Category: Notes and Comment Blog

“Oh right it was that other black guy. You know, the other one.”

World’s only other Black guy steps up:

Former Los Angeles city councilman and California state Sen. Nate Holden said Friday that he was with former President Donald Trump in the helicopter ride that made an emergency landing, despite Trump saying it was former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

“Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden said in an interview with Politico late Friday. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.”

It’s a damn good thing there are only three Black guys to keep track of, because more would be just impossible.

Trump told reporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday that he was involved in a helicopter emergency landing with Brown, who has since rejected Trump’s account as “obviously wrong” during a phone call with CNN. “I’ve never been in a helicopter with him in my life,” Brown said.

Thursday wasn’t the first time Trump referenced the incident as something he’d experienced with Brown. In a book, “Letters to Trump,” the former president recalled the event as “a little scary for both of us.” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung pointed that out on Saturday in a post on X.

Ah right. He’s said it before, so that makes it true.

Holden said that he was in touch with Trump’s team in the 1990s as Trump was trying to build on the site of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, in the district that Holden represented at the time, according to Politico.

Holden recalled meeting with Trump at Trump Tower before departing for Atlantic City, New Jersey, where they were planning to tour Trump’s since-closed Taj Mahal casino. Also aboard was Barbara Res, Trump’s former executive vice president of construction, who told Politico that the man on the helicopter was definitely Holden.

Res recounted the experience in her book “All Alone on the 68th Floor,” where she said the helicopter landed safely in New Jersey after the pilot said they would need to make an emergency landing. She recalled Trump joking about Holden being scared on the flight, with Holden noting to Politico that it was Trump who was “scared shitless.”

That’s so Trump. And it’s not “joking”; it’s pretending to joke when actually sneering or belittling or libeling. Or all three.

Hey, a public transportation nerd! I’m a public transportation nerd too!

The headline is misleading.

This man travelled from Canada to Mexico on only public transport

It’s misleading because duh, millions of people do that every week. It turns out they meant local public transportation, i.e. city buses and the like.

William Hui has been fascinated with public transportation for as long as he can remember. So it only made sense that the 40-year-old systems engineer would challenge himself to travel from his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia, to Tijuana, Mexico, solely on public buses and trains.

On 24 June, Mr Hui set out to do just that, taking a nine-day journey along the US Pacific coast. Mr Hui told the BBC he only had a few rules for his trip: absolutely no Greyhound buses or Amtrak trains were allowed, and walking between bus stops had to be kept to a minimum.

“At no point in this trip did I have to walk more than maybe 15 minutes from one bus stop to another,” he told the BBC on Friday. “It was just remarkable to see how the different services connected, especially in rural areas,” he added.

Now that is cool. I wouldn’t have guessed that would be the case. Connections are impressive around here: I can go way the hell out in the suburbs via buses, but then this is a huge prosperous metropolitan area full of tech people and tech money. Between here and Tijuana there are stretches where that is not the case, to put it mildly. I’m surprised and chuffed to learn that they nevertheless have good public transportation.

Hui tried to do it a few years ago but there was a big broken piece he couldn’t cross. No buses.

But earlier this year, he learned of a new, four-hour bus route that links Eureka, a city in northern California, to another city named Ukiah, about two hours north of San Francisco.

Wowza! A four hour local bus! That is fancy.

Another thing Mr Hui noted was the difference between public transport in bigger cities, like Seattle or San Francisco, and smaller rural areas, where one bus would travel several hours to link people over the span of hundreds of kilometres.

For sure. Rural areas are rural. No Google or Microsoft to provide thousands of customers.

One of my favorite buses: it has one stop on Mercer Island, a two minute walk from a gorgeous lakeside park, then a stop at Mercer Slough, a marshy grassy natural area/wildlife refuge, then into B’vue and to the transit center where all the buses fan out all over the region.

The BBC gloats over a man’s gloating over stealing a gold medal from a woman.

Imane Khelif said “attacks” over her gender eligibility gave her victory a “special taste” after she won Olympic women’s boxing gold a year after being disqualified from the World Championships.

