The fox-clubbing QC has riled people again. It’s about the Tavistock ruling of course.

First they came for the Jews and I said nothing… https://t.co/ac5OMtBbqq

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) December 5, 2020

Except that not giving children medication that stops puberty is not comparable to exterminating them.

I said here – explicitly – what the Bell case would mean for abortion rights. https://t.co/ivukUTDNKz

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) December 5, 2020

First they came for trans people and perhaps you didn't speak out because you were not trans. But Conrathe and the interests he represents will come for you.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) December 5, 2020

https://twitter.com/GoonerProf/status/1335277156847546373 https://twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1335169738041937921 … Read the rest

Those rock paintings in the Amazon:

Thousands of rock art pictures depicting huge Ice Age creatures such as mastodons have been revealed by researchers in the Amazon rainforest.

The paintings were probably made around 11,800 to 12,600 years ago, according to a press release from researchers at Britain’s University of Exeter.

The paintings are set over three different rock shelters, with the largest, known as Cerro Azul, home to 12 panels and thousands of individual pictographs.

Located in the Serranía La Lindosa in modern-day Colombia, the rock art shows how the earliest human inhabitants of the area would have coexisted with Ice Age megafauna, with pictures showing what appear to be giant sloths, mastodons, camelids, horses and three-toed

… Read the rest

Ok so I was reading a story about COVID measures in California and there’s a photo of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco seen between two rows of buildings, with the caption:

California Street, usually filled with iconic cable cars, is seen mostly empty in San Francisco, California on March 17, 2020.

And I was annoyed. Cable cars are not iconic! Neither are movie stars, or shoes, or apartment buildings, or the Space Needle, or the Grand Canyon. “Iconic” is not another word for famous or recognizable or familiar. That’s not what it means.

I know, I know, that is what it means now, because usage is what counts, but it isn’t, and I hate it.

I saw one … Read the rest

You were worrying that bankers wouldn’t be among the first to get the vaccine, weren’t you. Well worry no more!

Wall Street could get a shot in the arm in the coming months, while much of Main Street waits months for their COVID inoculations.

Lenders, bank tellers and traders could jump ahead of most Americans for vaccines, after such remedies receive emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, potentially putting financial industry workers ahead of those aged above 65, adults with medical issues and the rest of the U.S. population.

Bankers are important! How do we know? All that money they have. Stands to reason.

Essential workers are in the second group, after front-line health care workers and residents … Read the rest

Trump lost 5 cases in 2 hours today.

Trump's day in court today:

-Minnesota Supreme Court denies effort to block certification of election results

-Nevada court denies effort to block certification of election results

-Michigan appeals court denies bid to appeal lower court loss b/c election certified

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) December 4, 2020

2 more losses:

-Wisconsin Supreme Court denies challenge to election certification

-11th Circuit denies challenge to GA certification

Trump & allies have lost 5 cases in 2 hours

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) December 4, 2020

Update: oops make that 6.

The court losses keep piling up for Trump & his allies: in the span of 2 hours this afternoon/evening, courts in Minnesota, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia

… Read the rest

This is surprising.

Love twitter. Hate Terfs#TransRightsAreHumanRights pic.twitter.com/QA358pbhbx

— Thomas Pringle T.D. (@ThomasPringleTD) December 4, 2020

A T.D. is a Teachta Dála, a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish parliament, so comparable to a Congressional Representative or an MP.

#TransRightsAreHumanRights pic.twitter.com/jX6s6vCiWz

— Thomas Pringle T.D. (@ThomasPringleTD) December 4, 2020

Yes, surprising.… Read the rest

Why we can’t have interesting things.

A group of young men claiming to be Christians have posted a video of themselves tearing down a mysterious monolith that had appeared atop a California mountain and replacing it with a cross.

The monolith had been built near the town of Atascadero and sparked huge interest after the appearance of a similar silvery metal-faced monolith that had been discovered in the deserts of Utah.

The one in Utah was torn down by some random people.

Now the Atascadero monolith has met a similar kind of fate, according to a report in the San Luis Obispo Tribune newspaper.

In a video, which was livestreamed and posted online, the group of young men drive

… Read the rest

Those damn turkeys.

Americans couldn’t resist the urge to gather for Thanksgiving, driving only slightly less than a year ago and largely ignoring the pleas of public health experts, who begged them to forgo holiday travel to help contain the coronavirus pandemic, data from roadways and airports shows.

The nation’s unwillingness to tamp down on travel offered a warning in advance of Christmas and New Year’s as virus deaths and hospitalizations hit new highs a week after Thanksgiving. U.S. deaths from the outbreak eclipsed 3,100 on Thursday, obliterating the single-day record set last spring.

Vehicle travel in early November was as much as 20% lower than a year earlier, but it surged around the holiday and peaked on Thanksgiving

… Read the rest

Let’s see if we can figure out how this works, or if it works.

https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1334879171437338629

There’s something that I see GC people saying a lot, JKR said it, and they’re right

“If you cannot name your injustice or oppressor, then you can’t fight it”

And then they try to stop people saying transphobe, TERF, even cis. They try and shut down all discussion of transphobia

I don’t know what Montgomerie has against periods at the end of sentences…Maybe it’s a sly joke about the fact that trans women don’t have periods?

Anyway, I think I have figured it out, and it doesn’t work. You have to name the injustice and the oppressor accurately. They both have to be real. … Read the rest

Nailed it.

1/ What turns a child into an adult? Puberty. It follows that if a 10 year old is given puberty blockers & 8 years later, legally an adult, decides to take cross – sex hormones, having missed this crucial stage in human development, is this really the consent of an adult?

