All entries by this author
Jan 10th, 2025 9:46 am |
By Ophelia Benson
News from Sussex:
A mental health nurse has been struck off after asking a Polish colleague whether he was “some sort of Nazi” while out on a Christmas do.
Rachel Hole was also accused of using the N-word while out with work colleagues amid a string of racist incidents spanning a number of years while working as a ward manager on The Hazel Ward, a Low Secure Mental Health Ward at The Chichester Centre in Chichester.
Ms Hole also scared a BAME colleague by putting a white sheet over her head in a Halloween prank but later defended herself by saying she was “hardly one of the Ku Klux Klan”.
And so on and so on – it continues for … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jan 10th, 2025 5:27 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The libbruls are burning down Los Angeles, it seems.
…mismanages forests and brush, and fires firefighters for refusing an experimental vaccine?”
President Musk steps right up.
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1877181305357545639
Aren’t they just hilarious?… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
32 comments
Jan 10th, 2025 5:11 am |
By Ophelia Benson
From the Guardian’s live updating:
[A]mid nightmarish images eerily evocative of Cormac McCarthy’s dark post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, a political firestorm has sparked from Donald Trump and his supporters that seems as scorched earth in its characteristics as the blazes ravaging neighborhoods across Los Angeles.
Far from calling a temporary truce, the president-elect and his Maga (make America great again) acolytes have used the fires to attack the Democratic political ruling establishment in Los Angeles and California – possibly foretelling power struggles ahead over a range of issues after Trump assumes office this month.
The attacks have used disinformation, wild claims, conspiracy theories and extremist culture war tropes. But absent from their critique has been any acknowledgement that climate
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
19 comments
Jan 10th, 2025 3:57 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Sports matter; women do not matter.
England’s men’s cricket team should play against Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy, despite calls for a boycott in response to the Taliban regime’s assault on women’s rights, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy says.
Female participation in sport has effectively been outlawed since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
A cross-party letter, signed by nearly 200 UK politicians, has been sent to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) calling for England to refuse to play in the Champions Trophy match in Lahore on 26 February.
But Nandy thinks the match should go ahead, because sports.
“I am instinctively very cautious about boycotts in sport, partly because I think they are counterproductive. I think
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
5 comments
Jan 10th, 2025 3:41 am |
By Ophelia Benson
I’m so tired of this filth.
The Supreme Court didn’t help Donald Trump … this time. The court’s 5-4 decision Thursday to deny the president-elect’s last-minute effort to delay sentencing in his New York hush money case sets up a stunning moment – a Friday court date just 10 days before Trump is sworn in for a second term.
Judge Juan Merchan has already said he won’t impose a jail term. But the sentencing hearing will nevertheless mean that Trump will be the first president to take office with a criminal conviction written into his official record.
Isn’t that just fabulous? Behold: President Convicted Felon.
Behold the US, a failed state.
The proximity of the sentencing to Trump’s inauguration
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
6 comments
Jan 9th, 2025 2:56 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Be careful what you wish for and campaign for and talk nonsense for, eh James Woods?
God at Letters from God has the details:
James Woods, a man who hath spent his years spouting MAGA rhetoric and raging against reality, a man who blocked God back when it was still Twitter, now tragically reaps the literal whirlwind of his own climate change denial.
His house burned up. It’s gone.
It’s a very pretty clip. He pans … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
8 comments
Jan 9th, 2025 12:30 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Pink News is overjoyed.
Awards season is well and truly here, and with it often comes the premise of historical firsts. This year, Karla Sofia Gascón has made history as the first out trans performer to be nominated at the 2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards in a solo category.
The Spanish actress has been nominated at the SAG Awards for Best Female Actor in a Leading Role for her work in Emilia Pérez, making her the first out trans performer to be nominated in a solo category, as per Out Magazine.
In other words, a man has won [been nominated for] an award for best female actor.
As if women don’t have enough trouble getting work … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
9 comments
Jan 9th, 2025 9:08 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Allllllll genders.
The national police leader on child protection and abuse investigations has urged officers not to be “distracted” by media coverage of grooming gangs, emphasising it is one element of a wider threat.
Becky Riggs, an assistant chief constable, said analysis of child sex crimes reported to police made it clear that “group-based offending occurs in various forms, in diverse settings, and across different ethnicities”.
She urged a “balanced approach to addressing the threat in all its forms”, adding that “children are at risk from perpetrators of all races, ethnicities and genders”.
Excuse me?
