Maryam posted a Manifesto on Women and Secularism:

International Conference on Sharia, Segregation and Secularism
25 November 2018, London

Today, far-Right movements, including religious fundamentalisms, are seizing power and on the rise in both democratic and authoritarian states. Even in more secularised societies, religious organisations have gained power because they have been considered valuable allies – to provide services as the state shrinks, to oppose radical social justice movements, as part of counter-terror strategies and post conflict ‘stabilisation,’ and as part of the privatisation of law. From development banks to Western aid and human rights organisations, fundamentalists, particularly Islamists, have been promoted in the name of minority and religious rights. The growth of community based ‘Sharia’ and other parallel

Peter Tatchell does keep getting this wrong.

I support both trans rights & women's rights. I deplore threats, intimidation & violence. The best way to resolve this issue is by peaceful protest & by rational, evidence-based ideas that show why trans women are not a threat to non-trans women pic.twitter.com/Iy6XYqRZVg

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) November 27, 2018

First of all the priority. Trans rights first, women’s rights the also-ran. What the hell. First of all that’s one of the core reasons for this whole conflict: this relentless insistence that trans rights are far more important and urgent than boring old women’s rights. Second, why? Why put trans rights first? Women are half of everyone; trans people are a … Read the rest

Mars from a mere 4,700 miles away.

Image of #Mars captured from a distance of 4,700 miles by #Marco pic.twitter.com/RPYWlJewSs

— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) November 26, 2018

… Read the rest

Oopsie. You know how Manafort agreed to a plea deal in exchange for getting some charges dismissed? Well he went and lied to the prosecutors after signing the deal, which means they’re filing those charges again.

Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, repeatedly lied to federal investigators in breach of a plea agreement he signed two months ago, the special counsel’s office said in a court filing late on Monday.

Prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said Mr. Manafort’s “crimes and lies” about “a variety of subject matters relieve them of all promises they made to him in the plea agreement. But under the terms of the agreement, Mr. Manafort cannot withdraw his guilty

Originally a comment by Freemage on There are wheels that have been squeaking for a lot longer.

Religion is an instrument of societal control, but the New Atheist dream that a world without religion would immediately cast off the old chains has been largely and soundly debunked, primarily by the actions and rhetoric of the New Atheists, themselves. Undermining religious conservatives, in particular, does deal with one stumbling block, but it helps to remember there are progressive religionists, too (Quakers, for instance, tend to be a decade or two on the right side of historical changes), who can be counted upon as allies in fights against oppression, at least so long as their atheist counterparts don’t kick things off … Read the rest

The logic of it.

Well done @AlexSharpe64 @BBCWomansHour for articulating the utterly sensible argument that cis women have nothing to fear from changes to the GRA. As Alex clearly stated, trans women have always been present in women’s toilets, refugees etc. That’s because trans women are women.

— Sally Hines (@sally_hines) November 26, 2018

By the same token, men have always been present everywhere. And? Does it follow that women have nothing to fear from men? Hardly. It’s not a vanishingly rare occurrence for men to use their superior size and strength to get violent with women. Even if you think it’s uncomplicatedly true that trans women are women, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that some men will pretend … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Questions are rarely settled without debate.

Is it just me, or have certain tennets of trans ideology met with more rapid acceptance than one might expect? I know I’m noticing the effects of my own aging on my perception of time (incipient curmudgeonly relativistic time dilation), but things seem to have moved very quickly. The squeaky wheel may get the grease, but there are wheels that have been squeaking for a lot longer (say WOMEN, for example) that have not gotten their timely share of “lubrication.” To further mix metaphors, the extreme trans activists come across as queue jumping dogs in the manger, preventing women from retaining (or gaining in … Read the rest

The AP reports:

12:15 p.m.

Central American migrants, mostly men, appear to be trying to breach the border crossing between Tijuana and California.

U.S. Border Patrol helicopters flew low overhead, while U.S. agents held vigil on foot beyond the wire fence. The Border Patrol office in San Diego said via Twitter that pedestrian crossings have been suspended at the San Ysidro port of entry at both the East and West facilities.

Trump meanwhile was running his mouth. Of course he was.

Would be very SMART if Mexico would stop the Caravans long before they get to our Southern Border, or if originating countries would not let them form (it is a way they get certain people out of their

Kenan Malik points out that discussion is more productive than silencing:

On perhaps no issue has the question of what can or cannot be debated been more sharply contested than that of transgenderism. How should society, and the law, look upon people who were born male but see themselves as female? Trying to answer that question has led to bitter confrontations between trans activists, determined to secure full rights for trans people, and “gender critical” feminists worried that the notion of what it is to be a woman is being transformed to the detriment of women’s rights.

The thing is, those two items don’t have to be in tension, and they shouldn’t be. Gender critical feminists don’t want … Read the rest

This is a strange one.

pic.twitter.com/WvAdUoWCuK

— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) November 24, 2018

Impressive biceps for women.… Read the rest

Twitter has now permanently banned Meghan Murphy. For what? For having an Unapproved View on sex and gender. What next? Banning, say, Walter Shaub and Norm Eisen for being critical of Trump? Banning Human Rights Watch for reporting on violations of human rights? Banning scientists for talking about global warming?

Why is it Twitter’s job to enforce orthodoxy on trans dogma? Why is that Twitter’s job when it’s not Twitter’s job to do anything about years-long harassment campaigns against women?

So, we need to make her thoughts even more widely available on Twitter.

"I choose to consider facts and take what I consider to be ethical positions based on those facts, even if those facts and positions don’t fit whatever

There was a horrendous E. coli outbreak last year.

The culprit turned out to be E. coli, a powerful pathogen that had contaminated romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona, and distributed nationwide. At least 210 people in 36 states were sickened. Five died and 27 suffered kidney failure. The same strain of E. coli that sickened them was detected in a Yuma canal used to irrigate some crops.

For more than a decade, it’s been clear that there’s a gaping hole in American food safety: Growers aren’t required to test their irrigation water for pathogens such as E. coli. As a result, contaminated water can end up on fruits and vegetables.

After several high-profile disease outbreaks linked to food,

I missed this last August. I was alerted to it just now by Walter Shaub.

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1066406575647195137

Waiver? thought I. What waiver? So I looked it up.

Oh. That waiver.

It is “in the public interest” for the White House’s top communicator to be excused from federal ethics laws so he can meet with Fox News, according to President Donald Trump’s top lawyer.

Bill Shine, Trump’s newly minted communications director, and Larry Kudlow, the White House’s top economist, who worked at CNBC before his White House post, have both been excused from provisions of the law which seeks to prevent administration officials from advancing the financial interests of relatives or former employers.

So, administration officials, go ahead and advance the … Read the rest