That’s rich coming from UN Women.

Women's.
Rights.
Are.
Not.
Negotiable.

— UN Women (@UN_Women) July 13, 2025

They don’t even know what a woman is. They think a man is one if he says so, which means they have no clue what they’re talking about. What then can they possibly have to say about women’s rights? … Read the rest

What is the point of calling something “for women” if you’re going to let men have it? Why not just skip the calling it “for women” part if you’re going to do that?

A row at Hampstead Heath Ponds over permission for transgender women to continue swimming in the Ladies’ Pond could reach the High Court.

The campaign group Sex Matters is planning to make a £50,000 legal claim against the City of London Corporation, which runs the bathing ponds on Hampstead Heath, north London.

Since 2019 transgender women, who were born biologically male, have been allowed to swim in the Ladies’ Pond under formal guidance.

Transgender women who were born biologically male and remain biologically male because … Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknklast on Consequences for marine life.

Sulfuric acid will fall as acid rain. Particulate matter of all sorts often leads to (temporary) cooling, but it doesn’t last as long as carbon dioxide. As the carbon increases in the air, the other pollutants remain the same, and eventually they get overwhelmed.

While the optimum trade off may be fewer stomata, it makes it foolish to say that plants will gain that much from increased carbon dioxide. Which is what I was saying earlier – unless the plant growth is limited by carbon dioxide, and ONLY carbon dioxide, you will not likely see great increases in plant growth. Since nitrogen and water are the two greatest limitations … Read the rest

A long backgrounder piece on the Peggie v NHS case with lots of interesting details.

NHS Fife may be fatally undermining its own case against a nurse who had an altercation in a hospital changing room with Dr Beth Upton, a trans woman, which resumes this week

Good. Keep undermining, NHS Fife.

Peggie, an experienced nurse, was experiencing a sudden and heavy period and feared that it had bled through to her scrubs. She entered the hospital changing rooms to find Upton, a biologically male doctor who identifies as female.

What was said between the pair is disputed, but there was a confrontation. Peggie expressed her discomfort with sharing changing facilities with a colleague she considered male and, within hours,

Trans community praised for bravery in new film

Says the BBC, drooling slightly.

Film-makers have praised the bravery of the trans community in Cumbria for sharing their experiences in a new documentary.

Oh yes, it’s very brave to yammer at the BBC about how brave you are for being gender-special. The risks are horribly real: you might be laughed at!

I ME US chronicles the stories of those living in the county who are transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming.

Ah, gender non-conforming – so it includes women who wear jeans and men who wear pink T shirts? So it’s everyone in Cumbria then? Being all brave n shit?

It is being screened for free in venues across Cumbria over July

Talk about rubbing salt into the wound…

A divorcee has been forced by a judge to pay half for her ex-husband’s trans surgery.

The mother argued that it was unfair that she had to stump up £80,000 for the procedure when the decision to transition had led to the breakdown of her marriage.

But in what is believed to be the first case of its kind, the judge said that the surgery was a “need”, not a “whim”, and therefore it was “reasonable” for the cost to be met out of their joint funds.

But the relevant antonym here is not “whim” but “delusion.” It’s a delusion that surgery can change people’s sex, so it seems absurd as well … Read the rest

FEMA wasn’t answering the phone.

Two days after catastrophic floods roared through Central Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters.

The agency laid off the contractors on July 5 after their contracts expired and were not extended, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who has instituted a new requirement that she

Yes and I’m considering revoking Trump’s membership in the human race. I suspect he’s a mustelid.

Trump says he’s considering revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship.

I know nothing about Rosie O’Donnell apart from what I’ve just read in the past few minutes. The name is familiar but I thought she was that other Ros-something person. Rosie Duffield is my idea of a Rosie.

“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump wrote. “She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

The mind of a child … Read the rest

The Trump admin has made it impossible for FEMA to do its job. Since that job is responding to emergencies, that’s unfortunate.

As monstrous floodwaters surged across central Texas late last week, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency leapt into action, preparing to deploy critical search and rescue teams and life-saving resources, [as] they have in countless past disasters.

But almost instantly, FEMA ran into bureaucratic obstacles, four officials inside the agency told CNN.

As CNN has previously reported, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — whose department oversees FEMA — recently enacted a sweeping rule aimed at cutting spending: Every contract and grant over $100,000 now requires her personal sign-off before any funds can be released.

How … Read the rest

About this whole “raid the kitchens” thing…

A federal judge in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to stop carrying out immigration sweeps in which she said federal agents have been indiscriminately arresting people across southern California without reasonable suspicion that they’re in the country illegally.

Since early June, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Border Patrol and other federal agencies have been roving Los Angeles and surrounding counties arresting thousands of people in what civil rights lawyers characterized in a lawsuit last week as an unconstitutional and “extraordinary campaign of targeting people based on nothing more than the color of their skin.”

