Andrew Copson at Humanists UK:

This morning, three civilians were murdered in France – stabbed to death and beheaded – by an Islamic extremist. It was a shocking and despicable act, but not an isolated one.

It comes just a fortnight after state school teacher Samuel Paty was murdered for teaching his class about freedom of expression and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. France responded then in the only way a human rights-loving republic should. It defended the right to free expression, including to publish materials which may cause offence.

Sickeningly, today’s murders have been portrayed as a retaliation for that defence of free speech and secular education and it feels like this is a situation spiralling out of

… Read the rest

iknklast’s comment on the fabrication post

You know, there seems to be a rather common thread running through all of this: wealth. It seems most of the “self-ID” people lead comfortable to wealthy lives. Maybe it’s that old thing where rich people used to crave living the “more authentic” lives of poor people; this is the new version of that, only you don’t actually have to give anything up or sleep in a less comfortable bed to do it. You just say “I am woman”, “I am black”, “I am Chicana”. Voila! Instant tourism into an oppressed status.

reminded me of this classic Monty Python reversal.… Read the rest

Oh does he.

Former Prime Minister of Malaysia tells his 1.3 million followers that Islamists have the right to kill millions of French people as retribution. #France pic.twitter.com/DhZtggCn06

— Ex-Muslims of North America (@ExmuslimsOrg) October 29, 2020

That was 12. Let’s see the beginning.

RESPECT OTHERS

1. A teacher in France had his throat slit by an 18-year-old Chechen boy. The killer was angered by the teacher showing a caricature of Prophet Muhammad. The teacher intended to demonstrate freedom of expression.

— Dr Mahathir Mohamad (@chedetofficial) October 29, 2020

3. In Malaysia, where there are people of many different races and religions, we have avoided serious conflicts between races because we are conscious of the need to be sensitive to

… Read the rest

Labour has suspended Corbyn.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has suspended Jeremy Corbyn from the party over his reaction to a highly critical report on anti-Semitism.

The human rights watchdog found Labour responsible for “unlawful” harassment and discrimination during Mr Corbyn’s years in charge of the party.

But Mr Corbyn later said the scale of anti-Semitism within Labour had been “dramatically overstated” by opponents.

Labour said he was being suspended “for a failure to retract” his words.

I think Corbyn should think very seriously about coming out as trans now. I can’t think of anything else that would save his hide.

Sir Keir, who became Labour leader in April, said the publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s

… Read the rest

An anonymous Medium post yesterday:

I have watched the unmasking of CV Vitolo and Jessica Krug from afar. But when an old friend pointed me to the twitter bio of Dr. Kelly Kean Sharp, currently an Assistant Professor at Furman University, I now had a similar example on the edges of my own circles. I had distantly known Kelly while she was a PhD student at University of California, Davis, and was more than surprised to find out that she was now describing herself as Chicana.

This discovery led to multiple conversations and a flurry of research on the part of people who had known Kelly at UC Davis. They approached me to help publicize her fabrication and strategic

… Read the rest

If god is so great why does it need you to murder people while shouting “god is great!”?

Three people have been killed in a knife attack at a church in the French city of Nice, police say.

President Emmanuel Macron denounced the “Islamist terrorist attack” at the Notre-Dame basilica after visiting the scene in the southern city.

One elderly victim who was praying was “virtually beheaded”. Another woman and a man also died. A suspect was shot and detained shortly afterwards.

Not a very kind god, is it. If it wants humans stabbing other humans to death because they worship the god under a different alphabet, it can’t be a benevolent god.

Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi spoke of

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That UN Women post is getting a lot of heated “the hell it is” from women, I’m glad to say.

One example:

It is your role as feminists to support and safeguard and empower women. Instead you seek to force them into submission to new and alien definitions, and you fail to protect us from a movement that polices and even denies our language, our right to describe our bodies, to name and identify the source of our oppression and to name and describe the violence enacted to maintain a world order that will forever deny us this most fundamental liberty and tool: to name our oppressors and their actions.

Instead you open the door to individuals and organisations whose

… Read the rest

UN Women giving away women’s rights and self-definition and reality again:

One, no, people don’t have a blanket right to identify themselves the way they want to. That’s just not true. All of us barring one person lack the right to identify ourselves as the president of the US. We can’t identify ourselves inaccurately if we’re stopped for reckless driving and have to show our driver’s license. We can’t identify ourselves as little Kathy’s mommy and take her home from school if we’re not little Kathy’s mommy. It’s just not true, yet people keep saying it. We can fantasize however we like, but once we involve other people, it’s not that simple. It’s not even close to that simple.… Read the rest

I’m wondering about the logistics.

Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said.

Journalists and theatre directors should also face the courts if their work is deemed to deliberately stoke up prejudice, Humza Yousaf said.

When he says “the dinner table”…does he mean strictly dinner with the family? Or does he mean any dinner table? If you have friends over for pizza, does that count? If you go out for a hamburger with one or more other person(s) does that count? How about the lunch table? Breakfast? How about if no one ever sits down – how about if all the people eating the dinner or … Read the rest

Woman stranded at MAGA rally in Omaha says Trump wanted to teach them a lesson pic.twitter.com/SvqYw5MnOZ

— blaire erskine (@blaireerskine) October 28, 2020

I especially love the “750” reference. Sly.… Read the rest

Trump is hurrying to destroy everything he can before he’s dragged out screaming. Today it’s the Tongass National Forest.

