Why the Foreign Office is not eager to grant asylum to Asia Bibi:

The Foreign Office has been accused of allowing government asylum policy to be dictated to by a Pakistan mob after it was confirmed it urged the Home Office not to grant Asia Bibi political asylum in the UK out of fear for the safety of UK consular staff.

…

Her husband, Ashiq Masih, has appealed for help to Britain, Canada, Italy and the US but the UK high commissioner in Islamabad is reported to have warned he could not protect his staff if asylum was granted by the UK.

Tom Tugendhat, the foreign affairs select committee chair, asked the Foreign Office permanent secretary, Sir Simon McDonald,

… Read the rest

Well that was the best laugh I’ve had in a few hours.

Five hours ago: Pangburn Philosophy cancels all the things.

(You remember what “Pangburn Philosophy” is, right? A guy called Travis Pangburn who sells tickets to people who want to see Michael Shermer n Lawrence Krauss [oops] n Richard Dawkins n Sam Harris talking to each other for hours and hours and hours and hours?)

https://twitter.com/PangburnInspire/status/1062431248205864962

“what we believe to be some of the most important conversations in human history” – oh yes Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins agreeing with each other that women can be so tiresome; MOST IMPORTANT IN HISTORY. But despite that importance, they find they can’t remember what they did with all the money, so, … Read the rest

Via Maryam Namazie:

International Conference on Sharia, Segregation and Secularism
25 November 2018, Central London, 9:30-21:00
www.secularconference.com
#OneLaw4All

On 25 November, International Day against Violence against Women, there will be an international conference on Sharia, Segregation and Secularism in central London with 38 notable speakers from 24 countries and the Diaspora who are leaders in the fight for equality, secularism and against the far-Right and religious fundamentalisms of all stripes. Keynote speakers at the conference are Centre for Secular Space Director Gita Sahgal, Southall Black Sisters Director Pragna Patel and Asia Bibi’s Lawyer, Saif Ul Malook. Asia Bibi is a Christian woman accused of blasphemy who was on death row in Pakistan for eight years. Saif Ul Malook… Read the rest

Jane Clare Jones has written a historical drama about the terf wars. Think Richard III with trans activists playing Plantagenet.

Prologue: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Transsexual women: We just want some basic human rights.

Women: Okay.

Transsexual women: We have this condition called gender dysphoria and it’s really painful and we need to transition to live as the other sex because it’s the treatment for the dysphoria.

Women: Yeah, that sounds tough. Okay, if that’s what you need to do.

Seems like another world, doesn’t it.

Trans activists: So hey, when we said we’d like you to treat us like women that wasn’t right, because actually, we ARE women and we demand that

… Read the rest

Threatening to slice up women with a big knife is the hip new thing.

https://twitter.com/SisterClaireXX/status/1062393764461903879

The tweet is now gone, but

https://twitter.com/SisterClaireXX/status/1062400061844398081

The whole photo doesn’t show up so here:

… Read the rest

Steve King dared a conservative outlet to release audio of him calling immigrants ‘dirt.’ It did. https://t.co/W6dPBFBisl

— Nope. (@JoyAnnReid) November 12, 2018

From the Post:

Rep. Steve King, the newly reelected Iowa Republican with a history of incendiary comments about race and immigration, dared a conservative magazine to show evidence that he had called immigrants “dirt.”

“Just release the full tape,” King, who eked out a narrow victory last week despite affiliations with white nationalists, told the Weekly Standard’s online managing editor Saturday on Twitter. Days earlier, the magazine reported that King had made an inflammatory joke about immigrants.

The Weekly Standard released the recording — a two-minute audio in which King can be heard bantering with a

… Read the rest

This is dumb reporting: Kim Hart at Axios on what “Democrats” think of “Republicans” and vice versa.

Many Americans think people in the other party are ignorant, spiteful, evil and generally destroying the country, according to a new Axios poll by SurveyMonkey, aired on HBO on Sunday night. 61% of Democrats see Republicans as “racist/bigoted/sexist.” 31% of Republicans say they view Democrats in the same light.

Why it matters: If Americans are this convinced that the other side isn’t just wrong, but dumb and evil, they’ll never be able to find enough common ground to solve real problems. And they’re more likely to elect leaders who can’t do it, either.

So we should have one party instead of … Read the rest

Olivier Blanchard offers analysis of a manipulative meme:

Chances are that you have seen this meme floating around, especially around elections. It isn’t what you think it is. It is not a friendly digital handshake. It isn’t meant to help neighbors mend fences. It is a deliberate instrument of psychological manipulation.

I have seen that meme, and cordially hated it.

I worked in Marketing for nearly two decades. I know this kind of device when I see it. Let me explain.

1. The image
Note the childlike simplicity of the image, the super basic smiling face. The finger pointing up at it. The open posture. The baby-like head. What part of the brain is this image stimulating? It looks

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Dave Ricks on Trump chastises the people of California.

As the Washington Post reported, the California Professional Firefighters president Brian Rice issued a response that I’ll copy here in full:

The president’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is Ill-informed, ill-timed, and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines.

At a time when our every effort should be focused on vanquishing the destructive fires and helping the victims, the president has chosen instead to issue an uninformed political threat aimed squarely at the innocent victims of these cataclysmic fires.

At this moment, thousands of our brother

… Read the rest

For crying out loud.

The Labour Party has threatened a member with disciplinary action for referring to a transgender woman as “a man”.

Janey Hutton made the comment on a closed Facebook group, writing: “Its (sic) painful to see biological women say trans women (men) are sisters. The desperation to appear PCWOKE is vomit inducing. These are MEN.”

She then received a letter from Sophie Goodyear, head of complaints of Labour’s National Executive Committee, describing the remarks as “offensive”, saying “abuse of any kind, whether direct attacks or pejorative language which may cause offence is not acceptable and will not be tolerated in our party.”

But it’s not “pejorative language” to say that men are men, or to say … Read the rest