplomat who will direct this year’s UN summit, Cop30, believes his biggest job will be to counter the attempt from some vested interests to prevent climate policies aimed at shifting the global economy to a low-carbon footing.
Sort of the way you want to prevent firefighters from … Read the rest
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9 comments
May 28th, 2025 10:19 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Bad Kennedy informs us that all the scientific journals are “corrupt” and it’s only the fake ones that are any good, so he’ll be the all-fake boss of Medicare and the rest of it.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that he may bar government scientists from publishing in the world’s leading medical journals, instead proposing the creation of “in-house” publications by his agency —the latest in the Trump administration’s attacks on scientific institutions.
“We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals because they’re all corrupt,” Kennedy said during an appearance on the “Ultimate Human” podcast. He also described the journals as being under
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3 comments
May 28th, 2025 6:04 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Men in women’s toilets: yes or no?
Murdo Fraser sees lawsuits in the future.
The announcement last week from the author JK Rowling that she has established a women’s fund to support legal cases for women who wish to protect their sex-based rights should be causing sleepless nights for Scottish Government ministers, and for the finance directors of public bodies such as local authorities and NHS boards.
All these organisations are now at risk of litigation which could see extensive payouts of taxpayers’ cash to women whose rights have been denied. Rowling’s generosity is entirely in character with her robust stance in speaking up for women who have suffered discrimination because of their gender-critical views.
This latest initiative will
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5 comments
May 27th, 2025 5:53 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
NPR is suing.
National Public Radio on Tuesday sued President Donald Trump over his executive order to cease all federal funding for the nonprofit broadcaster.
Trump’s May 1 order violates the First Amendment’s protections of speech and the press and steps on Congress’ authority, NPR and three other public radio stations wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
The order “also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information,” according to the legal complaint against Trump and a handful of top officials and federal agencies.
NPR and three of its member stations — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT
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1 Comment »
May 27th, 2025 11:41 am |
By Ophelia Benson
It’s odd to see a human rights lawyer admitting that it didn’t occur to him to think about the trans issue from the point of view of a woman.
I am a human rights lawyer and professor at King’s College London. Until 2018, I supported all the demands of the transgender-rights movement. But since then, I have changed my mind.
Why? Because I finally understood that some demands conflict with the rights of women and are therefore unreasonable.
That’s quite the admission – that it took him a long time to realize that some trans demands conflict with women’s rights. It’s not as if we’re a tiny niche demographic, like Shaker biracial left-handed Indigenous lesbians or something. Women are … Read the rest
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16 comments
May 27th, 2025 9:16 am |
By Ophelia Benson
All the same bad stuff only much worse this time.
In President Trump’s first term, the Pentagon opposed his desire for a military parade in Washington, wanting to keep the armed forces out of politics.
But in Mr. Trump’s second term, that guardrail has vanished. There will be a parade this year, and on the president’s 79th birthday, no less.
The current plan involves a tremendous scene in the center of Washington: 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks (at 70 tons each for the heaviest in service); 28 Stryker armored personnel carriers; more than 100 other vehicles; a World War II-era B-25 bomber; 6,700 soldiers; 50 helicopters; 34 horses; two mules; and a dog.
Yay! The dictator gets to parade the … Read the rest
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5 comments
May 27th, 2025 8:43 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Imagine being an academic and seeing your union shout this:
We know that by “trans rights” they mean not the human rights that everyone has but special invented luxury rights that cancel the rights of other people, especially women. If men who call themselves women have the “right” to go everywhere women can go, then women don’t have some rights we’ve depended on for a long time. If men who call themselves women have the “right” to compete against women in sports then women lose the right … Read the rest
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2 comments
May 27th, 2025 4:25 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on From the Solfatara crater.
Back in 1980, during my last year of high school, I went on a trip with a number of classmates to the eastern Mediterranean organized and chaperoned by one of our teachers. One of the last stops on the trip was Naples. The original plan was to go to Pompeii, but having arrived on a Monday, the site was closed. Plan B took us to Solfatara, which smelled of rotten eggs and featured many pools of boiling mud. The paths we walked along were roped to keep us from straying off into areas where the thin crust of rock might not have supported our weight, with … Read the rest
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6 comments
May 26th, 2025 10:23 am |
By Ophelia Benson
King Choss is dropping in on Canada by way of telling Trump to keep his nasty little hands off.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla will arrive in Canada later, for a two-day visit seen as bringing a message of support for the country in the face of threats and taunts from US President Donald Trump. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who recently won a general election on a wave of anti-Trump sentiment, invited the royal couple and will hold a meeting with them during their stay in Ottawa.
The King will read the “Speech from the Throne” to Canada’s Parliament on Tuesday, the first time a monarch has delivered this for almost 50 years. It is expected to include
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May 26th, 2025 10:00 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Uh oh
The Phlegraean Fields supervolcano near Naples, Italy, has recently sparked serious concern among scientists due to alarming increases in gas emissions. Experts from Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology have documented a significant surge in carbon dioxide release from the Solfatara crater, with daily emissions reaching between 4,000 and 5,000 tons. This troubling development has raised questions about whether magma is rising toward the surface, potentially signaling a catastrophic awakening of this geological giant that could have global consequences.
