Sullivan nominated for Sullivan Review.

A leading gender critical researcher has been shortlisted for the 2025 Maddox Prize for her landmark review into how sex is recorded in publicly funded research.

Alice Sullivan, professor of sociology at UCL, is the only UK-based researcher named on the six-strong shortlist for the prize, awarded by Nature Awards and the science communication charity Sense about Science, which recognises researchers with a record of “standing up for sound science and evidence in the public interest, and for showing courage and integrity in the face of challenges and hostility”.

It doesn’t get much more challenges and hostility than trans ideology. That’s probably because they are coming from inside the house.

Published in March, Sullivan’s independent review revealed how inconsistent approaches in how sex is recorded in publicly funded research has led to a “widespread loss” of data over the past decade.

Numerous studies carried out after 2015 dropped questions related to biological sex and instead collected data on ‘gender’, the study explained, with the term referring to gender identity.

Sullivan’s report recommended researchers should collect data on gender identity but avoid combining this category with questions on sex.

Because obviously they should, because “gender identity” is the opposite of sex. It’s about feefees, thoughts, fantasies, daydreams. It’s not just not the reality, it’s the enemy of the reality.

While Sullivan’s report won plaudits from many experts and politicians, including health secretary Wes Streeting, it was heavily criticised by others, including the transgender support group TransActual who claimed the report is “biased, inadequate and potentially harmful to all”. 

Snort. Sure, it’s “potentially” anything you like, but let’s stick to current reality, shall we?

Mermaids, a charity which supports families with transgender children, claimed the UCL professor is an “adviser to an organisation widely considered to be an anti-trans campaign group” – namely, the gender critical charity Sex Matters.

So typical. Typical of Mermaids and typical of gender ideology/manipulation in general. Anything they don’t like is “widely considered” to be anti-trans whatever. We know that, and we do not care.

Oliver Brown in the Telegraph:

Lisa Nandy should surely have taken the hint when, having worn a “protect the dolls” T-shirt on a transgender rights march in August, she found herself roundly eviscerated.

Dolls, a slang term from the 1980s for men trying to pass themselves off as women, had long been viewed as misogynistic, a description that succeeded only in objectifying femininity. Except now the Culture Secretary has gone a step further, making the fatuous suggestion at this week’s Labour Party conference that biological men should still be allowed to compete in certain women’s sports.

“There are three things that we’re trying to achieve,” she said on Wednesday. “The first is inclusion, the second is fairness, and the third is safety. And there are some sports where it’s perfectly possible to include everybody and still meet those principles around fairness and safety.”

Gaaaaaaaaaah!

If you “include everybody” then you exclude women from their own sports, so no, it is not “perfectly possible” to include men in women’s sports while still meeting any principles around fairness and safety.

The instinctive reaction to these remarks is to despair that somebody so oblivious to the reality of sex, and to why immutable male advantage means that the integrity of the women’s category in sport must always be protected, could have been elevated to an office of state. It is as if this year’s Supreme Court verdict never happened.

It’s also to despair that this somebody so oblivious to immutable male advantage is herself a woman and in the government.

“Inexcusable,” said Sharron Davies of Nandy’s latest statement. “Women’s sport is not a consolation prize for non-conforming males. Women’s sport belongs solely to females.” Tracy Edwards, the round-the-world yachtswoman, said: “It is beyond depressing that we finally have so many women in government and most of them don’t know what a woman is.”

Or, worse, pretend not to know at the behest of a lot of entitled women-hating men.

Farewell to Jane Goodall.

The United Nations said it mourned the loss of Dr Goodall, saying that she “worked tirelessly for our planet and all its inhabitants, leaving an extraordinary legacy for humanity and nature”.

Greenpeace said it was “heartbroken” by her death, calling her “one of the true conservation giants of our time”.

Its co-executive director in the UK, Will McCallum, said: “Dr Goodall’s legacy is not only in science but in the global movement she helped spark to protect nature and give hope for a better world.”

Naturalist Chris Packham told the BBC that he counted her among his heroes, calling her “revolutionary” and “remarkable”.

“To have lost a hero at a time when we need all of them on the frontline fighting for life on earth is a tragedy.”

…

Her Jane Goodall Institute, founded in 1977, works to protect chimpanzees and supports projects aimed at benefiting animals and the environment.