The Algerian was banned and reported to have failed gender eligibility tests but, having been allowed to compete in Paris, beat Chinese world champion Yang Liu by unanimous decision over five rounds to win welterweight gold.

While the men roared with laughter.

Khelif said she had sent a “single message” with her gold – that her “dignity and honour is above everything else”.

“My message to the whole world is that they should to commit to Olympic principles and they should avoid bullying,” she said.

“This is a message of the Olympic values. I hope people will stop bullying and commit to the Olympic charter. We are in the Olympic to perform as athletes. I hope we will not see similar attacks in the future.”

He hopes people will “stop bullying” while he bullies women out of their own sport.

Words fail me.

Hunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnh.

Play the clip.

Trump stacks the lies one on top of another.

San Francisco’s former mayor Willie Brown has dismissed as “fiction” Donald Trump’s story that they once endured a scary helicopter trip together. The former president said on Thursday that he and Mr Brown “went down” in a helicopter together and Mr Brown was “a little concerned”.

That’s so Trump. He wasn’t concerned, but Mr Brown was. Geddit??????

“We thought maybe this was the end,” Trump said. “We were in a helicopter… and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing.” Mr Brown, 90, told US media he had never shared a helicopter with Trump, adding: “I don’t think I’d want to ride on the same helicopter with him”.

We can see why.

Trump, 78, appeared to be confusing Mr Brown with Jerry Brown, California’s former governor, with whom he shared a helicopter ride in 2018 to visit the aftermath of the Paradise wildfires. Gavin Newsom, the current state governor, was also on the flight. Both men told US media there was no emergency landing or danger. “I call complete BS,” Mr Newsom told The New York Times.

Trump told his story [lies] in response to a question about Willie Brown’s relationship with Kamala Harris, 59, in the mid-1990s while she was a California prosecutor. Trump was asked whether he thought the relationship played a role in Ms Harris’s career journey. “Well, I know Willie Brown very well,” Trump said, before speaking of the flight and claiming the former mayor had told him “terrible things” about Ms Harris. “He had a big part in what happened with Kamala,” Trump said.

The former mayor also denied this. “That’s so far-fetched, it’s unbelievable,” he told local TV station KRON. “I could not envision thinking of Kamala Harris in any negative way. She’s a good friend a long time ago, absolutely beautiful woman, smart as all hell, very successful, electorally speaking. He was doing what Donald does best, his creative fiction.”

Aka his malicious misogynist racist lying.

The man is a scumbag.

Human Rights Watch has nothing but contempt for women’s rights. I guess to them “human” just means “male.”

Let men punch women and take all their prizes, eh? Women don’t matter.

Adults tell twerps we’re not going to invent new categories of sex/gender idenniny just for twerps:

BAFTA has dealt a blow to nonbinary performers, deciding – after spending two years debating the thorny question of ‘gendered’ acting categories – that awards nominees will have to pick a side and choose whether they want to compete as ‘actors’ or ‘actresses‘. 

There are no “nonbinary performers”; there are only twerps who call themselves “nonbinary.”

The announcement places non-binary performers – like Emma Corrin, Emma D’Arcy and Bella Ramsey – in a tricky position. 

If they’re so non-binary why are they called Emma and Emma and Bella? Also why can’t the Mail decide whether there’s a hyphen in non-binary or not?

Check out the glam shot of “nonbinary” Emma Corrin in a tiny leotard and high heels. She looks pretty god damn binary to me.

Last year there was outrage after the Best British Artist shortlist was all-male.

Outrage from whom? How did anyone know the list was all-male?

The debate over gender neutral categories has proved to be a controversial one in recent years.

The Crown star Emma – who uses they/them pronouns – previously claimed that awards ceremonies aren’t ‘inclusive enough’ and said change would enable everyone to feel ‘acknowledged and represented.’

Actually no. More the opposite. The point here is to lavish extra attention on the small cohort of people vain and greedy enough to call themselves “nonbinary” and demand special treatment on those grounds.

