Category: Notes and Comment Blog

  • Nep

    Next it will be cartoon characters, pirates, caddies, celebrity chefs.

    Trump makes his vapid daughter’s only slightly criminal daddy-in-law Ambassador to France.

    President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would name Charles Kushner, the wealthy real estate executive and father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France, handing one of his earliest and most high-profile ambassador appointments to a close family associate.

    A close family associate with no known qualifications for being an ambassador to Staten Island, let alone France.

    The announcement was the latest step in a long-running exchange of political support between the two men. Mr. Kushner received a pardon from Mr. Trump in the final days of his first term for a variety of violations and then emerged as a major donor to Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign.

    Hahaha tactful. Mr. Kushner received a pardon from Mr. Trump in the final days of his first term for a variety of violations and then paid up.

    Mr. Kushner, 70, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, a single count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission in a case that became a lasting source of embarrassment for the family. As part of the plea, Mr. Kushner admitted to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a witness in a federal campaign finance investigation, and sending a videotape of the encounter to his sister.

    So, obviously he should be ambassador to France.

  • Included

    Another day another list.

    The BBC has included a transgender Colombian scientist in its annual list of 100 inspiring women, just days after sparking controversy over its choice for women’s footballer of the year.

    Let’s ask ourselves: why does the BBC have a list (annual, even) of 100 inspiring women? It doesn’t have an annual list of 100 inspiring men, so why does it have one of women? It has to be because women get overlooked, so let’s try to correct that overlooking with lists. It’s an attempt at affirmation of the overlooked half of humanity, aka affirmative action. That being so…what the hell do they think they’re doing, adding a man who insults women by pretending to be one on their own damn list of Let’s Not Overlook Women?

    Every year, the broadcaster compiles a list of women who have achieved great things in public life. Its nominees include transgender biologist Brigitte Baptiste, described in the citation as a “trans woman” who “explores the common patterns between biodiversity and gender identity”.

    But a “trans woman” is a man, so he doesn’t belong on the list, and shouldn’t be there, and the BBC is yet again spitting in women’s faces.

    In 2023, Nepalese transgender activist Rukshana Kapali was chosen for the list following a legal fight to change gender officially from male to female.

    In 2022, the BBC included Erika Hilton, the first black trans woman to be elected to Brazil’s National Congress; and Efrat Tilma, the first trans woman to volunteer for the Israeli police.

    Deliberate, calculated insult.

  • When evewyone feews wewcome

    Meet “Rainbow Laces” –

    Football has the power to bring us together. 

    Clubs and communities are stronger when everyone feels welcome, and it’s down to all of us to make that happen.

    That’s why we, the Premier League, proudly stand alongside Stonewall in promoting equality and diversity.

    A key focus of the partnership with Stonewall encourages LGBT+ acceptance among children and young people involved in community and education initiatives such as Premier League Primary Stars and Premier League Kicks, and within Academies.

    Coaches, teachers and leaders are equipped with bespoke resources and programmes developed by the League and Stonewall which promote positive attitudes towards the LGBT+ community.

    Blah blah blah, on and on, short paragraph after short paragraph, until you can’t see the horizon any more.

    Funny how it’s never occurred to them to encourage acceptance of women, who are 1. half the population and 2. the source of all the population. Women are old news, not cute and interesting like the elljeebeeteecyoo communniny. So GET WITH THE PROGRAM. Salute the communninny. Bow to the communninny. Flatter the communninny. And hurry up about it!

    But uh oh – someone has balked. The horror.

    OPTED NOT TO WEAR?????

    Can he do that? Is it even legal? Can they execute him?

    We’re caught between this crap and Trump’s crap. Our space to stand on is shrinking rapidly.

  • To prioritize his own feelings

    Tom Nichols on why Biden’s pardoning his worthless son is such a bad move.

    President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is a done deal. The president has not only obviated the existing cases against Hunter; the sweep of the pardon effectively immunizes his son against prosecution for all federal crimes he may have committed over the course of more than a decade. This pardon is a terrible idea—“both dishonorable and unwise,” in the words of the Bulwark editor Jonathan Last—and, as my colleague Jonathan Chait wrote yesterday, it reflected Biden’s choice “to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.”

    Obviously. Hunter Biden isn’t some random guy caught up in a mess, much less some good and useful guy victimized by others. He’s the pardoner’s son, and the pardoner is the head of state, and of course Joe Biden is putting his daddy feelz ahead of everyone else’s safety and ability to live in a country that’s not a putrefying swamp of corruption.