Dr Goodall was appointed a Dame in 2003 and received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025.

January 2025 to be exact – received it from Biden.

I went to a talk of hers once, years ago, when I was volunteering at the zoo. I had campaigned hard to work in the gorilla unit. She was of course a hero to everyone who worked with the Great Apes, and I tagged along with them to her talk.

H/t Acolyte of Sagan

Labour shows off its hostility to women yet again.

The new trans rules are “not right” and should be reviewed by MPs, one of Labour’s deputy leadership candidates has said.

Lucy Powell appeared to criticise the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance on transgender issues, which has advised that workplaces provide protected single-sex spaces.

So she thinks workplaces should not provide protected single-sex spaces? She thinks women should have to deal with men in women’s spaces?

Speaking at a fringe event of the party conference on Monday evening, Ms Powell was asked whether she supported the EHRC’s interim guidance on trans issues, which was issue after a ruling by the Supreme Court in April.

The guidance suggested that businesses and public bodies must provide protection for women-only spaces such as lavatories because the court said legal obligations under the Equality Act were determined by biological sex, not gender identity.

Ms Powell suggested that MPs should review the full guidance before it is published later this year, opening the door to a veto in Parliament for the protection of women-only spaces.

What a shitty, privileged, ruling class thing to do.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow equalities minister, said: “The Supreme Court was crystal clear – biological sex matters, and women have a right to single-sex spaces. Time and again, Labour has sided with radical trans activists instead of the women fighting to protect their changing rooms and toilets from biological men. Labour cannot be trusted to protect the privacy, dignity, and safety of women and girls.”

Oh well, we’re only half the population.

I hadn’t realized that Trump yammered at the trapped military brass yesterday for AN HOUR AND THIRTEEN MINUTES. Freestyle. Typical Trump brainless babbling, no script, just the endless spool of stupid soundbites and boasts and lies and gibberish.

Shawn McCreesh at the Times has some details.

Several hundred military commanders turned up at Quantico on Tuesday morning. Some had flown in for it from places as far away as Germany, Brussels, Japan and South Korea. They sat mostly in silence as Mr. Trump talked for 73 minutes about the same things he talks about almost every day, no matter where he is or to whom he is speaking.

He talked to the generals about Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the infamous autopen. He talked about the media. He talked about tariffs and the border. He talked about the time he went to a restaurant in Washington to eat dinner. He talked about not being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize he felt he had earned.

It’s a milkshake of engorged ego and abject stupidity. Only an ego that blots out the sun can think that people want to sit still for AN HOUR AND 13 MINUTES OF BABBLING ABOUT SELF from a markedly brainless egomaniac.

These were pretty much the same things he talked about a day earlier while standing next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the State Dining Room at the White House, which were the same things he talked about at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona, which were the same things he talked about at Windsor Castle and at Chequers in England.

He might as well be a wind-up toy. He babbles the same babble every time he babbles.

On an almost daily basis, thousands of words pour forth from the president’s mouth. Sometimes, he tucks in a wild insight about the direction he is taking the country.

It can be hard to discern these moments for what they are. Partially that’s because we hear from Mr. Trump so often. He is on TV constantly. But it’s also because, in his second term more than ever, he has become so devoid of context. He seems unwilling or unable to modulate based on his audience, his setting or his circumstances.

Which is (surely obviously?) a sign of extreme mental impairment.

Could have been an email.

Pete Hegseth’s speech to top generals was supposed to serve as a rallying cry for military exceptionalism — but it didn’t land that way with many of the people it was targeting.

Numerous defense officials — who watched senior brass scramble to Washington and then sit through a partisan speech from President Donald Trump and a return to old-school military standards by Hegseth — were left wondering why the event had occurred at all.

“More like a press conference than briefing the generals,” said one defense official, who, like others, was granted anonymity due to fears of retribution. “Could have been an email.”

Defense officials, in the Pentagon and at bases around the world, spent much of Tuesday trying to make sense of the last-minute gathering at the Quantico base in Virginia. Hegseth called out “fat generals,” and, separately, pushed fitness standards that could limit women in combat roles, while Trump offered his justification for sending the military into American cities.