Speaking to the BBC’s Today Programme about the possibility of gender neutral categories at major awards shows, Emma said: ‘I hope for a future in which that happens. I don’t think the categories are inclusive enough at the moment. It’s about everyone being able to feel acknowledged and represented.’

Emma added that more representation was needed within roles in the entertainment industry to encourage ‘more of an urgency’ around addressing the subject. They asked: ‘When it comes to categories, do we need to make it specific as to whether you’re being nominated for a female role or a male role?’

Yes, because otherwise women won’t get nominated at all.

This stupid brat grew up in a culture where women do manage to get some awards thanks to years of feminists pointing out that women exist too, so she takes it so much for granted that she wants to throw it out. She has no fucking clue.

Emma has identified as non-binary publicly since 2021, and has shared their journey with their gender identity publicly on social media.

The thespian told The Today Programme: ‘Your gender identity is so much to do with how you feel and it ties into so much of how you want to be seen or are seen by people and that can be very triggering or can make you uncomfortable if you don’t feel you are being seen honestly or correctly. I think that it was necessary for me to be open and honest about it because otherwise I would have felt I was being perceived wrongly.’

And we can’t have the thespian being perceived wrongly, now can we. Everyone on the planet is thinking about her all the time, so we have to get it right. She’s just that important. No really: she is.

The Telegraph:

Sharron Davies raised fears of a woman Olympian being killed as she joined fairness for sport campaigners in demanding sex tests for all competitors. The former silver-medallist swimmer said the “insane” gender row engulfing boxing at these Games amounts to “genuine neglect” by the IOC. 

Genuine, knowing, calculated, brutal, murderous neglect. A man’s feelings somehow matter more than a woman’s physical safety.

Davies and Fiona McAnena, of the group Sex Matters, appealed for sport not to get sidetracked by doubts over the credibility of the International Boxing Association, which carried out gender eligibility tests on Khelif and Lin in 2022 and 2023.

“In boxing, it is insane to put a male in a ring with a female and for the IOC to say the only thing that’s important to them is what is on a passport is genuine neglect,” Davies told a press conference on Thursday. “The duty of care has been thrown out the window, and my head wants to explode… We’re literally on the cusp of a female athlete potentially being killed if we’re not careful. It really is that bad.”

Which the officials must realize. I’ll never understand why it doesn’t stop them.

Reflecting on the saga which has tarnished the Games, McAnena added: “This failure can be laid at the door of the IOC, and the IOC could solve it too. It’s the IOC that set up the Paris boxing unit, and the IOC that is claiming there is no scientific consensus on how to determine who is a woman.  The same IOC insists these two boxers are women. By refusing to allow or recognise sex screening, it is the IOC that has invited public scrutiny of Khelif and Lin.”

That’s a point. “We don’t know how to determine who is a woman and these two men are definitely women.”

The campaigners claim the IOC is “wrong when it says no one wants to return to sex testing”. Surveys have shown consistently that the vast majority of female athletes want sex screening. At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, 82 per cent of those surveyed were in favour, they point out.

“There is no confusion in this,” said Davies. “It’s very straightforward. Biological females should be protected to have their own classification of sport. That’s 51 per cent of this world’s population… And at the moment, they’ve been told they just don’t matter, and it’s heartbreaking.”

The IOC has rejected such criticism, insisting Khelif and Lin are women, despite their disqualifications from IBA events last year.

What are we to conclude? That women just don’t matter, and never will.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on There are no women.

I looked at that Facebook page. I get the feeling the motivation is not making menstrual products available but doing the whole “never mention women” thing. An opportunity to conspicuously erase women!

The more I looked at it, the more I thought the same. As far as I went (which, granted wasn’t that far, as there’s only so much delusion and dishonesty I can stomach), it was all sex denial and female erasure from both directions. The “Equity” in the Period Equity Project seems to come from their belief that anyone can have one:

Menstrual hygiene is a human right and refers to the practices and environmental factors necessary for people to manage their menstruation safely and maintain good health with dignity.

Did you know 1 in 6 Canadians* who menstruate report experiencing period poverty (i.e., lack of access to menstrual products, proper education, hygiene facilities, waste management, or a combination, because of financial limitations and/or harmful social norms and attitudes surrounding menstruation)?

