Andrew Coyne at the Globe and Mail says the US is no longer one of the democracies.

Even now, as the United States hurtles toward autocracy – the petty grotesqueries perhaps tell the story better than anything else: a reporter barred from the White House for not using the name “Gulf of America,” President Donald Trump naming himself chair of the Kennedy Center by a “unanimous” vote of its board – the tendency is still to describe events in relatively conventional terms. For example, the “mistakes” that Mr. Trump is said to have made in his dealings with Vladimir Putin, of the United States as an “unreliable ally” under Mr. Trump, and so forth.

The tendency in journalism, that … Read the rest

Even the Spectator does it.

My original copy said “man” in the ladies changing room, but the trans cult which is essentially a men’s rights movement has captured the chocolate teapot that is IPSO so even the Spectator have to bow down to censorship. https://t.co/8rctcWNDPA

— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) February 16, 2025

So the Spectator bows down to censorship AND obscures information that is central to the story. Saying “transgender doctor” is MEANINGLESS. The core fact in this whole conflict, which has been keeping a tribunal busy for days, is that a male doctor bullied a female nurse who objected to his presence in the women’s changing room. The fact that the Spectator alters Joanna Cherry’s writing such that … Read the rest

Alarming.

In December, more than a month before Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office, The New York Times reported a blockbuster scoop: Elon Musk and his SpaceX company had repeatedly failed to meet federal reporting requirements designed to safeguard national security despite being deeply entangled with the military and intelligence bureaucracy. These included a failure to provide details to the government of Musk’s meetings with foreign leaders, the Times reported.

Those lapses had triggered a number of internal federal reviews, according to the Times. Perhaps most interestingly, the Defense Department’s inspector general had opened a probe of the matter sometime during 2024. The Air Force and the Pentagon Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for

… Read the rest

Occupy Democrats wrote on Facebook:

BREAKING: Donald Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center implodes in humiliating fashion as droves of talented celebrities abandon the legendary performing arts center in protest.

Trump is radioactive with the people he wants to impress most…

Actress Issa Rae announced on Instagram in a brief statement that she is cancelling her “An Evening With Issa Rae” event slated for next month. Tickets will be refunded.

“Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue,” she wrote.

Trump made himself chairman of the center on Wednesday. Earlier this … Read the rest

So progressive.

https://twitter.com/Hoer_jetzt_auf/status/1890832633065578667 The police were slow to arrive, but when they did they got the little pukes out of there and the film was shown.… Read the rest

Vance drops in on Europe to yell “You all suck!!!”

In a chastising speech on Friday that openly questioned whether current European values warranted defence by the US, he painted a picture of European politics infected by media censorship, cancelled elections and political correctness.

Arguing that the true threat to Europe stemmed not from external actors such as Russia or China, but Europe’s own internal retreat from some of its “most fundamental values”, he repeatedly questioned whether the US and Europe any longer had a shared agenda.

Well no, and that’s because the US now = Trump.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the vice-president had been expected to address the critical question of the Ukraine war and security differences

… Read the rest

So “diversity staff” have more valuable skills than…doctors?

There have been a slew of recent job postings offering roles in equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at salaries that exceed specialist junior doctors.

They include an NHS England EDI secondment position covering the southwest of England offering a pro rata salary of £122,000 per year, and a head of EDI role at a London trust with a salary of £91,336.

Junior doctors earn a basic salary of between £36,616 and £70,425, while consultants receive between £105,504 to £139,882 per year.

You do have to wonder what skills EDI people have that merit that kind of pay. I don’t think the NHS is wrong to want “diversity” in the sense of having … Read the rest

It’s also a class thing.

Dr Upton, for those who have not been following the case, was born male and is at least 6ft tall. Make-up and discreet silver jewellery cannot mask the good doctor’s male physiology. As Sandie Peggie told the tribunal, she was not discomfited by Dr Upton being transgender, but by having to share female changing facilities with a male-bodied person, as indeed most women would be, especially when bleeding heavily.

She made her feelings clear, much to Upton’s distaste. As the solidly middle class doctor, still in his 20s, told the tribunal, “I’ve never been spoken to like that in my life.”

Oh really? That explains a lot.

The employment tribunal, which will continue into

… Read the rest

Yes but how long had they been there in the first place?

The Trump administration has erased references to transgender people from New York’s Stonewall National Monument website.

Well guess what, the Stonewall monument started life as a monument to lesbians and gay men. The T was added later. Trump is the wrong person to meddle in all this, but it’s still true that the T colonizes everything it can reach.

On the National Park Service website, the acronym LGBTQ+ has been shortened to LGB, standing for lesbian, gay and bisexual.

No, other way around. LGB was lengthened to LGBTQ+ even though the T is not the same as the LGB and the Q is just empty. “The acronym” … Read the rest

Too easy.

A picture paints a thousand words. Tell me which one is a bully and a bigot? #GenderCritical pic.twitter.com/o3pKxYAigU

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) February 14, 2025

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Explain belief.

The late Ray Hyman, a leading expert on cold reading and arch-nemesis of parapsychologists, was once asked if he thought alleged psychic Rosemary Altea was a fraud. Hyman’s answer (from memory) went something like:

I don’t know if she’s a fraud, but if I were a fraud I would do exactly what she does.