— Allison Bailey (@BluskyeAllison) December 4, 2020

3/ This is why PBs in gender dysphoria are *completely* different to PBs for precocious puberty. A 7 yr old taking PBs to stop an early puberty will be on them for a short time before experiencing full puberty. A GD child on PBs will not & will never complete normal development.

— Allison Bailey (@BluskyeAllison) December 4, 2020

5/

… Read the rest

Amnesty International and Liberty are joining forces to say that oh yes children should definitely be put on puberty blockers if they’re not loving their experience of puberty.

Amnesty International UK and Liberty are disappointed to see the High Court’s judgment on the use of puberty blockers. We are concerned not only for what this means for the health and well-being of trans young people, but the wider implications this will have on the rights of children and young people of all genders, particularly on consent and bodily autonomy.

Children don’t have “rights to bodily autonomy.” They’re not old enough.

Puberty blockers have been a reversible intervention used for decades to pause precocious puberty. Young trans people have been able

… Read the rest

A November 27 letter from Canadian Women and Sport to the CEO of World Rugby implores him to repeal the “ban” on trans women playing on women’s teams.

Dear Brett, Canadian Women & Sport and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) are writing to express our strong opposition to World Rugby’s ban on Transgender Women Athletes. In doing so, we join 84 academics, Athlete Ally, Egale Canada and others in urging World Rugby to repeal their recent ban preventing transgender women from participating in women’s rugby.

The ban violates the human rights of transgender and gender diverse women, forcing them out of sport and denying them the benefits it brings. The discriminatory ban perpetuates the harmful and marginalizing

… Read the rest

So that’s one bit of good news.

News: @JoeBiden tells me he spoke with Dr. Fauci this afternoon, asked Fauci to stay on in his position at NIAID, and also to serve as a chief medical adviser for him.

Clip coming up on @CNN on @CNNSitRoom

Full interview w Biden/Harris at 9 pm ET

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 3, 2020

… Read the rest

You mean there’s a limit???

AP reports:

The official serving as President Donald Trump’s eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter tell The Associated Press.

snicker

That is, a spy Trump tried to plant at the Justice Department has been told to gtfo after she tried to bully staffers into helping her spy.

Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the

… Read the rest

I avoided it at first because blegh, but let’s take a look at that letter of former Ellen now Elliot Page’s.

The third paragraph:

My joy is real, but it is also fragile. The truth is, despite feeling profoundly happy right now, and knowing how much privilege I carry, I’m also scared. I’m scared of the invasiveness, the hate, the ‘jokes,’ and of violence. To be clear, I am not trying to dampen a moment that is joyous and one that I celebrate, but I also want to address the full picture. The statistics are staggering. The discrimination towards trans people is rife, insidious, and cruel, resulting in horrific consequences. In 2020 alone, it has been reported that at

… Read the rest

Another shining example of trumpal excellence at Voice of America:

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a federal watchdog, disclosed Wednesday that it had found “a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” at the parent agency of the Voice of America under the leadership of the CEO appointed by President Trump.

Since taking over the U.S. Agency for Global Media, CEO Michael Pack has turned it upside down, sidelining top executives, firing network chiefs, and deep-sixing requests for visa extensions for foreign staffers. Most notably, Pack had two senior political aides with records of strongly pro-Trump ideological statements investigate journalists for perceived anti-Trump bias and push for sympathetic news coverage of the president during the campaign.

The finding is

… Read the rest

Chase Strangio is distraught over the Tavistock ruling.

Yesterday a court ruled that trans youth under 16 and possibly all trans minors likely cannot consent to gender-affirming care even where they (1) request the care; (2) have the support of their parents or guardians; and (3) their doctor deems it necessary.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) December 2, 2020

It’s interesting and typical and a big part of the problem that CS resorts to hyperbolic emotional language at the outset. How “terrifying and sad and scary” – as if puberty blockers were ventilators and trans young people were being forcibly deprived of them.

This care is deemed medically necessary, safe and effective by every major medical association BUT has been the

… Read the rest

Philip Bump at the Post:

Over the length of a 46-minute video posted to social media Wednesday, President Trump read and riffed on a prepared script lambasting those who had the audacity to suggest that receiving fewer votes than his opponent meant he shouldn’t serve a second consecutive term in office. It was the functional equivalent of one of his beloved campaign rallies, both in the sense that it offered the same meandering range and, quite obviously, the same relief for his frustrations. It was also clearly no small undertaking; the numerous cuts in the final product suggested that what was offered to the country was a subset of what Trump had to say to the camera.

In other … Read the rest

The Military Times is not impressed.

The idea that the U.S. military would oversee a new nationwide presidential election — ordered under martial law by President Donald Trump — is “insane in a year that we didn’t think could get anymore insane,” a defense official tells Military Times.

Yet retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn promoted that exact idea Tuesday evening when he tweeted a press release from an Ohio-based conservative political organization.

https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/1333916403389370369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1333916403389370369%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.militarytimes.com%2Fnews%2Fyour-military%2F2020%2F12%2F02%2Fcalls-for-martial-law-and-us-military-oversight-of-new-presidential-elections-draws-criticism%2F

Actually let’s just skip the vote entirely and let the military make Trump Dictator for Life. Why not?… Read the rest

Stand With Mueller writes:

A week after receiving his pardon from “President” Donald Trump, former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn promoted a call for the “president” to “temporarily suspend the Constitution” and put the country under martial law.

On Tuesday, weeks after the election Trump lost, Flynn shared a press release from the right-wing We the People Convention imploring Trump to implement martial law. The statement drew a connection to what Abraham Lincoln did with his presidential authority during the Civil War.

“Then, as now, a President with courage and determination was needed to preserve the Union,” the statement says. “Today, the current threat to our United States by the international and domestic socialist/communist left is much

… Read the rest