    But it was also a tremendous strategic blunder, one that will haunt Democrats as they head into the first years of another Trump administration.

    Why? Because it’s a “go right ahead” for all those wannabe overthrowers of the government to do it again.

    But the Republican Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump World, and had Biden not pardoned his son, elected Republicans at every level would have had to answer for Trump’s actions without reference to the Bidens. They would have had to say, on the record, whether they agreed with Trump letting people who stormed the Capitol and assaulted law-enforcement officers out of jail. Although Trump would have remained beyond the reach of the voters, the vulnerable Republicans running for reelection might have pleaded with him to avoid some of the more potentially disgusting pardons.

    Forget all that. Joe Biden has now provided every Republican—and especially those running for Congress in 2026—with a ready-made heat shield against any criticism about Trump’s pardons, past or present. Biden has effectively neutralized pardons as a political issue, and even worse, he has inadvertently given power to Trump’s narrative about the unreliability of American institutions.

    Nice work, Joe. Thanks a lot.

    Biden has now hobbled an effective case that his own party could have made going into 2026, even against Trump. Most people understand corruption, and though they may not care about it very much, they don’t like it shoved in their faces. Some of Trump’s pardons could have been politically damaging to Republicans: Just over a week ago, a poll found that 64 percent of Americans would object to pardoning those convicted for January 6–related offenses.

    But how do Democrats make that case now that Biden sounds so much like Trump when it comes to the justice system? Biden’s statement on the pardon had a kind of Trumpian, unspecific paranoia to it: “In trying to break Hunter,” the president stated, “they’ve tried to break me—and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

    Me me me – as if Joe Biden’s personal life were more important than the US falling off a cliff into wholly corrupt despotism.

  • Targeting? Or protecting?

    CNN slobbers over Chase Strangio:

    Strangio, an attorney for the ACLU, is set to make history Wednesday as the first known transgender person to argue before the US Supreme Court. And he’ll do it as part of the most high-profile dispute on the docket this session.

    The case, US v. Skrmetti, challenges a Tennessee law that bans treatments, including hormone therapy and puberty blockers, for transgender minors and imposes civil penalties on doctors who violate the prohibitions. Some two dozen similar laws have been enacted in recent years in Republican-led states.

    Wait a second though. The putative treatments aren’t actually treatments. They’re more like medical malpractice.

    The justices will decide whether Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for children and adolescents violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, a question that could allow a majority of the court to hold that laws targeting transgender people are unconstitutional and discriminatory.

    Or a majority of the court could hold that the laws protect people who think they’re the opposite sex from drastic interventions.

    A ruling along those lines would give civil rights lawyers a powerful tool for fighting anti-trans laws on bathroom access, school sports and pronouns. A ruling that allows Tennessee’s ban to stand, by contrast, could be seen as a tacit endorsement of those policies, clearing the way for states to pass still more laws aimed at trans Americans.

    But, again, the laws aren’t “anti-trans” unless you assume that the whole edifice of trans ideology is healthy and useful and entirely fair to everyone. What if it’s not?

  • Hang on, change of plans

    Jonathan Chait is not amused at Biden’s outrageous abuse of power.

    When President Joe Biden was running for a second term as president, he repeatedly ruled out granting a pardon to his son Hunter, who has pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying on a form to purchase a gun.

    But now he’s not running for anything so what the hell, might as well abuse the office.

    Biden professed a willingness to abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle. But in breaking his promise, and issuing a sweeping pardon of his son for any crimes he may have committed over an 11-year period, Biden has revealed his pledge to have been merely instrumental.

    …

    President Biden’s complaint about the higher standard applied to his son reflects the perspective of myopic privilege. Crimes by family members of powerful public officials are far more damaging to public confidence than similar crimes by anonymous people. Holding them to account through strict enforcement of the law is good and correct.

    What the president fails to note in his self-pitying statement is that Hunter Biden for years engaged in legal but wildly inappropriate behavior by running a business based on selling the perception of access to his father. The only commodity Hunter had to offer oligarchs in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere was the belief, or hope, that he could put in a good word for them with his dad.

    And that’s the only reason those oligarchs paid any attention to him. As himself he had and has nothing to offer. It was always corrupt.