………………

3. Menstruation is a natural process, and everyone deserves to manage it with dignity and respect. By advocating for menstrual hygiene, we advocate for gender equity and challenge harmful social norms and taboos surrounding menstruation.

But you believe that the fact that only females menstruate is one of those “harmful social norms and taboos”, so you’re not really helping with that part at all, given that you’re willing to erase and stigmatize half the population (i.e. women, i.e., the only sex capable of menstruating at all) in order to “centre” and appease a tiny percentage of women who mistakenly think they’re men, and a tiny percentage of men who mistakenly think they’re women.

A shared post from “Trans Army” shows a graphic of an apparently female figure (but as this figure is in front of a background of Trans Pink & Blue, it might be meant to be a TiM) with the slogan “You don’t have to menstruate to be a woman” (which is something that sex realists have never claimed). It is introduced on the PEP Facebook page with a post with the Yin to this Yang: “Nor do you have to be a woman to menstruate.” Women are only mentioned in order to be dismissed and denied. Very dignity. Much unshameful.

Another post they shared had a screen cap of somene writing “Men don’t use menstrual products” along with the response that “This one does!” A helpful soul by the name of Stevie Bees chiming in with the cheerily dehumanizing “Men and non-binary bleeders are valid! ”

Replies to both are uniformly deluded and denialist. Here’s one of them:

This is such a hard thing. Periods are so heavily associated with being “women” and the “female experience,” and we’ve had to and still have to fight so hard to keep “men” the hell out of the conversation about our bodies, but anybody having a period absolutely does belong. Anybody with a uterus is valid in the discussion and deserves to be considered just as strongly as anybody else. I want to do right and never EVER want to contribute to anybody’s dysphoria. I’m not a bathroom Nazi and want everyone to be able to pee in peace. I just don’t know how to put everything together, and I’m really grateful when someone with better ideas or understanding than me speaks up.

One of the posts advertising the “Fill the Truck” event on the Fairy Godparents FB page tells people to “Bring your kids from 11am-12pm to meet some special guests with a special truck!!!” Yreah, let’s completely screw up and distort their understanding of the human sexes. Let’s make girls ashamed of both being female, and knowing what being female actually is. To quote some weightlifters, “No thank you.”

And another thing. Why have journalists stopped using a closing comma after an interpolated explanation or detail or the like? The Telegraph journalist who wrote the piece about the Hope Not Hate guy skipped one in the second paragraph and I sneakily put it in because it’s NECESSARY.

Like so: Fiona Parker wrote:

“Nick Lowles, chief executive of Hope Not Hate used Twitter on Saturday night to claim there had been reports of an acid attack in Middlesbrough.”

WHY??

There obviously has to be a comma after “chief executive of Hope Not Hate” to close the interjection that started with “chief executive.” Why the hell do so many reporters leave it out? Pig ignorance or is it some kind of bizarre illiterate journalistic edict from the editorial department?

It drives me nuts.

If you can’t find any racist incidents, just make one up!

The Telegraph three days ago:

The boss of an anti-racism charity has apologised after wrongly tweeting that a Muslim woman had been attacked with acid during rioting.

Nick Lowles, chief executive of Hope Not Hate, used Twitter on Saturday night to claim there had been reports of an acid attack in Middlesbrough.

“Reports are coming in of acid being thrown out of a car window at a Muslim woman in Middlesbrough. Absolutely horrendous,” Mr Lowles wrote.

Sounds a bit Owen Jonesish, doesn’t it. “Apsly howwendous, mate.”

The post was seen by more than 100,000 people. The post was flagged by Twitter with a community note which said: “The reports of an acid attack have been denied by local police.”

Not to mention no one popped up to say “No really it totally happened.”

The note contained a link to a Cleveland Police statement which said: “We are aware of commentary online regarding alleged acid attacks in Middlesbrough today.

“Cleveland Police has not, to date, received any formal complaint from any victim or anyone on their behalf.”

The statement added a caller had been in touch about a “possible incident” in central Middlesbrough but was unable to provide details including “the location, nature of the incident, registration number of any vehicle, or description of any occupants”.