Federal protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest will be lifted this week by the Trump administration, allowing “logging and other forms of development” to occur in the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest known as America’s Amazon, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

…

The newspaper, which noted that the federal protections were put in place in 2001 during the waning days of Bill Clinton’s presidency, said the rollback by President Donald Trump represents “one of the most sweeping public lands rollbacks” Trump has made during his tenure. The President previously removed acreage from two national monuments and worked to open more

… Read the rest

Bonjour Charlie!

https://twitter.com/Charlie_Hebdo_/status/1321134572105572352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1321134572105572352%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_2%2Ccontainerclick_1&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fcharlie-hebdo-cartoon-turkey-erdogan-macron-feud-2020-10… Read the rest

Trump is blithely putting people in danger to serve his purposes again. He did a rally at an airport in Omaha yesterday, and by the time he hopped back into Air Force One, the temperature had dropped below freezing.

But as long lines of MAGA-clad attendees queued up for buses to take them to distant parking lots, it quickly became clear something was wrong.

The buses, the huge crowd soon learned, couldn’t navigate the jammed airport roads. For hours, attendees — including many elderly Trump supporters — stood in the cold, as police scrambled to help those most at-risk get to warmth.

At least seven people were taken to hospitals, according to Omaha Scanner, which monitors official radio

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The NY Times has another KABLOOEY about Trump’s tax returns and what they reveal.

He opened a new Trump Sewer in Chicago in September 2008, just as all the wheels were falling off. The new Sewer did not flourish.

…the skyscraper became another disappointment in a portfolio filled with them. Construction lagged. Condos proved hard to sell. Retail space sat vacant.

Yet for Mr. Trump and his company, the Chicago experience also turned out to be something else: the latest example of his ability to strong-arm major financial institutions and exploit the tax code to cushion the blow of his repeated business failures.

The president’s federal income tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show for the

… Read the rest

It’s so impressive when men who say they are lifelong feminists announce that men are women if they say they are, and that they will block any stupid obstinate women who disagree.

https://twitter.com/Paul_Ilett/status/1321166271090667525

It’s not his call though. He can swear he’s been a feminist since his first breath, but if he feels it necessary to say that men who “identify as” women are women and that he won’t listen to dissent…then I’m not going to believe him about the being a feminist part.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on You’re going to have to.

What exactly do “nonbinary” people believe themselves to be? They are still men or women, male or female, aren’t they? They can’t be “neither.” If they’re rejecting the stereotypical, sexist roles that society has historically tried to box men and women into, then bravo, they can knock themselves out. But am I nonbinary because I do not conform to many of the stereotypically masculine, sexist, gendered preferences and behaviours that patriarchal society expects men to adopt? I don’t drive. I don’t follow sports. I don’t drink beer. I do some cooking and housework (though still not half). I consider myself relatively gentle and sensitive (but … Read the rest

These bullies of Edinburgh Labour Students are now whining because their point-hiss at a disobedient woman wasn’t 100% well received.

We stand by the Trans community and our concerns about Ann, but protecting the safety and well-being of our members, particularly our trans and non-binary members, must come first. pic.twitter.com/SsvynRSNFy

— Edinburgh Labour Students (@EdLabStudents) October 27, 2020

Wawa we are receiving abuse, targeted harassment, and threats.

How much did they worry about the abuse, targeted harassment, and threats that would likely rain down on Ann Henderson after they posted a “statement” explaining how wicked she is (and contemptuously calling her “Ann” six times, as if she were their servant girl)? Obviously not at all or they wouldn’t have posted … Read the rest

Ohhhhhhhh no I’m not, sunshine. I’m not “going to have” to do anything to or about or with regard to you. I don’t know you, and I don’t recognize any obligation I have toward you just because you say so on Twitter.

no

https://twitter.com/thejeffreymarsh/status/1321175950483169284

He gets that because he’s non-binary he’s confusing to people, he says, but we are going to have to respect him. No we’re not. We’re free to ignore him.

You need to see my humanity, he says, you need to respect me and talk to me like a human being.

But I don’t. We don’t. Don’t nobody have to.

He could have argued that people should respect other people by default, in the minimal sense of … Read the rest

Awww Donnie wanted to make it that the mean woman (not his actual language) couldn’t sue him for defaming her because he’s Too Important and Federal, and the judge says he can’t.

A federal judge on Tuesday denied the Justice Department’s effort to effectively end a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump brought by a longtime magazine columnist who has alleged he raped her in a luxury department store dressing room, paving the way for the case to proceed.

The DOJ had sought to intervene in the case and substitute itself as defendant in the lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, a move that likely would have curbed the proceedings, since the federal government can’t be sued for defamation.

… Read the rest

Once again people lose their damn minds over a long-dead guy who called himself a “prophet.”

Tens of thousands of people have marched through the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, demanding a boycott of French goods amid a row over France’s tougher stance on radical Islam. They burned an effigy of President Emmanuel Macron, who has defended cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Police blocked the marchers from reaching the French embassy. Mr Macron has become a target in several Muslim-majority countries after his defence of French secularism.

Muhammad is gone; he’s been gone for centuries. There are more important things to worry about.

On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also called for a boycott of French goods. In a televised speech,

… Read the rest