I bet they didn’t really “try to make sense” of it or wonder why it happened at all. It’s obvious why it happened: fun for Hegseth. So it cost hundreds of millions of dollars, so what, it was the best ego trip ever. Slash the National Weather Service, shut down USAID altogether, and squander a big chunk of the budget on a Hegseth-Trump photo opp.

Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine suggested Russian and Chinese officials would worry that hundreds of American generals and admirals had gathered together. But some current and former defense officials instead feared the security risk of sticking almost all of America’s top officers in the same room. And they dismissed Hegseth’s effort to bolster the military’s aggressive image through grooming standards and ending diversity programs.

“It‘s a waste of time for a lot of people who emphatically had better things they could and should be doing,” said a former senior defense official. “It’s also an inexcusable strategic risk to concentrate so many leaders in the operational chain of command in the same publicly known time and place, to convey an inane message of little merit.”

Apart from that it was a brilliant idea.

The Defense Department, which Trump has rebranded the Department of War, argued the event boosted morale and empowered military leaders.

Did it though? Did it boost morale? I seriously doubt that. And how did it empower military leaders? More like disempowered them, if anything.

But both within the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, people voiced worries about Hegseth’s remark that rules of engagement designed to protect civilians were “stupid” and Trump’s suggestion that the Pentagon would form quick reaction forces to quell upheaval in American cities.

“Deploying U.S. troops against U.S. citizens in American cities isn’t just unprecedented and unconstitutional — it’s UNAMERICAN,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), an Army veteran who served in Iraq, posted on X. 

Well, sadly, it’s now all too American. We can’t pretend this isn’t what we’ve become under the Monster.

Awww, Owen Jones has been told to go away.

Much of Labour conference has seen MPs taking aim at Nigel Farage and his Reform party, but it would appear some left-wingers have ended up in the firing line too. Onetime Labour member and all-time general annoyance Owen Jones had been running around Liverpool vox-popping politicians and delegates with his cameraman – but he managed to get on the wrong side of the party and was rather embarrassingly informed today that his conference pass had been, er, cancelled. Yikes!

They told him it was a safeguarding issue.

After careful consideration, we’ve concluded that we cannot continue your attendance while ensuring we meet our safeguarding obligations to all attendees.

I think the subtext is “You’re a tiresome pest who never shuts up.”

He’s doing the Dreyfus act as hard as he can.

The thing is, OJ, you’re annoying. You look and act about 13, you talk way too fast, you’re self-righteous…you’re annoying. There is no Annoying People Liberation Front, so you’ll just have to cope.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Of dust and boots.

There is a teeny-tiny pebble of a good idea under all that rubble.

Obviously, I agree that this whole thing is preposterous. But there’s at least something to be said about military dress and discipline standards slipping. I looked into this because the military is probably the most common career among crossdressing men, and the campaign to end the “trans in the military ban” represents the moment around the mid-oughts that liberal allies of gays, sensing the gay rights war was winding down to a victorious close, began shifting their focus over to transgender “rights”. They wanted to keep the momentum going, to keep their activist juices flowing.

The flawed reasoning was that, because the military had once unjustly banned same-sex attracted men and women from service, it followed that it was also unjust to prevent soldiers choosing which sex they’re classified as for any and all military purposes. It started with coverage for cosmetic surgeries and special allowances for dress, then a push for cross-sex dormitory and shower access, with the eventual finish line envisioned as across-the-board replacement of sex with “gender identity” in all aspects of military organization.

But these two things were completely different:

The argument for allowing gays & bisexuals to serve in the military was that they were perfectly capable of adhering to the same code of conduct as everyone else. Lifting the ban on LGB people in fact served to remove an extra, outdated, unnecessary set of rules that had been carved out against us — it universalized the military’s standards between the mainstream majority and the marginalized minority, both simplifying the code of conduct, and eliminating an unjust piece of discrimination at the same time.

The “trans in the military” campaign had the opposite objective: it sought to add exemptions and make fundamental changes to the rules, effectively tacking on special privileges for trans-identifying personnel, to the detriment of everyone else.

