What is the point of announcing tariffs and then promptly delaying them? Other than making yourself look like a clueless buffoon?

Canada’s initial retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. will remain in place despite President Donald Trump postponing 25% tariffs on many imports from Canada for a month, two senior Canadian government officials said.

Trump said Thursday that he has postponed 25% tariffs on many goods from Canada and Mexico for a month, amid widespread fears of a broader trade war.

Why? Why do that? What can possibly be the point? Does he think they’ll be welcome in a month?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier Thursday that he expects Canada and the U.S. to be in a

It seems the Darlington cops think women are not allowed to meet up without men. I think their grasp of the law may be a little bit off.

Women gathered in Darlington to celebrate International Women’s Day are awaiting the arrival of the police. They have been told it is illegal for women to gather together without men present. pic.twitter.com/2Kbz3EJ8KH

— LGB Alliance (@AllianceLGB) March 8, 2025

… Read the rest

The Independent reports:

Labour grandee Baroness Harriet Harman has been made the new UK special envoy for women and girls.

The former minister will “co-ordinate efforts across the globe” to push for the protection of rights over reproductive health, access to education and freedom from gender-based violence, the Foreign Office said.

…

Baroness Harman said: “Over the last decades we have made tremendous strides towards ending women’s inequality. But the job is far from done.  Women and girls are still not equal, and many still face oppression, violence and discrimination. It’s a great honour to have been appointed UK Special Envoy For Women and Girls and look forward to driving this important work.”

But does she really want to … Read the rest

Happening now –

BREAKING: Officers from @DurhamPolice are on their way to break up a meeting of women in Darlington who are attempting to celebrate #InternationalWomensDay without having a penis-haver forced on them.@RightNUFC

— WeAreFairCop (@WeAreFairCop) March 8, 2025

Cops hassling women for having a meeting on International Women’s Day.

Apparently the Council summoned the cops.

The Council are insisting they leave the premises because women gathered together is – get this – a breach of the Equality Act!

— WeAreFairCop (@WeAreFairCop) March 8, 2025

It’s like this, you see – women aren’t people enough to be equality on their own. There have to be some real people there to bring them up to the right level. … Read the rest

Kennedy’s woo infects the CDC:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, despite extensive scientific research that has disproven or failed to find evidence of such links.

In other news, NASA is planning a large study into the potential flatness of the earth.

The CDC’s move comes amid one of the largest measles outbreaks the U.S. has seen in the past decade, with more than 200 cases and two deaths in Texas and New Mexico. The outbreak has been fueled by declining vaccination rates in parts of the United States where parents have been falsely persuaded that such

That’s the way to do it: smash everything in sight and then pause to decide to take a more nuanced approach.

President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.

According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room.

…

The president’s message represents the first significant move to narrow Musk’s mandate. According to Trump’s new guidance, DOGE and its staff should play an advisory role — but Cabinet secretaries should make final decisions on personnel,

Trump’s side hustle of trying to annex Canada:

When U.S. President Donald Trump last spoke with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump pointed to a 1908 treaty as apparent ammunition to support his threats of a tariff war and his envisioned takeover of Canada.

Trump’s reference to the 116-year-old treaty regarding the Canada-U.S. border reportedly took Trudeau and his office by surprise, sending staff searching for the pact online as the leaders spoke on the phone. That’s not a surprise. The treaty is somewhat obscure in terms of the historical relationship between the former British colonies that became Canada and the United States of America.

Spoiler: it nowhere says the US gets to swallow Canada.… Read the rest

The Telegraph on antisemitic abuse in the NHS:

The file includes a Jewish doctor being given a hijab as a secret santa present and a patient having pro-Palestine stickers plastered across his room as he lay fighting for his life.

Meanwhile, a group of therapists who complained about a colleague posting messages supporting Hamas online were subject to a countercomplaint for “micro-aggressions”. A patient waiting to be discharged from hospital was told: “Get your Jewish ambulance to come and get you.”

The Community Security Trust found that the number of complaints of antisemitism in the NHS had tripled from 29 to 86 in the 17 months before and after October 7, 2023.

It’s so interesting that antisemitism increased after the … Read the rest

Oliver Brown in The Telegraph:

… when I described Blair Hamilton, a transgender goalkeeper signed for Sutton United Women by a transgender manager, as a biological male in these pages last September, the player complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) that the label constituted a “transphobic dog whistle”. According to this argument, the description disregarded Hamilton’s “lived experience and affirmed gender identity”, not to mention “personal journey as a transgender woman”.

Six months on, the press watchdog has rejected this complaint, instead determining that The Telegraph’s use of the term was “genuinely relevant” to the issues raised by a biologically male goalkeeper competing for a female football team. “The committee did not consider that

When Trump is lost at sea without a life jacket or a paddle.

Governor @realDonaldTrump is a convicted felon, rapist, and Epstein’s old golf buddy, but somehow, his biggest crime might be how unbelievably stupid he is.

A reporter asks about TPS (Temporary Protected Status)—a major immigration policy affecting thousands of people. And this…

— Frank C (@FrankC164) March 6, 2025

A reporter asks about TPS (Temporary Protected Status)—a major immigration policy affecting thousands of people. And this mush-brained idiot thinks they said GPS. GPS. This man has been in politics for years and still doesn’t understand basic policies that his own administration has to enforce. It’s actually incredible—every single neuron in his head is on permanent vacation. And yet,

Wait a second I forgot my shoes. Hang on, I have to eat lunch first. Sorry, I’ll be right with you, as soon as I find my wallet. Sit down for a minute, enjoy yourself, I have to do my taxes before we go.