Doesn’t give the cops much to go on, really.

M[r] Lowles’ claim was made in relation to a riot which took place in the tow[n], as violence continues to break out in areas across the UK, following the murder of three girls in Southport last week.

A mob in Middlesbrough shouted “smash the P—s” and “there ain’t no black in the Union Jack” while targeting the homes of migrants, while footage on social media from elsewhere in the city appeared to show groups of Asian men attacking white men.

Isn’t that enough, without making up “incidents”?

The MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston told GB News: “This was an incredibly irresponsible thing to do, spreading misinformation and pouring petrol on the flames.”

Boys just wanna have fun.

When in doubt, euphemize.

There’s activism and then there’s calling for cutting people’s throats.

A suspended Labour councillor has been arrested on suspicion of encouraging murder after a video emerged in which he appeared to call for far-right protesters’ throats to be cut.

Ricky Jones, who was a councillor in Dartford, Kent, was filmed making the call at a counter-demonstration in Walthamstow on Wednesday evening. He has also been arrested for an offence under the Public Order Act following the incident on Wednesday evening, the Metropolitan police said.

In a statement on X, in which a link to the original video was given, the force said: “Officers have arrested a man aged in his 50s at an address in south-east London. He was held on suspicion of encouraging murder and for an offence under the Public Order Act. He is in custody at a south London police station.”

Jones was among thousands of protesters in east London who took to the streets campaigning against racism and violence.

Let’s go campaign against violence by calling for violence.

A few protesters held placards that read: “Smash fascism and racism by any means necessary.”

In a video apparently filmed on Hoe Street in Walthamstow, Jones said: “They are disgusting Nazi fascists and we need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all.”

In a non-violent way.

I don’t think I knew that Trump actually gave important government jobs to members of his expensive golf resort.

Trump is making available four new and rarely available memberships at his exclusive Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where he mingled freely with unvetted patrons during his first term of office and accepted policy advice from guests scrawled on cocktail napkins.

The $1m cost of each membership, which will open for applications in October, exactly one month before the presidential election, also represents a 43% hike from the current initiation fee of $700,000 – an eye-popping increase given the former president has railed against Joe Biden for what he sees as out of control inflation.

Yeah but that’s not inflation, it’s price gouging plus advantage-taking plus corruption.

“Trump is the ultimate grifter,” said Robert Weissman, president of the Washington DC-based pro-transparency group Public Citizen.

…

Weissman pointed to several episodes during Trump’s term in which Mar-a-Lago members received plum appointments.

They include Lana Marks, the luxury handbag designer, who became US ambassador to South Africa with no diplomatic training or experience; Adrian Zuckerman, a lawyer and Trump’s golfing buddy who served the same role in Romania; and David Cornstein, the jewelry magnate, a longstanding Trump friend sent to Hungary as ambassador to woo strongman prime minister Viktor Orbán.

The 500-member Mar-a-Lago roster is traditionally kept secret, but in 2019 USA Today identified eight past or present members of Trump’s clubs picked for roles in his administration.

Well at least they can play golf.

Update: H/t Acolyte of Sagan

Clashing world views:

The IOC is now trying to prevent people from sharing a short video clip in which Lin Yu-Ting throws illegal punches.

This account still can though. Fair use.

It’s fascinating that the IOC is going to the trouble of stopping people sharing an 11 second clip of a man rabbit-punching a woman to the back of the head.

Too much?

Labour has suspended a councillor over a speech at a counter demonstration calling for the throats of anti-immigration protesters to be cut.

Dartford councillor Ricky Jones has been suspended by the party over the video, which shows him in the middle of a cheering crowd at a protest in Walthamstow, east London, organised to stop the far-right from targeting asylum centres and the offices of lawyers helping asylum seekers.

In the speech on Wednesday evening, he said: “We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them.”

Not what you want in a councillor.

He followed his speech with leading a chant of “free, free Palestine.”

Or what? We’ll cut your throats too?

Updating to add:

He’s been arrested.