    Joe Biden’s defense of Hunter’s influence peddling by stressing its narrow legality merely serves to highlight the hypocrisy of his fatherly indulgence. The black letter of the law was a fence to protect Hunter from the consequences of his sleazy behavior. And when the law itself trapped him, he simply opened a door and walked through it—a door no average American could access.

    Which is about as privileged as it’s possible to be, which is why Biden should have kept that door firmly closed.

    With the pardon decision, like his stubborn insistence on running for a second term he couldn’t win, Biden chose to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.

    Kind of trumpish of him.

  • Great curtain speech

    Oh ffs.

    Biden has issued a sweeping pardon of his godawful corrupt sleazy son.


    President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he has pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who faced sentencing this month for federal tax and gun convictions, marking a reversal as he prepares to leave office.

    “Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” the president said in a statement. It is a “full and unconditional pardon,” according to a copy of the executive grant of clemency.

    This official grant of clemency cannot be rescinded by President-elect Donald Trump.

    By pardoning his son, Joe Biden has reneged on a public promise that he made repeatedly before and after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. The president and his top White House spokesperson said unequivocally, including after Trump won the 2024 election, that he would not pardon Hunter Biden or commute his sentence.

    Just kidding folks!

    The broadly crafted pardon explicitly grants clemency for the tax and gun offenses from his existing cases, plus any potential federal crimes that Hunter Biden may have committed “from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.” This time frame, importantly, covers his entire tenure on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and much of his other overseas work, including in China. He had faced scrutiny for his controversial foreign business dealings, and Trump has repeatedly said he should be prosecuted for his activities in Ukraine and elsewhere.

    Which is laughable coming from Trump, but Trump is not the only one who considers Hunter Biden opportunistically corrupt at a minimum.

    Joe Biden said in his statement that he decided to issue the pardon because his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” saying that “Hunter was treated differently” from people who commit similar crimes.

    How many people do commit similar crimes? How many people get the chance to leverage Daddy’s high office the way Hunter Biden did?

    He said in his statement, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice. 
 I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

    But that’s the whole point, you blockhead: you’re supposed to separate the two. The fact that sleazy profiteering Hunter is your kid should be irrelevant to his sentencing and punishment. It’s a glaring abuse of power to pardon him.

    This is the latest instance of an outgoing president using the pardon power to help a family member: Shortly before they both left office, Bill Clinton pardoned his brother and Donald Trump pardoned the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

    “As sympathetic as Hunter Biden’s circumstances might be, a pardon from Joe Biden would still be an abuse of the clemency power,” said Jeffrey Crouch, a leading expert on pardons who teaches at American University. “Presidents should not use clemency to help out their friends, family and allies in order to further their own personal interest.”

    It’s crappy. It’s disgusting. It’s shameful.

  • The receipts will make very ugly reading

    JKR has a fine blistering mini-essay about the mass bullying of gender atheists.

    The full essay:

    The rewriting of history begins.

    Opponents of gender ideology haven’t merely ‘endured unsparing criticism’. I haven’t simply been told I ‘betrayed real feminism’ or received a few book-burning videos.

    I’ve been sent thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence. A trans woman posted my family’s home address with a bomb-making guide. My eldest child was targeted by a prominent trans activist who attempted to doxx her and ended up doxxing the wrong young woman. I could write a twenty thousand word essay on what the consequences have been to me and my family, and what we’ve endured is NOTHING compared to the harm done to others.

    By standing up to a movement that relies on threats of violence, ostracisation and guilt-by-association, all of us have been smeared and defamed, but many have lost their livelihoods. Some have been physically assaulted by trans activists. Female politicians have been forced to hire personal security on the advice of police. The news that one of the UK’s leading endocrinologists, Dr Hillary Cass, was advised not to travel by public transport for her own safety should shame everyone who let this insanity run amok.

    Lest we forget, gender apostates have been targeted for crimes such as doubting the evidential basis for transitioning children, for arguing for fair sport for women and girls, for wanting to retain single sex spaces and services, especially for the most vulnerable, and for thinking it barbaric to lock in female prisoners with convicted male sex offenders.

    Now the political landscape has shifted, and some who’ve been riding high on their own supply are waking up with a hell of a hangover. They’ve started wondering whether calling left-wing feminists who wanted all-female rape centres ‘Nazis’ was such a smart strategy. Maybe parents arguing that boys ought not to be robbing their daughters of sporting opportunities might, sort of, have a point? Possibly letting any man who says ‘I’m a woman’ into the locker room with twelve-year-old girls could have a downside, after all?

