Once in awhile Twitter will show me completely random tweets, from people I don’t follow and don’t want to follow, so occasionally I see a wack tweet I didn’t even go looking for. Like:

https://twitter.com/alanalevinson/status/1149329288564314112

Oh yeah, it’s only conservatives who dispute the claim that men can get pregnant. Definitely.

So I followed the link.

The subhead:

Pregnancy is still believed to be something only a woman will experience, but trans men and non-binary people can and do get pregnant too

Language games. Stupid language games. Pregnancy isn’t believed to be a woman-only thing, it simply is a woman-only thing. The gotcha has no got. Yes of course trans men i.e. women who call themselves men can get pregnant … Read the rest

Washington’s army seized the airports, and the kidney is in the heart.

Donald Trump surprised the medical community on Wednesday afternoon, when he claimed “the kidney has a very special place in the heart”.

Speaking as he announced a government plan to tackle kidney disease, Trump went on an extended riff about the efforts of specialists.

“You’ve worked so hard on the kidney. Very special. The kidney has a very special place in the heart. It’s an incredible thing,” Trump gushed.

See this is what happens when you get someone whose brain is disintegrating rapidly and who loves to hear himself talk. He generates words, just words, whatever words he can clutch as they float past, and since most … Read the rest

Speaking of McKinnon…

https://twitter.com/rachelvmckinnon/status/1149288615949819904

“says the cis white man”…says the white man. Says the white man who loves nothing better than to talk over, chastise, shout at, and bully women. “Rachel” McKinnon who steals medals from female athletes does not get to use his trans status to pretend to be many categories below white men on the Ladder of Privilege.… Read the rest

This is a must-watch from the WPUK Fair Play event yesterday.

Excellent video from one of the women who competed against Rachel McKinnon.
She’s an athlete and orthopaedic surgeon & examined evidence informing IOC rules. https://t.co/2lacfdsYq2

— Amy Eileen Hamm (@preta_6) July 10, 2019

She’s the one on McKinnon’s left.

… Read the rest

One law for the rich, and another for everyone else.

Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein never once checked in with city cops in the eight-plus years since a Manhattan judge ordered him to do so every 90 days — and the NYPD says it’s fine with that.

After being labeled a worst-of-the-worst, Level 3 sex offender in 2011, Epstein should have reported in person to verify his address 34 times before he was arrested Saturday on federal child sex-trafficking charges.

But hey. He’s rich. He’s white. He’s a man. Capeesh?

Violating requirements of the state’s 1996 Sex Offender Registration Act — including checking in with law enforcement — is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison

Emoluments? What emoluments?? I don’t see any emoluments; do you see any emoluments???

A constitutional challenge to President Trump’s continued ownership of his businesses has been ordered dismissed by a federal appeals court.

The case was brought by the attorneys general of Washington, D.C., and Maryland, arguing that Trump had violated the domestic and foreign emoluments clauses of the U.S. Constitution by accepting money from state and foreign governments via his Washington hotel and business empire.

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled unanimously that the attorneys general did not have the standing to bring the lawsuit and instructed a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit.

Judge Paul Niemeyer wrote in the opinion:

Fired for refusing to call a man “madam”? Sounds very Monty Python, doesn’t it.

Dr David Mackereth, 56, claims he was sacked as a disability benefits assessor by the Department of Work and Pensions over his religious beliefs.

The father-of-four alleges he was asked in a conversation with a line manager: “If you have a man six foot tall with a beard who says he wants to be addressed as ‘she’ and ‘Mrs’, would you do that?”

Well you can’t address people as “she,” can you. That’s a minor point, I know, but it gets so annoying seeing this confusion so often.

A hearing in Birmingham was told how Dr Mackereth believes transgenderism is a “delusional belief” and an ideology

Women’s Party UK held a public meeting this evening on keeping women’s sport women-only. (I assume it’s over now, at nearly 11 their time.) It was at a large venue and the place was packed.

Huge #WPUKFairPlay public meeting on keeping women’s sport female-only in central London. Sharron Davies @sharrond62 speaking, video messages from @Tanni_GT & @damekellyholmes, in the audience is @Daley_thompson. pic.twitter.com/zFP2XB95YC

— Hannah Bayman (@hannahbayman) July 10, 2019

The room is absolutely packed.

Do not underestimate the importance of this topic to #Women#WPUKFairPlay pic.twitter.com/V8CF95BMxA

— FiLiA (@FiLiA_charity) July 10, 2019

Now for the science bit: Up now Dr Emma Hilton @FondOfBeetles, developmental biologist, is telling us why transition does not take away men’s advantage

Originally a comment by Steamshovelmama on Go, and sin no more.