Well, you get what you pay for, or what you shilled for. Republicans are unhappy that Trump is not deploying substantive arguments in his campaign to get back in the White House. This is silly, because Trump doesn’t do substantive; Trump has never done substantive. Trump wouldn’t know substantive if it bit him on the ass.

The way Republicans see it, it should not be hard for Mr. Trump to pivot from President Biden to this new Democratic ticket. All he has to do is hammer Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz for things they have said and done, to paint them as out-of-step from most Americans, on everything including policing, immigration and transgender policies.

But then he would have to know something about policing, immigration, and transwhatnow?

But lately Mr. Trump keeps getting tangled up in distractions of his own making. He has gone on tangents about Ms. Harris’s biracial identity. He has picked fights with fellow Republicans. He has fantasized that Mr. Biden might somehow snatch back the nomination.

Many in Mr. Trump’s party find this all to be counterproductive, to say the least.

Well who did they think Trump was? A guy who engages with serious issues?

Mr. Trump started to veer off message one week ago, when he questioned Ms. Harris’s identity as a Black woman before a roomful of Black journalists at a conference in Chicago. “He’s more comfortable with personality-driven attacks, rather than issue-driven attacks,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster.

Of course he is, because he’s lazy and stupid. Is this news to Republicans? Come on.

At times, it seems as though Mr. Trump has not even accepted his new political reality — that he is no longer in a race against Mr. Biden. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump wondered aloud in a post on Truth Social if there were any chance that Mr. Biden “CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination.”

Yeah, and then Buzz Lightyear throws a nukular weapon at them and everybody laughs and the movie ends.

The Nation (the magazine) is such misogynist garbage. Long piece on abortion; women not mentioned once.

There is an alarming disconnect between the agenda of our most powerful organizations and the real needs of abortion seekers and providers on the ground.

…

Local abortion funds from across the country are eager to share their perspectives and expertise on the challenges of funding abortion in their area, and the frustrations that are brought on by the failure of national reproductive health, rights, and access organizations to attend to the needs of so many pregnant people on the ground.

…

Abortion funds created a bridge between the theoretical right to an abortion and the real-world ability to access that right for the most marginalized…Unlike national funds, most local funds have no client requirements or restrictions–such as around gestational age or income–and trust the people who seek their help as the experts in their own lives.

Since the Dobbs decision, and subsequent enforcement of extremely restrictive state laws, local funds have used their decades-long expertise, deep relationships, and infrastructure to collectively meet this moment of crisis and support the growing number of people struggling to access abortion…While the expenses, misinformation, and fear tactics continue to rise, local abortion funds have doubled down on their commitment to supporting their callers, no matter what.

…

In June, for instance, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) announced that it would be cutting back on the amount it gives people who qualify for its financial assistance program. Where the NAF previously paid for 50 percent of the cost of care, it will now pay for just 30 percent, with no exceptions for exceptionally high abortion prices later in pregnancy. For example, an abortion seeker in Nevada who qualifies for NAF assistance will now be responsible for $1,330 of their $1,900 procedure.

…

The choice of these well-funded, national organizations to drastically deprioritize their assistance will be felt by abortion seekers

…

This statement is not only incorrect but an erasure of the work of local abortion funds that have been coordinating access for individuals across the country despite increasingly hostile conditions.

…

Reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right, and people cannot and will not wait for laws to change—especially over the course of a decade—to exercise that right. In communities like those supported by abortion funds across the country, the work of reproductive freedom is already happening. Without prioritizing material support for abortion seekers, we are putting pregnant people at risk and failing to live up to our movement’s mandate.

…

Without the ability of those at the grassroots to sustainably do their work, the already fragile abortion access landscape is at risk, and abortion seekers are positioned to lose the most. Now is not the time to put policy advocacy and wealth hoarding over material support. Now is the time to dig deeper into the work that is happening in our communities.

In order to most directly support abortion seekers now, donate directly to your local abortion fund to ensure that your donation gets to abortion seekers, and realizes abortion access right NOW.

Contortion after contortion after contortion, all to avoid saying the filthy word “women.”

Despicable.