Of course, this is what trans activists are doing right across society: “trans allies” naively think they’re universalizing and simplifying the normative framework of society by eliminating what they perceive as an extra, outdated, unnecessary set of rules and norms surrounding biological sex, when they’re inadvertently doing the bidding of a group of trans-identifying people who want the opposite of any kind of social uniformity between the sexes. Most trans-identifying males don’t want utopian sex-blindness, they want a society with a robust sense of sexual differentiation: they want to preserve different rules and norms for men and women — but base them on their imaginary “gender identities”, which would trample all over everyone else’s observation of material reality.

In the military’s case, as in the case with society at large, some — though not necessarily all — of the rules that involve sex differences (like housing and medical provisions, for example) are far from unnecessary or out-of date; they’re highly practical and beneficial to everyone.

Since extra rules to accommodate trans-identifying personnel were added, beginning under Obama, more and more exemptions began to creep in. Loosening standards to accommodate religious headgear led to loosening standards surrounding facial hair for men for “religious or medical” purposes, but the rules got so lax that almost any man could find an exemption if he wanted to. Nobody needs a shaving waiver for a supposedly medically serious case of razor burn that lasts years. But nobody needed a waiver to get fake tits, either, so… In for a penny, in for a pound. The principles behind uniforms and codes of conduct were beginning to crack. It started with medically-diagnosed “trans” beliefs, then it was “sincerely held” religious beliefs; now it’s sometimes just fashion and subculture.

The military is a unique domain in that tribal cohesion is such a critical component. Military training by necessity drills men and women to place their allegiance to their fellow soldiers above all their other allegiances, and that’s the point of ensuring they all dress alike and follow the same code of conduct. It’s also vital that soldiers can immediately distinguish their allies from their opponents, which is why visual “sameness” is vital. No flashy hairstyles or hipster mustaches. No big turbans. No face makeup. Definitely no military-issue, “medically necessary” fake tits.

I regret to say I agree with a line in Trump’s executive order from January that reiterates the military’s “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.” Cohesion, uniformity, honesty. It may be possible to privately maintain a trans identity while still adhering to these standards. But I think if one brings too much of their personal “gender identity” to work — which in this case can be a literal battlefield — they’re demonstrating that they’re not suitable for the armed forces. The army’s certainly not for me. I don’t want to be “lethal” and I hate subjugating myself to a tribe. But I understand that that kind of thing is absolutely necessary — for them.

But I’m still ok with minor accommodations for differences, within reason, if they can be shown to benefit the whole. If a bit of accommodation for religious headgear or facial hair can be shown to be safe and beneficial on a case-by-case basis, that’s ok by me. (Say, a Muslim Arab translator or technician embedded within a troop, who wouldn’t otherwise be able or willing to do the job, for example.)

So this looks like a case where a reasonable principle of inclusion began to creep into unreasonable overreach, and that in turn has triggered a massive backlash far back the other way.

Isn’t that the shape of almost every flashpoint in the culture war? Left tries to be nice, then goes too far and triggers nasty backlash. Nice things no longer had by anyone.

And isn’t it the case that so many, many, many of these flashpoints originate in that moment when “gay allies” turned into “trans allies” instead? Perhaps we should stop waiting around for the next Reichstag Fire moment. It already happened, and it was “gender identity”.

Great headline.

A Novice Defense Secretary Lectures the Brass on What It Takes to Win

Subhead:

Senior officers, summoned from around the world, are entrusted to manage complex military operations. They got a lecture on fitness and grooming standards.

From the tv guy.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has long maintained that the U.S. military badly needed a leader with dust on his boots to shake up a force that has gone soft and “woke.”

On Tuesday, he faced a room of hundreds of generals and admirals, whom he had summoned from across the globe, and made the case that he was that leader.

Because yeah, there’s nothing like a tv talking head for leading experienced military officers into a better tougher more gunly tomorrow.

Much of his address focused on the kinds of issues he would have dealt with as a young platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq or as a company commander in the Guard. He talked about grooming standards. “No more beards, long hair, superficial, individual expression,” he told the brass. “We’re going to cut our hair, shave, shave our beards and adhere to standards.”

He preached the importance of physical fitness. “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” he said. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.”

It’s all so simple. Look like a movie soldier and you will be like a movie soldier. Appearance is everything.

To some, Mr. Hegseth’s speech was poorly matched to his audience of senior officers who in most cases are responsible for complex military operations such as the maintenance of nuclear submarines, America’s global alliances or the development of complex air-tasking orders, such as the one needed for the strikes on Iran’s nuclear program earlier this year.