Perps of “all genders” go after children? Really? Women sexually abuse children just as much as men do?
There is nothing in the article … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jan 8th, 2025 11:55 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Not all that liberal…
The Liberal Democrats have been ordered to pay £14,000 to a former parliamentary candidate who says she was driven out of the party and barred from standing as an MP over her gender-critical views.
Natalie Bird was removed as a prospective parliamentary candidate for Wakefield after she wore a top bearing the slogan “Woman: Adult Human Female” to a party meeting.
It’s like removing people as prospective parliamentary candidates for wearing tops that say “Rain is wet” or “Fire burns” or “Lions are not frogs” or “Jumping off a tall building is dangerous” or an infinite number of other obvious factual assertions.
Ms Bird had been critical of the party’s policies online but Judge Jane
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
5 comments
Jan 8th, 2025 11:31 am |
By Ophelia Benson
It’s not the future any more. Big chunks of Los Angeles are on fire.
Firefighters in Los Angeles are battling a number of blazes in city suburbs, as tens of thousands of residents are forced to flee.
The rapidly changing situation is compounded by Santa Ana winds and extremely dry conditions. Currently authorities say there is no possibility of bringing the fires under control.
The Palisades fire, which is closest to the coast and also the largest, has ripped through picturesque suburbs which are home to many Hollywood stars. More than 1,000 buildings have already been destroyed.
Picturesque and very very very expensive.
LA has always been a mistake. It’s in a desert, and it’s way too big for … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
14 comments
Jan 7th, 2025 5:24 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
“Sophie Molly” tries his hand at argument.
Once again, a festival capitulates to the demands of transphobes. By hosting not one but two notable TERFs. The festival in question is the Oxford Literary Festival.
It’s not clear what the demands are. Did the terfs demand that the Oxford Lit Fest host them? Or did the Oxford Lit Fest simply invite a couple of feminists?
By far, the worst of them is Helen Joyce. Her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality can only be described as anti-trans propaganda. This book and its author should not be featured at a mainstream literary festival.
But even if it’s true that the book can only be described as anti-trans-[ideology], how is that … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
16 comments
Jan 7th, 2025 3:14 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
No, sir, you can’t sue people for getting it wrong.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an organization most recognized for its work bolstering conservatives on the nation’s campuses, announced on Tuesday it would represent the pollster J. Ann Selzer, at no charge, against Donald J. Trump’s lawsuit accusing her of consumer fraud for a poll that predicted he would lose Iowa. “Punishing someone for their political prediction is about as unconstitutional as it gets,” said Bob Corn-Revere, the group’s chief counsel. “This is America. No one should be afraid to predict the outcome of an election.”
Trump accusing someone else of consumer fraud is hilarious. Remember Trump University? All those gilded tchotchkes in his … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
8 comments
Jan 7th, 2025 10:28 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Anschluss time.
Trump on Tuesday refused to rule out invading Greenland or Panama when asked if the U.S. could use military force to acquire the Arctic island or the Central American canal.
Asked if he would rule out economic or military coercion to gain control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, Trump said, “I’m not gonna commit to that. No. It might be that you’ll have to do something.”
“I can’t assure you — you’re talking about Panama and Greenland — no, I can’t assure you on either of those two,” Trump said in response to the question at a press conference. “But I can say this: We need them for economic security.”
And what we need we help … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
4 comments
Jan 7th, 2025 10:21 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The fix is in.
District Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday blocked the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump.
It was so lucky for Trump that he got to appoint the drastically underqualified Cannon while he was drastically underqualified president.
In the filings, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira asked Cannon to block the release of the special counsel report, which is expected in the coming days before Trump is sworn in as president for the second time. The two men, who both worked for Trump and have pleaded not guilty to obstruction-related crimes, argued that Smith does not have the authority to release the report because Cannon previously deemed
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
1 Comment »
Jan 7th, 2025 7:37 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Erm.
Remember that guy who hacked a bunch of people with an axe in a 7-11 because a lesbian refused to hook up with him?
He’s out of prison.
Axe attacker Evie Amati laughed as she was released from jail, eight years to the day after the horrific attempted murders of customers at a Sydney 7-Eleven outlet.
Amati, a trans woman, smashed an axe into the head of one man at an Enmore service station on January 6, 2017 before attacking a female customer and another man.
But at 9.30am on Monday, Amati, 32, walked out of the Bolwara Transitional Centre at Emu Plains women’s prison smiling, sporting a new look and a ghoulish jail tattoo. S
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
6 comments