The Times on the sacking of Joan Smith:

A violence against women campaigner has claimed that she was sacked by Sadiq Khan’s administration after expressing concerns about transgender women being allowed into refuges for victims of rape and domestic abuse.

Joan Smith said she was removed by City Hall after raising the issue on behalf of charities funded by the mayor that were said to be concerned about the prospect of vulnerable women and girls having to share the spaces.

Smith also believes that she fell out of favour after calling for improvements in how the Metropolitan Police identified sexual predators in its ranks, and repeatedly highlighting “endemic misogyny” after the case of Sarah Everard, who was raped and

… Read the rest

My rage thermometer just broke.

I've been sacked as Co-chair of the Mayor of London's Violence Against Women and Girls Board. By email. After eight years.
Story in today's Times. pic.twitter.com/NfAjc4TsqM

— Joan Smith (@polblonde) August 19, 2021

She only wrote the book on the subject, literally THE book on the subject.

But please, tell us again how the trans craze in no way impinges on women’s rights.… Read the rest

Imran Khan is delighted at the Taliban win.

A day after the Taliban seized power in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani fled the war-torn country, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said Afghans have “broken the chains of slavery in the country”.

Unless, of course, you think women are people, and included under the label “Afghans.” For women and girls the chains of slavery have very much been re-forged.

“When you adopt someone’s culture you believe it to be superior and you end up becoming a slave to it. It is more difficult to free your mind from mental slavery. Afghans have broken the shackles of slavery,” Imran Khan said.

Maybe. But “someone’s culture” is a complicated thing. … Read the rest

If there was a "stirring up hatred" offence against women, we'd probably have cause against Heather, Hannah and @TheScotsman tonight. Think about that.

We don't believe in that, but today has been terrifying.

— For Women Scotland (@ForWomenScot) August 18, 2021

I had to go digging to find out what happened.

Hannah is Hannah Brown, who wrote a venomous piece in The Scotsman misrepresenting what For Women Scotland said.

For Women Scotland – which claims to campaign ‘for sex-based rights’ in Scotland – posted on Twitter on August 15: “Horrific regimes and movements like the Taliban also know what same-sex attraction is. They don’t check whether it’s “same gender” attraction like Stonewall and BBC. They hang, behead or shoot men

… Read the rest

When it counts.

I agree. What I'm confused about is why you think it's "harder for women to leave (more dangerous to travel alone, caring responsibilities, less able to find work quickly and send money home)"..?

Is it because women are adult human females, or because they "identify" as women?

— Jack (@j4ppleby) August 16, 2021

Well? Which is it?… Read the rest

Stop the presses:

British supermodel Lily Cole has revealed that she identifies as “queer” adding that she sees other labels of sexuality as too “rigid”.

Or to put it less excitingly, a model says she calls herself “queer.” Nobody cares, and life goes on.

In a new interview with the Sunday Times Style to discuss her debut book, Who Cares Wins, the mother of one, 33, said the choice of the word queer allows her to be open while protecting her private life.

Yes indeed, and it allows her to be bold while remaining cautious, it allows her to be frank while remaining bashful, it allows her to be trendy while doing nothing at all.

“If I were

… Read the rest

No, he can’t just pop back in, “reinstated.” That’s not how any of this works.

During an event in Dallas on Sunday that was also attended by prominent peddlers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, [Sidney] Powell suggested Trump could be reinstated as president even now, saying that “it should be that he can simply be reinstated, that a new Inauguration Day is set.”

Yes definitely “it should be that” a wannabe dictator can just magically be “reinstated” despite the whole losing the election thing and the inciting a violent insurrection thing.

According to CNN legal analyst Steve Vladeck, “Powell is just making stuff up. There’s no regulation, rule, statute or constitutional provision that comes within a million light-years of

… Read the rest

Meanwhile in Pakistan –

A woman was violently assaulted, thrown into the air and had her clothes ripped from her while filming a TikTok video in Pakistan, police say.

The unidentified woman said she was filming at a park in the city of Lahore when a crowd of up to 400 hundred men attacked her on Saturday.

Video of the incident circulating over social media shows a woman being forcibly picked up and dragged through a mob of hundreds gathered at Minar-e-Pakistan to celebrate Independence Day, an event marking the end of British colonial rule.

Yay, end of colonial rule, what better way to celebrate than to have hundreds of men assault a woman?

What is colonial rule?

A power … Read the rest

A letter to the WSJ from Mark Boslaugh and Michael Mann:

In “Climate Change Brings a Flood of Hyperbole” (op-ed, Aug. 11), Steven Koonin put himself in the unenviable position of playing down climate change precisely while we are experiencing unprecedented heat waves, storms, fires, droughts, and floods that exceed model-based expectations.

Yes but these are some other kind of heat waves, storms, fires, droughts, and floods, the kind that have nothing to do with climate change.

Mr. Koonin claims that regional projections are “meant to scare people.” But the paper he cites for support addresses the “unfolding of what may become catastrophic changes to Earth’s climate” and argues that “being able to anticipate what would otherwise be

… Read the rest

My statement on behalf of the Women's Parliamentary Labour Party: https://t.co/oa7E70csdB pic.twitter.com/hWAUivu7xG

— Rosie Duffield MP (@RosieDuffield1) August 17, 2021

… Read the rest

The Glinner Update on Owen Jones’s hatred of women:

No Owen, what is gruesome is your obsessive monstering of feminist women who have an analysis of sex class oppression, and who understand the structure of gender and how it harms women far better than you.