Well yes ok, but still, they have to look the part.

The military officers assembled in the room listened silently. It is likely, though, that at least some of them were seething at his suggestion that their collective failure to enforce basic standards had caused, or even contributed to, the military’s failings in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I mean, first of all, that’s like an insane insult to his senior officers, who all made their bones fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Elliot Ackerman, who led Marines in the second battle of Falluja and served with a Marine special operations unit in Afghanistan. “Those guys have got a lot more dust on their boots than he does.”

And, I’m guessing, a lot more brains in their skulls than he does.

Mr. Hegseth’s speech mirrored his leadership style over his first eight months in office, during which he has focused less on meeting with his foreign counterparts around the world and more on doing pull-ups and early morning runs with troops that are posted on the Pentagon’s social media feed.

You mean…he’s a lightweight? Well who saw that coming?

So we’re the enemy within now.

Trump defended the use of U.S. troops in American cities and told top U.S. commanders that the military would be used against the “enemy within.”

“This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump told those gathered for the highly unusual event at Quantico, Va. “It won’t get out of control once you’re involved at all.”

Trump said he told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the U.S. “should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” a reference to the Democratic-run cities that he has long said have high crime rates that make them uninhabitable.

Meaning what? The US military should just open fire on US cities? The ones that don’t vote for Trump, of course.

The nearly 150-year-old Posse Comitatus Act limits the use of federal troops in law enforcement activities on American soil — with some exceptions and loopholes.

Whatever; Trump doesn’t consult the law before doing something.

Trump and Hegseth, who also spoke Tuesday, reiterated to top U.S. military commanders the reason the administration had renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War.

“The name change reflects far more than the shift in branding — it’s really a historic reassertion of our purpose, our identity and our pride,” Trump said.

Which is being the aggressor? Our idenniny and our pride and our purpose are in making war on other countries?

He also wants the military to return to the glory days of bullying and sadism to knock people into shape.

Hegseth also said he’d ordered a full review of the Pentagon’s definition of what it deems “toxic leadership, bullying and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing.”

In other words he wants “leaders” to feel free to enforce standards via toxic leadership, bullying and hazing. Two, three, many Colonel Jessups.

Trump admitted it’s a tad pricey.

Trump said there was an expense to meet with top admirals and generals in Quantico today when departing the White House this morning.

“There’s a little bit of expense, not much, but there’s a little expense to that. We don’t like to waste it. We’d rather spend it on bullets and rockets, frankly,” Trump said when departing the White House.

No, not a little. Not not much. There’s a lot of expense to “that”. It’s utterly pointless expense, too, since it’s just saying stuff. There are quick cheap easy ways of saying things these days, so there’s no need to drag everyone into the Real Presence.

The brass is aware of this.

The president added that the meeting is “a good thing; a thing like this has never been done before, because they came from all over the world.”

Some context: CNN previously reported that several sources expressed concerns about the cost of getting hundreds of generals and admirals and their aides to Virginia on such short notice. The cost of plane tickets alone will likely be in the millions of dollars, the sources said. They were even more baffled about why they needed to be there in person when they learned on Sunday that the remarks would be livestreamed.

Hahahahahachoke. Sir couldn’t we have just watched the livestream sir?

President Donald Trump bashed his former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and former Defense Secretaries James Mattis and Mark Esper ahead of his speech to the military and threatened to fire generals he doesn’t like.

“We had some real bad ones last time. I rebuilt the military, the entire military, but I had unbelievable people to do that,” Trump said when departing the White House. “But I also had some bad ones at the top, like Milley, Mattis and Esper.”

Trump said some former officials from his first administration were recommended by Republicans but he was still unhappy with them, specifically calling Esper, “horrible.”

“They were recommended by RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and others, and they’re not good. What we have now is the best,” Trump said.

The president also emphasized that if there is a general or admiral he does not like, he will fire them immediately.

“I’m going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders, and if I don’t like somebody, I’m gonna fire them right on the spot,” Trump said.

That’s the important point here. Trump can do whatever he wants. Is that clear? IS THAT CLEAR?

He thinks Colonel Jessup was the good guy.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told top military officers that he no longer wants to see “fat generals and admirals” or overweight troops in combat formations as he emphasized the need to stick to strict fitness standards for US service members around the world.