    Mealy-mouthed retconning of what has actually happened over the past ten years is predictable but will not stand. I don’t doubt those who’ve turned a blind eye to the purges of non-believers, or even applauded and encouraged them, would rather minimise what the true cost of speaking out was, but ‘yes, maybe trans activists went a little over the top at times’ takes are frankly insulting. A full reckoning on the effects of gender ideology on individuals, society and politics is still a long way off, but I know this: the receipts will make very ugly reading when that time comes, and there are far too many of them to sweep politely under the carpet.

  • Outrage has intensified

    How sad, it turns out that calling women too posh and too old doesn’t make people think you’re a good bloke despite the sexual harassment.

    Outrage over Gregg Wallace’s alleged conduct has intensified after he dismissed his accusers as “middle-class women of a certain age”, following revelations that the BBC received multiple complaints about him over a period of 12 years.

    The corporation and other broadcasters are facing growing questions about how the MasterChef presenter was allowed to remain on screen despite a series of allegations of inappropriate behaviour dating back to at least 2012.

    It’s a real puzzler. Could it be because there are lots of people – well, lots of men anyway – who love brash aggressive over-confident men who bully women?

    Vera Baird KC, the former victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, accused the BBC of being “in the dark ages” for “tolerating” allegedly sexually inappropriate conduct by its male stars.

    “It is shocking that repeatedly we see this kind of behaviour being tolerated by the BBC who do seem to disregard the obligations they have to protect people who go on television,” Baird told the Guardian.

    No it’s not, because nobody minds it except women, and women don’t matter.

    Unless they’re trans women of course. Trans women matter infinitely, but just plain women, no.

    Baird, a former senior government minister and barrister, described Wallace’s remarks as “typical behaviour of a sexually predatory male. As soon as he’s criticised for his conduct, he demeans the people who are criticising him, demeans the woman – implying that they’re all delicate flowers, middle class, and all of a certain age.”

    Baird described the allegations as “grossly unprofessional” but said she was offended by Wallace’s remarks because “working-class women don’t want men taking their clothes off and talking about sex in front of them either”.

    Gregg Wallace should say he’s just realized he’s actually a trans woman. All this would disappear in a heartbeat.

  • Libraries act

    It’s real; I checked.

    The screenshot is of a Facebook post, which is alive and kicking and hiding all comments that don’t say “How fabulous!!!!!!” The page is the “Official Facebook page for the public libraries in Canberra and the ACT Heritage Library.” Isn’t that nice? Public libraries in Canberra think it’s hilarious to teach children that women are fish. Public libraries in Canberra think it’s hilarious to teach children that “jokes” about women smelling like fish are totally awesome and riotously funny. Public libraries in Canberra think it’s hilarious to invite men dressed as insulting caricatures of women and calling themselves Phony Fish to read to the children. Start the hatred of women early!

  • They bond before the holidays

    Apparently, according to the headlines, with all due caution, the most popular movie on Netflix at this time is titled “Hot Frosty” and the plot summary (one of them anyway) is…

    Widow Kathy magically brings a snowman to life. His innocence helps her heal and find love again. They bond before the holidays, but he’s doomed to melt.

    You’re welcome.

  • No you are

    Guy accused of sexist behavior blames those stupid old middle-class bitches.

    Gregg Wallace hits out at insults ‘handful’ of accusers

    Gregg Wallace has hit back at rejected allegations of historic misconduct, saying they have come from a “handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.

    For the umpteenth time: adult journalists need to stop translating rude words into “hitting out at” or “hitting back” or any other form of hitting. Saying is not hitting, and news organizations should be careful not to use metaphors recklessly. Poetic license is all very well but BBC News is not a poet.

    That said – the guy is obviously a shit. Oh no, women dare to be middle-class and over 30 – the nerve of them! How old is he? 60. Yeah but he’s a guy so there is no “of a certain age.” That’s only for bitches.

    Responding to Wallace’s video, actress Emma Kennedy who won Celebrity MasterChef in 2012 and says she complained about his behaviour at the time, said “it doesn’t matter what the age of any woman is”.

    “If you behave inappropriately, you behave inappropriately,” she told BBC News. “It’s a story as old as the tides that people who have been accused of inappropriate behaviour turn the tables on those pointing it out and try and change the narrative.”

    She added: “Playing the ‘they’re having a go at me because I’m working class’ card is ridiculous.”

    Can’t a guy have a little fun?

    TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend about an encounter with Wallace several years ago that left her “so embarrassed”, after he “made a reference to something [he and his partner] did in bed”.

    She also called Wallace’s claims on social media on Sunday “unacceptable”, adding: “He is essentially saying this is a class issue and middle-class women don’t understand the type of things he says because he’s working-class.”

    And because he’s a guy and because he’s…er…60.

  • A truly despicable move

    The other day I fumed about Amnesty’s siding with the Scottish Ministers instead of For Women Scotland; so did JKR.

    Seriously.

  • Access

    ABC News (the one in Australia) reports:

    For many National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants, a federal government decision means they can no longer access sexual services funding under the system, or they could risk financial pressure.

    Sydneysider Oliver Morton-Evans says this decision has been “deeply disappointing” for many who live with a disability, including himself. “Now, only those who are financially well-off in the disability community can afford this service by paying out of pocket,” he said.

    Whereas instead the government should be paying for this “service”? Because access to women’s bodies or at least hands is a human right?

    Throughout times in his life, Mr Morton-Evans has sought the services of sex workers. He described it as an overall enriching experience.

    Slaveowners said the same thing.

    Mark Grierson, CEO of Advocacy Law Alliance/Disability Advocacy NSW, said there are valid and legitimate reasons as to why these services should be funded through the NDIS.

    …

    “We strongly feel that people with a disability need that access to intimacy, pleasure and sexuality like everybody else. Many have got quite severe physical disabilities and some may need extra assistance to get access to that sort of pleasure and intimacy,” he said.

    But “access” to someone else’s body can’t be made a legal right without implying that some people are obliged to provide that body.

    “Intimacy in all forms is vital. It’s a level of human connection and vulnerability that a lot of disabled people have challenges accessing anywhere else,” he said.

    Therefore it should be a consumer item like any other consumer item, right? No, because it involves access to the bodies of other people.

  • Only sort of fair

    Woman who writes a column for the Washington Post tells women to shut up and take it.

    Competition is never equal, and it is only sort of, approximately, occasionally fair. The best we can ask is that it be meaningful, that it teach us something about ourselves. This is the context in which transgender athletes enter into sport, and the people who would reduce this self-seeking to an unfair “them” against “us” are missing the point entirely: Sport doesn’t tell us who we are biologically, but spiritually, and psychologically, and the first thing it tells us is not to be victims. So it’s a step backward for so many women athletes to cry frailty in the debate over trans participation.

    Stop. Stop right there. Stop right there, shut up, hit yourself in the face.

    It is not a step backward for women to want to continue competing against other women. It’s a step in the same direction we’ve been going ever since women were allowed to play in serious sports at all. It’s not backward or whiny or weak or cowardly or whatever other snotty sneery insult you’re trying to sneak in here: it’s just the same division of sport into men’s and women’s for the sake of fair competition for women. What do you think you look like, calling women names for wanting that?! Accusing women of “crying frailty”?! And by the way you meant fragility, you hack. Frailty is a moral term not a physical one. You’re a hack and a coward and an enemy of women.

    …the lawsuit brought by San JosĂ© State co-captain Brooke Slusser and 10 other Mountain West volleyball players asking emergency injunctive relief to bench a San JosĂ© State player for, in their view, not being a proper woman doesn’t clarify the matter.

    Snotty. Snotty, snide, childish. It’s not about “not being a proper woman”; it’s about being a man. Men are not “improper” women; men are men. Propriety is not even slightly the issue. It’s not about etiquette, it’s about bodies.

  • They must know what they’re doing

    Newsweek says Biden should have arrested Trump on January 21, 2021.

    [B]y failing to arrest Trump immediately, Biden allowed the seriousness of Trump’s treasonous acts to diminish in the public’s collective memory, granting Trump’s supporters and others who might be swayed to his side the chance to believe that it was an open question as to whether or not he’d engaged in insurrection (when it definitely was not). It allowed the media, too, to make it seem like less than a fact, engaging in the usual horserace political coverage once it was election season, even though one of the candidates was a would-be usurper.

    It’s true. Trump paid no real price for that mind-bogglingly serious crime, and now four years later he’s actually fucking back. He tried to overthrow the government then, and now he’s back as the head of the government. It’s pathetic. It’s a horror show.

    We arrested and charged many of those who’d been at the Capitol that day, yet failed to apprehend and prosecute the ringleader. Trump’s very freedom made people doubt his guilt, since humans have this terrible tendency to believe that we get what we deserve. If Trump had really engaged in a coup, they reckoned, why wasn’t he sitting in a federal brig?

