Originally a comment by Artymorty on Embrace the diversity.

It really is so lazy of Taylor isn’t it. She says she thinks it’s possible that “safe spaces and diversity can coexist” but she wants to silence the only person around who is actually doing the work of thinking and talking about how to fairly make that happen.

If you want women’s rights and trans rights to coexist, you have to let both sides have a say.

Let’s flash back to the year 2005 for a moment. (Picture it: Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” on the radio; Harry Potter 4 at the movieplex; Grey’s Anatomy on the teevee… It wasn’t that long ago, is what I’m saying.)

That was the … Read the rest

Vindman says he tried to make the transcript more truthful.

The National Security Council’s top Ukraine expert told House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that he tried to make changes to the White House’s rough transcript of the July phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President, including that Trump mentioned tapes of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified that one example of his attempts to change the transcript was to include Trump telling Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky there were tapes of Biden, which The New York Times reported occurred where there’s an ellipsis in the transcript that was released. The change was not made. The assertion

Trump says he is too so smart enough to try to force Ukraine to investigate a political rival of his in exchange for military support. He’s totally that smart.

Last week, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal launched a novel defense of Trump, who Democratic lawmakers allege—as Capitol Hill testimony from senior administration officials suggests—attempted to force the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a top political rival of Trump’s, in exchange for military aid that was being held up. The newspaper’s esteemed board argued that any talk of impeaching Trump is silly, in large part, because this president is likely too bumbling to execute that kind of scandalous quid pro quo.

“Intriguingly, Mr.

I remember posting articles about golden rice when B&W was brand new; that was a long time ago.

It’s still being held back because of GMO-panic.

Stifling international regulations have been blamed for delaying the approval of a food that could have helped save millions of lives this century. The claim is made in a new investigation of the controversy surrounding the development of Golden Rice by a team of international scientists.

Golden Rice is a form of normal white rice that has been genetically modified to provide vitamin A to counter blindness and other diseases in children in the developing world. It was developed two decades ago but is still struggling to gain approval in most nations.

“Golden

Now there’s a compelling argument. WIRED Science:

Some critics claim transgender athletes are ruining competition for cis women and girls, but they forget: Sports—and life—have never been fair.

Ah. Very true. Therefore let’s make sports – and life – even more unfair, especially for girls and women.

They lead with a photo of this glorious project:

See, bitches? Unfair! Life and sports are already unfair! Sucks to be you.

Transgender athletes are having a moment. At all levels of sport, they’re stepping onto the podium and into the headlines. New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard won two gold medals at the Pacific Games, and college senior CeCé Telfer became the NCAA Division II national champion in the 400-meter run. Another

I guess if all else fails just keep saying “but it’s written down somewhere, so it’s obviously true.”

Witness for instance Morgane Oger:

Where am I arguing there is a “female essence”? I am stating a fact: I am categorized as a human adult female (and it deeply bothers fools).

That’s a very silly, tricksy, childish kind of “fact.” It’s like saying “I am too so the Queen, it’s in writing!” when it’s in writing because you just wrote it down. Oger is “categorized as a human adult female” by whom and since when and for what reason?

Writing down some words doesn’t necessarily create a fact beyond the fact that those words were written down in that place.… Read the rest

Today’s impeachment-outrage news is that Fox and some Republicans are trying to discredit the current witness, Lt Col Alexander Vindman, who was on the Ukraine call. He’s the White House expert on Ukraine, and his family emigrated from Ukraine when he was three. An opening! An opening to start up another Birtherism fight. He must be disloyal! He must be Secretly Ukrainian. He must be a Never Trumper.

The Guardian reports:

The Washington Post has uncovered footage of Lt Col Alexander Vindman, whose family emigrated from the Soviet Union when he was a child, appearing alongside his twin brother in Ken Burns’ documentary series America for a segment on the Statue of Liberty.

The segment explores the statue’s power

Yes but what does “identity” mean?

A tweet by Jameela Jamil:

This is a perfect display of how a worrying amount (not all) of cis-women essentially characterize trans women as nothing more than men playing dress up. It’s a complete denial of their identity. I personally see transwomen as strength in numbers in the fight against oppression❤️

First: no, not nothing more than men playing dress up. It’s not that simple. If it were there wouldn’t be all this to-do about it. If it were just men playing dress up no one would care. But I, for instance, do think trans women are not literally women, but rather have a fantasy about being a woman which they want to … Read the rest

How do we decide who belongs where?

I talked about this yesterday already, in reference to Laurie Penny’s “There is no LGB without the T,” but there’s always more to say. Stonewall preached the “all stand together” line in response to the debut of the LGB Alliance:

The LGBT community is at its strongest when we stand together 🏳️‍🌈 Let’s raise each other up today and every day. We are one #LGBTQFamily

That’s a lot of colors though – are they all one community and one family? And how do they know? How do we know, how does anyone know? How do we know who belongs in and who belongs out?

We know it’s not everyone. It’s a specific … Read the rest

You know that photo of Obama and others watching the raid that got Osama bin Laden?

This one?

Trump is jealous of it. His people tried to fake one up for him but they didn’t try very hard.

The chief official White House photographer for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama suggested the Trump administration was posing for Saturday’s stern-faced Situation Room picture in the wake of a U.S. military raid that resulted in the death of a major ISIS figurehead.

Pete Souza, the former director of the White House Photography Office, called the timestamp of the Situation Room picture into question Sunday morning. Souza inferred that it’s very unlikely President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and