“It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country, in the world, it’s a bad look,” Hegseth said during an unusual gathering of officers at a military base in Quantico, Virginia. “It is bad, and it’s not who we are.”

Sir yes sir! And who we are is fit and trim and photogenic enough to be on Fox News. That’s the important thing. Appearance is all. Don’t talk to me about technology; war is all about men punching each other face to face until the tallest trimmest handsomest Fox Newsiest man wins.

Hegseth pointed to his own participation in physical fitness exercises as an example of the standard he expects all US troops to follow.

“It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” he said. “If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard PT [physical training], so can every member of our joint force,” he said.

“Today at my direction, every member of the joint force, at every rank, is required … [to] meet height and weight requirements twice a year every year,” Hegseth added.

War is about who is the most telegenic, and don’t you forget it.

Suzanne Moore wipes the Telegraph floor with Emma Watson.

Without JK Rowling, I doubt any of us would have heard of Emma Watson. If Rowling and her franchise hadn’t been such a behemoth, it would be also tough to care about the confused views of a 30-something former child star.

Without JK Rowling, Emma Watson, who played Hermione Grainger in the Harry Potter film series, would not be worth an estimated $85 million (£63 million) or still be considered worth interviewing, even though she has not acted since 2019.

It’s all but certain that without JKR Watson would be nowhere. Would she have landed a part in some other movie that made as much money and had as many passionate fans as the Harry Potter series? No, because there is no such other movie from the past quarter century.

Watson and her fellow Harry Potter actor, Daniel Radcliffe, both sheltered stars who speak out on matters beyond their intelligence, decided to turn on the woman who had made them.

Without digesting or comprehending a single sentence of Rowling’s deeply researched objections to the child mutilation of reassignment surgery, the harms of self-identification, the closing down of free speech or the dangers of housing vulnerable women with biological men, they decided not to think for themselves, but to follow the herd with their public pro-trans responses.

It was probably a matter not so much of deciding not to think for themselves as deciding they didn’t want to deal with endless yammering and bullying from people who wanted them to denounce JKR. I don’t know for a fact that there were such people yammering and bullying, but my long and nauseating experience of trans “activists” tells me there almost certainly were. They don’t let anyone even slightly famous get away with even the tiniest dissent from the ideology. It could well be that Watson and Radcliffe had to choose between Rowling and a pack of noisy bullies and they chose the noisy bullies. They chose to avoid the yammering and bullying by passing it on to Rowling, who had made them rich and famous. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth.

Watson’s latest “apology” – in an interview on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, Watson said she still “loves” and “treasures” Rowling – isn’t an apology.

It is neither fish nor fowl, with some psychobabble about holding space for Rowling in her heart. It is cognitive dissonance dissolved into meaningless platitudes. Watson’s expensive education clearly did not cover emotional intelligence.

Or avoidance of meaningless platitudes. That’s actually a really important thing to learn, because the more entangled in meaningless platitudes you are, the worse your thinking is and the less likely you are to treat other people decently. I should declare this a rule and name it after myself.

There really are two sides here, as Rowling once again demonstrates: one of kindness, imagination and principle, and one of faddishness, dogma and betrayal. One creates. One destroys. Watson stupidly chose the wrong one. Her spell is in tatters.

And the spell was never really hers to begin with. It was a loan from That Woman.

JKR lets rip.

I’m seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.

I’m not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days.

Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn’t want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.

However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right – nay, obligation – to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created.

When you’ve known people since they were ten years old it’s hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn’t managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I’ve repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn’t want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said.

Whereas Emma was fine with JKR being hounded, including because of things she Emma said. She has to have been fine with it, because otherwise she would have refrained.

The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma’s ‘all witches’ speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence ‘I’m so sorry for what you’re going through’ (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family’s safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness.

A one line expression of concern from her in private, having backstabbed JKR in public. Yeah sure kid: trash your benefactor when the cameras are on, and then later brazenly slap your benefactor on the back and hoot “Love ya, mean it.” That’ll work.

Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is. She’ll never need a homeless shelter. She’s never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I’d be astounded if she’s been in a high street changing room since childhood.

Unlike Rowling. JKR made Watson rich very early, and Watson appears to have conveniently forgotten.

Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who’s identified into the women’s prison? I wasn’t a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women’s rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges.

Rich people can swim in their own pools. Rich people can get luxury support rather than having to rely on state-run facilities. Rich people are unlikely to be locked up with violent criminals. The rich are different from you and me, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said.

The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me – a change of tack I suspect she’s adopted because she’s noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was – I might never have been this honest. Adults can’t expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend’s assassination, then assert their right to the former friend’s love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public – but I have the same right, and I’ve finally decided to exercise it.

And here’s the thing: JKR wields a wickedly effective pen, and the callow movie star wields banal woke-speak.

He’d better idennify as a trans woman pretty fast.

Retired US financier Howard Rubin was arrested Friday on sex-trafficking charges for allegedly trafficking dozens of women, including former Playboy models, to be sexually and physically assaulted during encounters in his New York City penthouse in a soundproofed room described in court papers as “The Dungeon”.

Authorities announced the arrest of Rubin and his former personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, on charges in an indictment unsealed in Brooklyn federal court.

…

Prosecutors said Rubin and Powers abused the women between 2009 and 2019 after recruiting them to fly to New York to engage in sex acts with Rubin in exchange for money.

They said Rubin and Powers targeted women who were desperate, including women who had previously been sexually abused, along with women who were financially desperate or who suffered from addiction. Once they were in New York, the women were encouraged to use drugs or alcohol to prepare for their sexual encounters, and they sometimes engaged in conduct beyond the scope of their consent, prosecutors said.

During the encounters, women suffered significant pain, including bruises and psychological trauma, and sometimes required medical treatment, according to court papers.

So it’s not sex trafficking so much as sadism trafficking.

Prior to 2011, the commercial acts usually occurred at luxury hotels in Manhattan, but from 2011 to 2017, the encounters usually occurred in a two-bedroom penthouse near Central Park, the letter said.

The penthouse contained “The Dungeon”, a soundproofed room painted red that had a lock on the door and was outfitted with bondage and discipline instruments, prosecutors said.

Much safer than a luxury hotel, where people might hear the screams.

Trump has declared war on Portland; the invasion begins tomorrow.

Oregon’s Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced Sunday that the state has filed a lawsuit to block President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard to Portland, a day after Trump authorized federal troops to protect what he dubbed “War ravaged Portland.”

He received notice from the governor’s office at 9:32 a.m. Sunday that the U.S. Department of Defense had sent an email revealing that Trump had invoked a section of federal law to call 200 members of the Oregon National Guard into federal service in the city for 60 days, under the U.S. Northern Command.

Rayfield, appearing with Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson during a virtual news conference, decried any attempt to send military troops to an Oregon city, calling it an infringement of state and local sovereignty and a violation of federal law as the suit was filed.

“The facts cannot justify this overreach,” says the 41-page suit filed by the State of Oregon and City of Portland against Trump.

It notes that protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland have been small in recent weeks, typically drawing [fewer] than 30 people.

And the facility is small and not central. It’s like declaring war because a suburban drugstore ran out of bandaids.

Trump has moved to federalize National Guard troops under federal law, known as Title 10, Section 12406. That says the president can call up the National Guard in federal service when the president is unable with regular forces to “execute the laws of the United States,” repel an invasion by a foreign nation, or suppress a rebellion or the danger of a rebellion against the authority of the U.S. government.

Are any or all of those happening in Portland? No. Trump is brazenly flouting the law.

Rayfield’s office moved to file the suit as soon as possible and will be filing a temporary restraining order within the next 24 hours to try to block an arrival of troops. He said he hopes to get a hearing before a judge later this week.

“In America, we don’t use our United States military on our own citizens, except in extreme circumstances,” Rayfield said.

The only extreme circumstance here is Trump’s determination to be a dictator.

The new William the Conqueror.

Because we need it – something nice for a change.

Of course he has.

Trump has decided he’s going to the last-minute global gathering of the nation’s top generals in Quantico, Virginia, that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered last week.

It’s getting all this press attention, so of course he’s not going to let Hegseth hog the camera.

Trump’s appearance not only upstages Hegseth’s plans but adds new security concerns to the massive and nearly unprecedented military event.

But it’s the upstaging that’s the funniest.