Many of the things that seem crazy to us begin to make sense (in a ”reverse engineering” sort of way) once we ask ourselves:

If I were determined to defend the indefensible, what would I do?

To me the main virtue of Simon Edge’s The End of the World Is Flat is not that it’s a … Read the rest

Imagine having JD Vance lecturing you from a great height.

Vice President JD Vance publicly berated European leaders on a host of issues from free speech to security and mass migration, as simmering tensions between the United States and its close allies boiled over at an international conference in Munich on Friday.

The vice president used the podium at the high-level security gathering that had been focusing on the invasion of Ukraine and the threat Russia poses to Europe and the rest of the world to raise social issues animating many on the American right.

Well great, because European leaders have nothing better to do than fret about US social issues from the pov of Trump Toady # 3.… Read the rest

It all goes back to the fallibility of the first person point of view.

It’s a lifelong struggle for everyone. Our wants are much clearer to us than everyone else’s wants, because we are the ones who have our wants, while it’s everyone else who has those other, much less vivid and urgent wants.

And by the same token we think much more highly of ourselves than of everyone else, because we know ourselves from the inside, while everyone else is…well, everyone else.

We learn about this struggle as we get older, and we try to correct for the personal point of view, when we feel like it, and when we know we’ll be arrested if we don’t.

It’s a … Read the rest

Trump the KGB agent:

Some leaders make history. Others have it thrust upon them when they fail to understand the moment. Donald Trump’s announcement that he has opened bilateral negotiations with Vladimir Putin over the future of Ukraine, which Putin invaded and where his armies have been accused of committing war crimes, is one such “moment”.

Keir Starmer must now decide whether he has what it takes to lead the country – or go down in history as an appeasement prime minister like Neville Chamberlain.

…

Chamberlain’s Munich Agreement traded a large chunk of Czechoslovakia for a commitment from Hitler that Germany’s imperial ambitions would end with the absorption of 3 million Czech citizens from the Sudetenland into the Reich. In 1938, the British

… Read the rest

JKR nails it. Again.

It makes no difference how politely the person who wishes to compel my speech makes the request. The very making of the request tells me the man in question thinks he has the right to control my language, and thereby, to control me. He is asking me to acquiesce in a lie, to…

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 13, 2025

It makes no difference how politely the person who wishes to compel my speech makes the request. The very making of the request tells me the man in question thinks he has the right to control my language, and thereby, to control me. He is asking me to acquiesce in a lie, to pretend, implicitly, that

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Steven on As they wish to be addressed.

There is a massive equivocation fallacy here.

We generally allow people to choose their own proper names. In our society, most people go by whatever name their parents gave them, but they can pick a different one if they like. As a practical matter, if someone introduces himself as “Fred”, I’m going to address him as “Fred”, and I’m not going to demand that he produce some document to prove that “Fred” is his “real” name.

Even when we happen to know that someone is going by a name other than their given or official or legal name, it is considered courteous–we generally extend the courtesy–of addressing … Read the rest

Very bad news.

Senate confirms RFK Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary

The Senate voted on Thursday to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Health and Human Services secretary, a victory for President Donald Trump after Kennedy faced intense scrutiny over his controversial views on vaccines and public health policy.

“Controversial” is a weasel word. They’re way more than controversial; they’re wack, they’re wrong, they’re harmful. First do no harm, unless it’s a Kennedy doing it.

He’s anti-vax and he lies about it.

During confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill, Kennedy denied being anti-vaccine, telling senators instead that he is “pro-safety.” He went on to say, “I believe that vaccines play a critical role in health care.”

At one point, Sen.

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on As they wish to be addressed.

A matter of politeness, then, even if that requires one to indulge a certain fiction. Yet I also accept that it is easier for me — a man —to take this view, or grant this indulgence, since doing so comes at no cost to me whatsoever.

I would argue that there is a cost to anyone and everyone indulging in this fiction. It is a surrender to someone else’s rude, unreasonable, reality-denying demand. The power relationship isn’t what you think it is. You’re not deigning to play along, you’re following orders. That’s certainly how those making the demand see it. You might think it’s … Read the rest

That’s the whole thing right there.

NC – it's uncomfortable, it's hard to say, but because a man wears clothes, grows hair etc it doesn't make him a woman. It's a fact
JR – object, false premise it's a fact. it's her belief.
J – qu of case is facts and law. Might be a necessary fact, what is sex of R2

— Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) February 13, 2025

No no no no no no no. It is a fact that men are men. It’s so much a fact that it’s a tautology. It’s not a belief, it’s a fact. We’re not confused, you’re confused.… Read the rest

Alex Massie in the Times:

Let us consider pronouns for a moment. In general, I think it reasonable to address people as they wish to be addressed. Much of the time this will be of little consequence. A matter of politeness, then, even if that requires one to indulge a certain fiction. Yet I also accept that it is easier for me — a man —to take this view, or grant this indulgence, since doing so comes at no cost to me whatsoever. No one is seeking access to spaces previously reserved for men and reserved such for good reason.

Yes, that, but also, it’s not really something that comes up all that much, is it. Everybody says it … Read the rest