Labels… *sigh*. This is a conversation I have had many times with my 22 year old daughter, who is rather more woke than me. Labels are important, especially to young people who feel lost and excluded because there is no one else like them in their culture and/or peer group. To that young person, finding that there is an actual name for what they are is a huge validation – and young, unhappy, confused, isolated people do need that validation.

The problem is, as always, reification. The label is usually an artificial term, placing boundaries round something that is really a point on a continuum. Unfortunately, people are … Read the rest

Ron Lindsay on Pompeo’s “natural law” commission:

“That some persons are free and others slaves by nature … and that for these slavery is both advantageous and just, is evident.” So said Aristotle, one of the first advocates of the “natural law” approach to ethics. (See his Politics, Book I, ch. 5.)

Thus we see one of the problems. Different people have different ideas of what “natural law” is, and the ideas may have more to to with the convenience of the haver than the well-being of everyone else. Trump thinks it’s natural law that everyone should flatter him without cease.

Natural law theory has had a number of different proponents throughout history, and the exact contours of

Oh is he indeed.

Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated for having run a child sex trafficking ring, is proposing 80% funding cuts for the government agency that combats child sex trafficking.

That’s definitely a good look.

The bureau’s budget would fall from $68m last year to just $18.5m. The proposed reduction is so drastic that experts say it would effectively kill off many federal efforts to curb sex trafficking and put the lives of large numbers of children at risk.

ILAB has the task of countering human trafficking, child labor and forced labor across the US and around the world.

It’s as if all of life has become a war between The Narcissists and everyone else. The Narcissists have definitely won this round, but it might not serve their purposes in the larger war.

(Is that a built-in shield against Narcissists? The more they win the more they disgust everyone else, so their power is always fragile and temporary? It’s a pretty thought, at least.)

The resignation of Sir Kim Darroch followed the failure of the likely next prime minister, Boris Johnson, to say he would support him staying in post – despite being given repeated chances to do so during his TV debate with Jeremy Hunt. As the current Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan put it, by

Still on the Darroch issue: Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, has issued a statement:

The fact that Sir Kim has been bullied out of his job, because of Donald Trump’s tantrums and Boris Johnson’s pathetic lick-spittle response, is something that shames our country. It makes a laughing-stock out of our government, and tells every one of Britain’s brilliant representatives abroad that the next Tory prime minister will not stand up for them, even when they are simply telling the truth and doing their job.

Sir Kim Darroch should hold his head high for the wonderful job he has done representing our country, while Boris Johnson should go and hang his head in shame. He claims to regard

Chalk up another win for President Monster:

Sir Kim Darroch, the UK ambassador to Washington who has been at the centre of a diplomatic row over leaked cables criticising Donald Trump, has resigned.

The Guardian understands he concluded his position was untenable having watched the Conservative leadership debate on Tuesday, in which the frontrunner, Boris Johnson, stopped short of backing him over the leak.

So President Hulk gets rewarded for yet another bout of trashy vulgar namecalling and the US slides a few miles farther down the slope of degradation.

Asked whether in an episode such as this it would be expected that the entire establishment would support Darrock, [the head of the diplomatic service] said: “Yes”, adding

Another shunning achieved! Break out the parsnip champagne!

The University of British Columbia is barred from marching in the Vancouver Pride Parade after allowing a controversial figure to speak on campus earlier this summer.

Andrea Arnot, executive director of the Vancouver Pride Society, says all entries to the parade have to meet specific requirements — judged on a point system— to be allowed to participate.

“We reject applications every year,” Arnot said.

Any guesses on what the “controversial” refers to?

UBC fell below the required number of points by allowing Jenn Smith, who has been labelled by critics as transphobic, to host an event on campus in June that criticizes B.C.’s sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum (SOGI).

Someone criticized … Read the rest

Trump’s trashy vulgarity of course sets the tone for others in his “administration.”

No one who works in the WH as a senior counselor to the president should ever speak like this about two women, elected to Congress. Major Meow Mashup is language I'd expect from an immature high school girl. https://t.co/YYz7rHJN8z

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 9, 2019

“Major Meow Mashup” hur hur geddit they’re all women it’s a catfight meow hur hur hur.

I’m so tired of the trashy vulgarity.

… Read the rest

You have got to be kidding.

A dangerous sex offender has been granted freedom from a West Australian prison and will be able to visit sex workers in a bid to reduce his risk of reoffending.

Edward William Latimer, 61, has a criminal record dating back to his teenage years and has spent most of his adult life in prison for offences including sexual assaults and wilful exposure.

So let’s make women his safety valve. What could go wrong?

WA supreme court justice Anthony Derrick said in his decision handed down on Tuesday that while Latimer remained a serious danger to the community, the risk could be managed in the community.

“There are adequate safeguards contained in the supervision