    We also have this terrible tendency to believe that the people in charge know what they’re doing. They haven’t arrested Trump, so there must be compelling reasons not to, so we’ll just move on and forget all about him.

  • Peak drag queen reached?

    The Sun reviews Smoggie Queens, hijinks ensue.

    CALL me a wide-eyed optimist, if you like, but when a second female impersonator joined EastEnders this month, I thought: “Surely to God, we’ve reached peak drag queen and the BBC can find another obsession now.”

    These men are across ­absolutely everything, after all, starting with four different versions of Ru Paul’s global abomination, which the Beeb has got on a loop.

    Yes but the Beeb is every bit as obsessed with minstrel shows oh wait no it’s not. Mocking and insulting people of color is unacceptable but mocking and insulting women is wholesome every day entertainment. Right?

    Smoggie Queens is up there with the worst ­sitcoms I’ve ever watched, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

    For if TV’s drag era has taught us anything it’s the fact that behind nearly every ­grotesque facade there is a ­seriously dull man with some very odd ideas about women.

    Which must be why the Beeb likes it so much.

    Without doubt, Smoggie Queens will indulge all who follow as well, as it seems to be cut from the same holier-than-thou cloth as its host broadcaster, and in the absence of a decent punchline ends most of the episodes with the same sort of morality ­lectures that used to punctuate The Cosby Show.

    Toxic masculinity, the ­blurring of gender lines, the importance of LGBTQI+ reps at work — you know the sort of cobblers. None of it stops Smoggie Queens assuming all straight men and old people are thugs and bigots until they’ve draped themselves in the rainbow flag, naturally.

    However, the lack of self-awareness certainly fuelled the pay-off to episode one: “We are who we are, strong, fierce and unreservedly queer. If you can’t find us, keep searching, know your worth, because we’re out there somewhere on this big old queer earth.”

    Can’t find you?

    Switch your telly on, man. You can barely find anything else.

    Ok but they identify as marginalized so shut up.

  • Fundamental

    No actually let’s not bring back blasphemy laws.

  • Hooray for sacrilege

    Humanists UK stands up for blasphemy.

    A poster advertising comedian Fern Brady’s tour is ‘sacrilegious’, according to a complaint received by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Given ASA rules, this complaint could lead to the comedy poster being banned.

    Humanists UK is concerned that the ASA will ban the poster on grounds of causing religious offence, as it has with similar adverts in the past. It says that doing so amounts to a de facto anti-blasphemy law, which is an unreasonable restriction on free expression.

    To put it mildly. If blasphemy is forbidden then we can’t point out that old stories about gods and devils and angels are just that: old stories. We need to be able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. We’re allowed to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Priests and mullahs and rabbis have no jurisdiction over free people.

  • Because they know it teases

    BBC trolling us:

    The BBC pundit Sharron Davies has joined forces with a leading human rights charity in accusing the national broadcaster of potentially casting a shadow over next month’s Sports Personality of the Year (Spoty) event by naming Barbra Banda as their women’s footballer of the year.

    The BBC was the subject of widespread criticism on Tuesday after announcing that a player banned from the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations for elevated testosterone levels had received its coveted award.

    See that will be why the Beeb did it. Feminist women must be trolled and punished and generally shoved around.

    Now Davies, the former Olympic swimmer who worked as the poolside reporter for the BBC at this year’s Paris Olympic Games, has joined the charity Sex Matters, as well as former British distance runner Mara Yamauchi, British sailor Tracy Edwards, and the campaign group Fair Play For Women in sending a strongly worded letter to Alex Kay-Jelski, the BBC head of sport, and Stephen Mawhinney, the head of sports journalism.

    …

    In their letter, Davies and her fellow signatories say: “Banda won [the BBC award] in a public vote, but BBC Sport owns the process and must own the outcome, since BBC Sport managed the creation of the shortlist, and BBC Sport promoted Banda’s nomination on social media.

    “Banda is a player whose sex has been called into question. It’s been reported that Banda was withdrawn from a women’s tournament rather than face a sex test. Given the known issues around male athletes with disorders of sex development finding their way into women’s sport, it is disappointing that the BBC would actively promote someone whose eligibility to play in women’s sport is in question.”

    Disappointing but all too predictable. The questionable eligibility is of course why the BBC chose that particular athlete.