What is gruesome is your complete and unrelenting contempt for women’s expertise and knowledge about their own oppression.

I am not an ‘anti-trans obsessive jumping on the Plymouth tragedy.’

I am a feminist thinker who wrote a PhD on male entitlement, and have published and been interviewed on MRA culture, what it tells us about the structure of misogyny, the relation between male entitlement and male violence, and the narcissistic rage that is visited

… Read the rest

University of Chicago research finds that it’s worse than we thought.

The researchers assessed how consistently respondents answered certain questions that were written differently but belonged to the same category. What they found was a high degree of stability among answers related to insurrectionist sentiments — equating to well over 10 million people.

“That’s a very worrisome finding,” [Robert] Pape said. “This is not just people randomly ticking boxes, but they’re consistently ticking similar boxes, meaning they are adamant about this feeling.”

Much like the Taliban.

Rather than a dying movement, the team found the insurrectionist sentiments were larger and more dangerous than they believed the movement was in March.

“We would have thought that since June is months

… Read the rest

Taliban says women can have all the rights Islam allows.

Yes, we know, that’s not even worth reporting. Of course they say that. All the rights Islam allows to women add up to

ZERO.

The Taliban’s Islam at any rate. Of course people can invent their own Islams, but it’s idiotic or cynical to think the Taliban’s Islam is anything but a life sentence for all women. No freedom no education no choice. Women are objects to be owned by men and beaten or killed if they step out of line in any way.

Taliban say they will guarantee women’s rights under the ‘limits of Islam’ following takeover of Afghanistan

Rich and poor alike are free to live under bridges.… Read the rest

So, let’s make the pandemic worse, yes?

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) on Monday issued an executive order blocking local governments from requiring COVID vaccinations for worker, AZ Central reports.

What to do – reduce the spread of a lethal virus? Or increase it? Let’s go with increase.

Ducey’s move follows the Tucson City Council’s sweeping 6-1 vote that would “require that city employees must show proof of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Aug. 24, or face a five-day suspension without pay and possibly higher health-insurance premiums.”

Why would the City Council do that? To reduce the spread of the virus. Apparently that’s a bad thing to do?

Matt Burdick, a Tucson city spokesperson,

… Read the rest

It’s surprising it’s taken this long.

The federal government has declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, as climate change-fueled drought pushes the level in Lake Mead to unprecedented lows. https://t.co/pnhnYtkkwp

— CNN (@CNN) August 16, 2021

The Colorado River has been shrinking for years. It’s all been a pretty massive mistake.

CNN goes on:

The federal government on Monday declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, triggering mandatory water consumption cuts for states in the Southwest, as climate change-fueled drought pushes the level in Lake Mead to unprecedented lows.

States in the Southwest include Arizona, where the population of Phoenix continues to grow at speed, which is … Read the rest

Owen Jones pretending not to be a misogynist.

It's gruesome on multiple levels that anti-trans obsessives are jumping on the Plymouth atrocity, even though it doesn't take a genius to work out what 'incels' think about trans people.

But just look at the state of this. pic.twitter.com/5KdoIAAjiD

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) August 16, 2021

The thing about OJ is that he wants to pretend to be a feminist while still dismissing women’s concerns and protests at being appropriated or pushed aside or both by…guys like him.… Read the rest

Always a charmer.

Oh, cool then. Men slapping women “because they’re being racist” is just fine, and obviously not coercion.… Read the rest

Medical workers protesting…medical precautions.

They were hard to miss on the corner of a busy four-way intersection at the entrance to Winchester Medical Center: a group of about 20 people — many of them nurses, some in scrubs — protesting the hospital’s recent coronavirus vaccination mandate.

Yes, gee, why would a hospital want the staff not to spread a lethal virus?

The nurses’ employer, Valley Health, the parent company of Winchester Medical Center, had given them an ultimatum: Get the shot or face termination. And those standing on the street corner Tuesday had already made up their minds.

Valley Health announced a vaccine mandate for its 6,300 employees at its six locations on July 19, while offering religious and

… Read the rest

On the one hand, real freedom – freedom to get an education, to work, to leave the house, to travel, to be around other people, to be godless. On the other hand, fake freedom – to refuse to wear safety belts in cars, to refuse to heed warnings about building in flood zones or fire zones, to refuse to wear masks during a pandemic.

The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, will temporarily be allowed to enforce an order banning mask mandates, the state supreme court ruled on Sunday.

So the governor is free to force other people to risk their health by allowing third parties to risk the health of their employees and students or patients or customers … Read the rest

Making lists.

https://twitter.com/Amie_FR/status/1427236192186208260 https://twitter.com/CombatJourno/status/1427278390118256640

For one last day?

I'm hopelessly stuck in Kabul with my wife and child.

Like myself, hundreds of other journalists are also stuck here.

I have an 11—months old daughter.

Please pray for her safety.

— Mustafa מוסטפא (@CombatJourno) August 15, 2021

Asking for an interview is part of our job and there is nothing wrong with it. But it becomes a bit insensitive when you ignore someone is trying with life to protect his infant daughter and wife against Taliban.

That interview can line him up for execution.

Be human.

— Mustafa מוסטפא (@CombatJourno) August 16, 2021

… Read the rest