Notice went out to offices around the Pentagon that the decision will “significantly change the security posture” of the speech, set for Tuesday morning.

Yeh, all that brass and the Secretary of Defense are expendable but the prezzy has to have all the bells and whistles.

H/t What a Maroon

David Lammy continues to ignore women.

David Lammy has been accused of ignoring women’s rights as he comes under pressure to remove transgender prisoners from a female jail.

The newly appointed Justice Secretary – an outspoken supporter of trans rights whose recent comments to concerned voters can be revealed today – has been urged to shut down a special unit inside HMP Downview in light of the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex.

He has been told by the local MP that E Wing, which currently houses five biological males who have legally changed sex, represents a ‘clear breach’ of the provisions for single-sex spaces in the Equality Act.

What the Daily Mail for some reason fails to make clear is that Downview is a women’s prison. It’s because it’s a women’s prison that the five males shouldn’t be there.

It comes after inspectors found that there is no longer one-to-one supervision of the trans inmates when they mix with female prisoners for education, religious services or social visits in the Surrey prison.

Good grief, what a waste of resources to assign handlers to male inmates so that they can “mix with” female inmates.

Rebecca Paul, Conservative MP for Reigate, told the Mail: ‘I welcome David Lammy to his new role as Justice Secretary, and I implore him to do the lawful and responsible thing and remove all biological males from women’s prisons. We are a heartbeat away from a terrible tragedy.

Why does she welcome him to his role when he’s allowing men to threaten women in women’s prisons? He’s doing a bad job, so why welcome him? I know, diplomacy, etiquette, conventions, yadda yadda, but that’s part of why we get stuck in this endless god damn loop. We mustn’t be rude to the poor dear man in a dress, so women just have to put up with him, it’s the polite thing to do.

This newspaper can also reveal that when asked recently if he accepted the Supreme Court judgment on single-sex spaces – which ruled that the definition of a woman is based on biological sex – Mr Lammy replied instead: ‘I strongly believe that trans people’s safety and wellbeing must be protected.’

Which is to say he strongly believes that men should be pampered at the expense of women.

Helen Joyce of women’s rights charity Sex Matters said: ‘David Lammy’s response to his constituents on the Supreme Court ruling demonstrates a serious blind spot on women’s sex-based rights.

‘It is deeply concerning that the new Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, who is responsible for prisons, repeatedly emphasises support for trans-identifying people without any acknowledgement that the trans lobby’s demand for gender self-identification means the destruction of women’s rights.’

Also he apparently never says the same thing about women – never bothers to emphasize support for women. He seems to view and treat women as the enemy – the privileged domineering powerful enemy.

Dirty dirty dirty.

The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, three people familiar with the matter said Friday.

The bureau last spring had reassigned the agents but has since fired them, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel matters with The Associated Press.

The number of FBI employees terminated was not immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20.

So FBI agents should not object to the use of excessive force in arrests? They should support lethal violence from law enforcement? Is that really a good idea in the long run?

The photographs at issue showed a group of agents taking the knee during one of the demonstrations following the May 2020 killing of Floyd, a death that led to a national reckoning over policing and racial injustice and sparked widespread anger after millions of people saw video of the arrest. The kneeling had angered some in the FBI but was also understood as a possible de-escalation tactic during a period of protests.

And/or a possible disavowal of excessive force in policing. Are they supposed to approve of excessive force?

The FBI Agents Association confirmed in a statement late Friday that more than a dozen agents had been fired, including military veterans with additional statutory protections, and condemned the move as unlawful. It called on Congress to investigate and said the firings were another indication of FBI Director Kash Patel’s disregard for the legal rights of bureau employees.

…

The firings come amid a broader personnel purge at the bureau as Patel works to reshape the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. Five agents and top-level executives were known to have been summarily fired last month in a wave of ousters that current and former officials say has contributed to declining morale.

One of those, Steve Jensen, helped oversee investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Another, Brian Driscoll, served as acting FBI director in the early days of the Trump administration and resisted Justice Department demands to supply the names of agents who investigated Jan. 6.

A third, Chris Meyer, was incorrectly rumored on social media to have participated in the investigation into President Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. A fourth, Walter Giardina, participated in high-profile investigations like the one into Trump adviser Peter Navarro.

Trump systematically kneecapping everyone who might stop him.