US President Donald Trump has said Mexico will not be required to pay tariffs on goods that come under the trade pact between the two countries and Canada until 2 April.

Trump has not confirmed if the suspension also applies to Canada, but its northern neighbour is expecting an exemption of the “same nature”, a Canadian government source told the BBC.

The latest move is the second climbdown in two days from Trump on his tariffs.

Or to put it another way…oops.

The CDC is inviting about 180 employees back to work, about two weeks after laying them off. https://t.co/vbK66lsCrD

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 5, 2025

Oh gee you mean the CDC actually does vital work? Who could possibly have known that? What does “disease control” even mean? … Read the rest

A bit of good news for a change.

New: An important victory for the Telegraph in how the transgender debate can be reported in sport. On the back of our reporting, this IPSO ruling today establishes that the term ‘biological male’ is ‘genuinely relevant’ to a discussion of these issues https://t.co/rOHw77mXWH

— Oliver Brown (@oliverbrown_tel) March 6, 2025

I’d like to read/quote the ruling but it won’t open; maybe later. Meanwhile Jon Pike enlightens:

There's a particular feature of this that I want to bring out. Blair Hamilton is an academic sports scientist who publishers in this area: Hamilton researches, in particular, the effects of T-reduction and cross sex hormones on performance. This research project has an enormous… https://t.co/CwWwFZ4tqE pic.twitter.com/r2ipL1ASAD

The NY Times muddies the waters in the approved fashion.

The headline is muddy:

Democrats Block Bill to Bar Transgender Girls From Female Sports Teams

“Transgender girls” are not girls. No doubt most NYT readers know that, but all the same, the word “girls” does its work. When we see the word “girls” we don’t correct it to “boys” automatically; it takes extra time and attention to remember that the subject here is boys in girls’ sports. Mostly we don’t read that slowly. Referring to boys as transgender girls is conditioning, and journalism really ought to stop doing it.

Democrats on Monday blocked a Republican-written bill aimed at barring transgender women and girls from school sports teams designated for female

Anne Applebaum on The Rise of the Brutal American:

Quite apart from their politics, Trump and Vance are rude. They are cruel. They berated and mistreated a guest on camera, and then boasted about it afterward, as if their ugly behavior achieved some kind of macho “win.”

That’s putting it mildly. Even “rude” and “cruel” and “ugly” fall short of describing the grotesque nightmare of that performance.

Europeans can also see that this alternative reality is directly and profoundly shaped by Russian propaganda. I don’t know whether the American president absorbs Russian narratives online, from proxies, or from Putin himself. Either way, he has thoroughly adopted the Russian view of the world, as has Vance. This is not new.

Still melting.

Global sea ice fell to a record low in February, scientists have said, a symptom of an atmosphere fouled by planet-heating pollutants.

The combined area of ice around the north and south poles hit a new daily minimum in early February and stayed below the previous record for the rest of the month, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday.

The fun thing about this is that it’s both a symptom and the thing itself. It’s a sign of warming and it is warming. A twofer.

Scientists had already observed an extreme heat anomaly in the north pole at the start of February, which caused temperatures to soar more than 20C above average and

A guy called Pips is “honored and excited” to have been given a role that should have gone to a woman, because of course he is.

Pip Bunce to be exact. We’ve heard of him before.

Honoured and excited to have been chosen as a delegate for this years United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) Previous years events attended have been incredible and I know that this years will be as good, if not even better!! Spending time with all the amazing delegates is always a pleasure, as too is working with like-minded individuals working to progress inclusion, equality and equity. Our shared ethos being that together we can make a change and equality and equity for

Trump has halted intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

The Trump administration has paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine alongside a military aid freeze, officials said on Wednesday, part of a pressure campaign to force its government to cooperate with the White House’s plans to end the country’s war with Russia.

A U.S. official said that military targeting information was no longer being shared with Ukraine.

…

Some U.S. officials said the hope was that any pause in intelligence sharing would be very short, with little practical impact. A senior Trump administration official said the initial plan was to pause military and intelligence sharing for a week or two as part of the campaign to pressure Mr. Zelensky.

Oh that’s fine. Just … Read the rest

What this ideology does to wannabe progressives. Noisily laughing at a high school girl receiving a brain injury.

Hahahahahahahahaha https://t.co/D1tZ3IOw8Z

— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) March 5, 2025

… Read the rest

Ah yes, that infuriating tic.

It’s safe to say U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t exactly endearing himself to many foreign leaders these days.

In the last few days alone, he’s clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and paused its U.S. military aid, launched a trade war with Canada, Mexico and China, and mocked Lesotho in his first speech to Congress, claiming “nobody has ever heard of” the country.

That last one – that toddler cognition that tells him what he is unaware of, everyone is unaware of. He lacks that mechanism that adults have, that reminds them of the variety of what different people know. Trump is pig-ignorant therefore everyone is exactly as pig-ignorant as he is. He’s ignorant in himself and … Read the rest