Well that’s disgraceful.

The US is one of just 13 countries to have voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty for having gay sex.

Although the vote passed, America joined countries such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in opposing the move.

The Human Rights Council resolution condemned the “imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations”.

Ah so maybe it wasn’t the same-sex relations part that was the problem, maybe it was blasphemy and apostasy. Trump does pretend to be goddy these days.

Despite America’s opposition, the vote in Geneva passed with 27 of the 47-member Human Rights Council in favour.

This happened.

Corker, Menendez and more than a dozen more senators send a letter to Trump that could pave the way for sanctions over Khashoggi disappearance. Full letter and background here pic.twitter.com/bJBeb1ZxmB

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) October 10, 2018

CNN reports:

President Donald Trump is facing new pressure to investigate the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and determine whether to impose sanctions on those responsible after receiving a letter from a bipartisan group of senators Wednesday.

The letter, which triggers an “investigation and Global Magnitsky sanctions determination” was penned by the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chairman Sen. Bob Corker and ranking member Sen. Bob Menendez, along with the leaders of the appropriations

Oh no, even as the Wellcome Trust takes it back, it’s spreading. It’s Invasion of the Word-snatchers.

I have just received a press release that says “womxn” 15 times.
It’s about a campaign “for womxn, by womxn” to help refugees, sex trafficking victims + “pregnant womxn”.
It’s sponsored by H&M. @hm

Christ almxghty.

Did you agree to this nonsense @MaternityAction ??
@ellashome pic.twitter.com/et5a1LGmqX

— Lucy Bannerman (@TimesLucy) October 10, 2018

Twice in the headline. Four times in the first paragraph. Three times in the second paragraph.

No. No. No. NO. We are not “cis” and we are not “womxn.”

NO.

The Post has more on Paltrow’s wellnessbabble.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness brand, Goop, has promoted “energy stickers” made from “the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line space suits” — even though the stickers had nothing to do with spacesuits at all.

And coffee enemas.

And vaginal steaming.

And the jade eggs.

Why stop there? Why doesn’t she move on to gasoline ear-irrigations? Vaginal cauterization? Cyanide enemas? The all-coffee diet? Serenity through blood-letting? Leeches for the flu?

But when asked whether the products Goop sells online are based on pseudoscience, Paltrow told BBC News no.

“We disagree with that wholeheartedly,” the actress and business executive said Tuesday on “BBC Breakfast.” “We really believe that there

More than 53,000 voter registration applications are sitting on hold with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office. Most people on that list are black; many don’t know their registration is stalled.

Tuesday is Georgia’s deadline to register and be eligible to vote in the November General Election.

Kemp, who’s also the Republican candidate for governor, is in charge of elections and voter registration in Georgia.

His Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Stacey Abrams, and voting rights advocacy groups charge that Kemp is systematically using his office to suppress votes and tilt the election, and that his policies disproportionately affect black and minority voters.

Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams (John Amis/Associated Press)

Kemp is one of those “Beware voter fraud!!” … Read the rest

Remember the Wellcome Trust and “womxn”? From two days ago? With so much to laugh at in the list of 100 Narcissistic Non-negotiable Demands yesterday it’s easy to lose track.

It got a lot of [cough] disagreement so it explained its reasons.

We’ve had some questions about why we’re using the word womxn for this event. We’re using it because we feel that it is important to create a space/venue that includes diverse perspectives. It was agreed during our conversations with collaborators as the programme developed.

— Wellcome Collection (@ExploreWellcome) October 9, 2018

I’m kidding, of course. “We’re using it because we feel that it is important to create a space/venue that includes diverse perspectives” explains nothing. … Read the rest

I’m not the only one who found that List of 100 Ways You Have to Grovel to the Trans Community grotesquely narcissistic and entitled. I’m seeing a lot of others on Twitter.

Christ in a carrier bag. Is this a spoof? 100 Easy Ways to Make the World Better for Trans People https://t.co/41Ebp4Q54u

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) October 9, 2018

https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1049724949492092929

"Do not question anything ever, do not ask us anything, only question yourself and think about constantly about trans issues always, change the way you think, and then BUY US THINGS"?!

What the hell. It's like an incoherent rebellious teenager's list of demands. pic.twitter.com/fVDKVKKbeA

— Kate (@CussingQuim) October 9, 2018

Flowers, dinner, cash – a car, a house, a … Read the rest

Gwyneth Paltrow reassures us that she is not talking bullshit by talking bullshit.

Earlier this year, the lifestyle corporation fell under scrutiny once more when nonprofit group Truth in Advertising accused Goop of exploiting women with products which claim to combat health problems.

And now Gwyneth has opened up about the controversy.

When asked by the Radio 4 Today Programme about the flack the company has faced about some of the health benefits the products claim to have, Gwyneth replied that she thinks the criticism is important.

“If we’re not criticised we’re not doing our job. What we’re here to do is trailblaize and try to move culture forward,” she said.

“If we’re not criticised we’re not doing our job”? … Read the rest

The Kavanaugh mess distracted a lot of us from the Times’s big story on the Trump empire’s vast tax fraud. Paul Waldman at the Post reminded us to be reminded of it.