Well, the color of their skin plus California plus Los Angeles. Add it all up

Janice Turner on the problems with Pride Policing:

In 2019, Stephen Ireland posted a film of himself at Surrey police HQ in Guildford beside a Jaguar patrol car customised with a swirling rainbow design and the name of the organisation he founded and controlled, Pride in Surrey (PiS). “This is what I will be riding around in today,” says an ecstatic Ireland, as the officer who will act as his chauffeur waves.

Ireland energetically cultivated Surrey police. He spoke on panels alongside officers, attended joint school visits, befriended its LGBT staff group. PiS was a “partner agency” on the force’s website. Most significantly, he was highly regarded by the then chief constable Gavin Stephens. After Surrey’s police and crime

The Mediterranean is too hot.

…recent ocean heat in the Mediterranean Sea has been so intense that scientists fear potentially devastating consequences for marine life.

The temperature of the sea surface regularly passed 30C off the coast of Majorca and elsewhere in late June and early July, in places six or seven degrees above usual…It has been the western Med’s most extreme marine heatwave ever recorded for the time of year, affecting large areas of the sea for weeks on end.

…

“What is different this year is that 30C sea temperatures have arrived much earlier, and that means that we can expect the summer to be more intense and longer,” said Marta Marcos, associate professor at the University

A letter to the editor:

The 2022 Census found that just under 0.5% of people in Scotland are trans. The Scottish Government employs 9,300 staff, so perhaps 40 are trans. Most will have been working at the government for years, and happily using the toilets in a way that matches their gender identity and appearance. For many of them, their work colleagues may not know that they are trans.

No.

Grown-ass adult people know a woman when they see one, and they know a man when they see one. The end.

There have been no reported cases of a trans person causing trouble or harassment in any of those toilets.

Oooh imagine that – in a climate of intense … Read the rest

From The Independent:

“I’m appalled by my party’s stance on trans rights,” says Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, over the ban on puberty blockers and the government’s response to the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman.

Then she’s a fool. (To be fair, we already knew that.) There’s no such thing as a “right” to receive puberty blockers because you believe you are the sex other than the one your body has. That’s not a right, it’s tampering.

It’s such a prominent topic, that Whittome’s been asked many times by her constituents if she thinks about leaving the party, or if the Labour party – founded by the trade union movement, as

Ok so what about this then.

Goodness, look at you bringing out the fascist playbook. My identity is who I am, same as you. Denying it because of your personal beliefs is you just throwing a strop because you can. It is childish.

— Rachel Saunders (@rejserin) July 10, 2025

One’s identity can be who one is, if the “one” in question is being truthful. But it can also be who one is not, if the one in question is playing silly buggers, as of course this Saunders fella is. What he means by his “identity” in this context is his image of himself, his persona, his dream-self, his fiction. It’s emphatically not whatever biology made him. It’s also emphatically … Read the rest

Trump has been randomly holding back funds for things he might not like if he had any clue what they are. Better penniless than sorry, right?

The Trump administration has declined to release nearly $7 billion in federal funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training and other services.

The money was expected to be released by Tuesday. But in an email on Monday, the Education Department notified state education agencies that the money would not be available.

Because it’s bad to fund education. Ignorance is good – just look how far it’s taken Trump!

“It’s catastrophic,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, a group that works to expand

Robert Reich in a rally the troops screed on Facebook:

[Trump] is targeting universities that he believes haven’t adequately eliminated DEI, or have allowed transgender athletes to compete, or failed to stop demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza. Last week, his regime forced a major university president to resign.

It doesn’t help the cause of resisting Trump to lie about the trans issue. The issue is not “allowing trans athletes to compete.” The issue is letting men compete against women.… Read the rest

Huh. After all these years, Frances Coppola (not the movie guy) is still being horrible.

I bet you thought tariffs were something to do with international trade. Silly you; no, they’re to force naughty countries to do what Trump tells them to do.

Trump sent his Brazilian counterpart a stunning letter Wednesday, informing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that his country would face a new 50% tariff “due in part to…the way Brazil has treated” former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump political ally.

Also Brazil hasn’t made its bed or put away its toys.

Trump blamed the massive spike in tariffs partly on “Brazil’s insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans.” The first reference is related to the trial of Bolsonaro, a one-time frequent visitor to

So much for emergency management.

More cabins and buildings at Camp Mystic — the tragic site of more than two dozen deaths in the Texas flood — were at risk of flooding than what the federal government had previously reported, according to new analysis from NPR, PBS’s FRONTLINE and data scientists.

Maps by First Street, a climate risk modeling company in New York City, show at least 17 structures in the path of flood waters, compared to maps produced by FEMA, highlighting a longstanding risk facing many Americans. The analysis also shows at least four cabins for young campers were in an area designated by FEMA as an extreme flood hazard, where water moves at its highest