The Phlegraean Fields’ increasing activity has scientists on high alert as they monitor the dramatic rise in gas emissions. Research led by Gianmarco Buono reveals that up to 80% of the carbon dioxide currently escaping from Solfatara crater
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4 comments
May 26th, 2025 6:09 am |
By Ophelia Benson
They just won’t give an inch.
Nearly 50 MSPs and their staff have signed a letter to the governing body of the Scottish parliament expressing “deep concern” about its decision to ban trans people from using the toilets of their lived gender in the building.
Allow me to express my “deep concern” about the nearly 50 MSPs and their staff who are ignoring the obvious implications of allowing trans people to use the toilets of their “lived” (i.e. fake) gender.
Which should we be more “deeply concerned” about – men who want to invade women’s toilets, or women who want men to stay out of women’s toilets?
Nearly 50 MSPs think the answer is that we should ignore the … Read the rest
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6 comments
May 26th, 2025 5:45 am |
By Ophelia Benson
It looks as if Jolyon Maugham actually wants to be sued for libel. Strange thing to want.
You see what I mean? What he says there is obviously not true – so obviously that he must have done it on purpose. He pays creepily close attention to Rowling, so he’s well aware that she does exactly the things he says she doesn’t do.
So he wants to get … Read the rest
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6 comments
May 25th, 2025 10:48 am |
By Ophelia Benson
And there’s also all the influence of financial interests and mergers and terrorist lawsuits to make everything even worse. Trump punishes journalism for reporting the truth about him, and much of journalism says “Yes sir yes sir” because it doesn’t want to lose that sweet deal it has with _____.
CBS News and Stations CEO Wendy McMahon is leaving the network, the latest casualty as its parent company tries to broker a truce with Donald Trump.
McMahon alluded to the network’s battles with the president in a memo to staff on Monday, less than 24 hours after 60 Minutes aired its season finale, and admitted “the past few months have been challenging.”
Her exit comes as CBS’ parent company Paramount
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May 25th, 2025 10:20 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump is still noisily raging at Harvard, clueless as to how obvious he’s making his jealousy and resentment.
In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said the home countries of some of Harvard’s international students are “not at all friendly to the United States” and “pay NOTHING toward their student’s education.”
He added that the administration wants to “to know who those foreign students are” and that “Harvard isn’t exactly forthcoming.”
That’s not how any of this works.
Trump’s latest attack against Harvard comes two days after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the administration from being able to revoke the university’s ability to enroll international students.
The university had argued that the Trump
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May 25th, 2025 8:42 am |
By Ophelia Benson
I mentioned a few days ago in a comment that a bonehead error a lot of people make is confusing “minority” with “oppressed” when the two are not the same at all. Here’s Hamza Yousaf making that exact mistake.
…advancing people’s rights, I think that’s really important, I never demured [he means demurred] from that view, I’m a passionate advocate for minority rights, being a minority myself, but – I mean
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3 comments
May 25th, 2025 6:36 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Even federal disaster relief is not safe from Trump.
Public officials have started pleading with the Trump administration for help in recovering from deadly disasters as President Donald Trump triggers frustration in states struck by tornadoes, floods and storms by taking no action on requests for aid.
Trump has left states, counties and tribes in limbo as he delays making decisions on formal requests for millions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. Some areas that are still reeling from extreme weather are unable to start cleanup.
“We’re at a standstill and waiting on a declaration from FEMA,” said Royce McKee, emergency management director in Walthall County, Mississippi, which was hit by tornadoes in mid-March.
You’d think tornadoes … Read the rest
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4 comments
May 24th, 2025 5:07 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on What makes them experts?
It points to a problem in the ruling, however. Maybe it could be exploited. I don’t know.
Activists are claiming the ruling is unclear/flawed/wrong anyway, so the heel-dragging and nose-thumbing is happening without reference to the ruling in any case. They need no reason or excuse. They’re still following Stonewall Law and its unlawful guidance, which was made up to suit what activists claimed and wanted despite the original intent of the Acts it was supposedly embodying. They’ve never argued their case; why would they feel the need to start now?
If a woman is fool enough to make herself look convincingly male, that’s not anyone else’s
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6 comments
May 24th, 2025 4:42 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Jam tomorrow.
Women are just an annoying little faction, and can safely be ignored.
Strange how Labour (or much too large a chunk of it) is deathly afraid of that 0.1% of “women with penises” and their friends, as opposed to brushing off half the population. This minority has that power over them because Labour gave it to them. Labour might feel it’s gone too far to step away from this parasitical “alliance”, but doing so would probably win them more support than it would cost. It’s too bad they can’t see this. If they don’t, their statements in support of genderism over the last few years are going to … Read the rest
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4 comments