It has been less than two days since we learned that Donald Trump and his family appear to have engaged in a years-long conspiracy to commit tax fraud on an absolutely gigantic scale, evading hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes they owed to the federal government. We learned this from a mother lode of documents obtained by the New York Times — including tax returns, business records and bank records.

And nearly everyone seems to have already forgotten.

I didn’t forget but I did put it … Read the rest

Oh look, another  sighting of “womxn” already – this time in a piece at Vice explaining what “cis people” have to do to be allowed to live helpful to trans people.

Kai Isaiah-Jamal begins briskly.

Let’s cut the shit – there’s no positive way a cis person can dictate or speak on a life that you do not live and a world you do not have to navigate as a trans person.

Well, if that’s true, then nobody can say anything about anything, right? We can all come up with labels to brandish at the rest of the world by way of saying “don’t you dare disagree with me or dispute anything I say no matter how stupidly and irrationally … Read the rest

The Republicans are saying it’s all a matter of mistaken identity.

The politically convenient, scientifically baseless theory that sexual assault so traumatized Christine Blasey Ford she mixed up her attacker is now something like common wisdom for many Republicans.

President Trump explicitly endorsed the theory Saturday, shortly after Brett M. Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed as a Supreme Court judge, telling reporters he was “100 percent” sure Ford accused Kavanaugh in error.

Collins said it, Manchin said it, Graham said it.

[F]or many cognitive researchers who study how memories actually form during traumatic events, the theory never stopped sounding ridiculous.

“The person lying on top of you — who she’d previously met — you’re not going to forget that,” said

It can always be worse. It always is worse somewhere. At least Republican senators didn’t attack Christine Blasey Ford with sticks. The Guardian:

Thirty-six Indian schoolgirls have been treated in hospital after they were attacked by a large crowd of teenage boys and their parents when they complained of sexual harassment.

Six boys and one woman were arrested in the north-eastern state of Bihar after the attack at a girls’ boarding school.

Police and witnesses said girls from the government school in Triveniganj – about 160 miles (260km) east of the state capital, Patna – had been playing in a sports area on Saturday night when a group of teenage boys began making lewd comments.

Welll, you can see … Read the rest

Katha Pollitt talks about the way women have to be “likable” no matter what (and when they are it’s still not enough), while men can be as violent and belligerent and mendacious as they like and the world will still embrace them and say that was way back then.

These are the rules of The Patriarchy that the #MeToo movement has exposed: the education, extracurriculars, service projects, credentials—they were never what being a girl was all about. Being a girl is about pleasing men: What they think of you and want from you and how you negotiate that in a world that does not want to hear about the darker side of what that can mean.

And thus it’s also … Read the rest

China disappears the head of Interpol:

The detained Chinese head of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, is being investigated for alleged bribe-taking, Chinese authorities have announced.

Mr Meng was first reported missing in late September after travelling from Interpol HQ in France to China.

His wife has revealed that he sent her a text message with a knife emoji on the day he went missing.

Mr Meng is the latest high-profile target to be ensnared in China’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign.

Actual corruption case, or China being China?

In a statement on Twitter on Sunday, [Interpol] said it had received Mr Meng’s resignation with immediate effect. Under its terms it has appointed senior vice-president Kim Jong-yang of South Korea as acting president.

The Times yesterday:

Turkish investigators believe a well-known Saudi dissident was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, five people involved in the investigation, or briefed on it, said on Saturday.

The critic of the Saudi government, Jamal Khashoggi, entered the consulate on Tuesday to obtain a document he needed to get married and never emerged, according to his fiancée, who had stayed outside.

Waiting for him inside the consulate, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation, were Saudi agents who had recently arrived in Turkey with the intent to silence Mr. Khashoggi. It was not clear if the plan had been to bring him back to Saudi Arabia alive, and something went wrong, or if the

More from NPR on the Missouri one-abortion-clinic situation:

In 2008, Missouri had five abortion clinics, according to Planned Parenthood. The Columbia Health Center in central Missouri on Wednesday became the latest to stop providing abortions.

I don’t even understand this. Don’t big hospitals do abortions? If not, why not? Abortions should be a normal part of health care, not a rare bespoke luxury that only a few can have. As I mentioned, Missouri is not a small state, and five clinics is ludicrously inadequate.

Under the new requirements, abortion providers must secure admitting privileges at hospitals located within about 15 minutes from their health centers.

“The idea behind that restriction is that it somehow makes patients safer if they

There will be more of this, until they are all shut down and women will have to go to Canada or self-abort (which is often fatal). Missouri now has one (1) abortion clinic.

Missouri is down to one clinic providing abortions Wednesday, after the only other clinic in the state that performs the procedure failed to adhere to new state requirements.

Federal appeals court judges ruled last month that Missouri can enforce a requirement that doctors must have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals before they can perform abortions. The judges issued a mandate Monday for that rule to officially take effect.

The Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic was unable to secure physician privileges to comply with the requirement, so it