Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Again, adult news outlets parroting the childish fantasy-based jargon.

Montana’s House speaker on Thursday refused to allow a transgender lawmaker to speak about bills on the House floor until she apologizes for saying lawmakers would have “blood on their hands” if they supported a bill to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, the lawmaker said.

“She” is “he” and there’s no such thing as “gender-affirming medical care.” “Affirming gender” is not medical and it’s not care.

Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who was deliberately misgendered by a conservative group of lawmakers demanding her censure after Tuesday’s comments, said she would not apologize, creating a standoff between the first-term state lawmaker and Republican legislative leaders.

“Misgendered” is silly jargon too. Granted, some bullies like to refer to boys or men they consider too “effeminate” as she and her, and the reverse for girls or women they consider too butch, but that’s called “taunting.”

Zephyr said she stands by what she said about the consequences of banning essential medical care for transgender youth.

“When there are bills targeting the LGBTQ community, I stand up to defend my community,” Zephyr said. “And I choose my words with clarity and precision and I spoke to the real harms that these bills bring.”

There is no LGBTQ community. What he means by “essential medical care” is more like malpractice. He chooses his words to manipulate.

The issue came to a head Tuesday when Zephyr, the first transgender woman to hold a position in the Montana legislature, referenced the floor session’s opening prayer when she told lawmakers if they supported the bill, “I hope the next time there’s an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”

What about the blood on the hands of people who perform surgeries to try to make people look more like the opposite sex? What about all those mutilated genitals?

Later, the Montana Freedom Caucus issued its censure demand in a letter that called for a “commitment to civil discourse” in the same sentence in which it deliberately misgendered Zephyr. The caucus also misgendered Zephyr in a Tweet while posting the letter online.

“It is disheartening that the Montana Freedom Caucus would stoop so low as to misgender me in their letter, further demonstrating their disregard for the dignity and humanity of transgender individuals,” Zephyr said in a statement Wednesday.

Pretending to be the sex you’re not has nothing to do with dignity or humanity. Playing along with that pretense also has nothing to do with dignity or humanity, although lots of people do consider it the kind thing to do.

What are they even for? One minute we’re told “head of state” and the next it’s “bringing in the tourist cash.” Are they any real use at either of those, or anything else? Are they enough use to justify the enormous amount of tax-free money they keep having more of?

A common argument in defence of the royal family is the benefit they bring to the UK economy through tourism. But despite widespread claims of their tourist value, firm evidence that the Windsors are what bring visitors to Britain is hard to come by, with most assertions anecdotal or speculative. The storm-tossed tourist industry may be desperately hoping for a coronation bump, but the benefit the event will bring is not clear.

Tourists visit France, Italy, Switzerland – I don’t think it’s in hopes of seeing royalty. Why would it be in the case of Britain?

Numerical claims about the value of the monarchy frequently rely on creative interpretation of visitor numbers to sites with any royal connection, however tangential, says Graham Smith, of Republic, which campaigns to abolish the monarchy.

“If you look at the Tower of London, where the royals haven’t lived for hundreds of years, it’s far, far more popular than Buckingham Palace,” says Smith. (Annual visits to the tower are more than 2m, compared with 121,000 to the palace). “So it’s clearly not the living history that people are interested in, it’s the history – and history never goes away. There just isn’t any evidence to suggest that people would not visit if [the royals] were not there.”

Perhaps even more popular is Kensington Palace, and you know why? Because it’s at one end of Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens, that’s why – a massive green space in the heart of London. London itself is quite a tourist draw, so if the number-crunches are interpreting tourism in London as caused by the monarchy…that’s pretty hilarious. No, dalling, it’s the theaters, the museums, the galleries, the bookshops, the river, the parks, Shakespeare, Keats, Highgate Cemetery – it’s a thousand things.

Also Choss is pretty obviously a horror, so there’s that.

Says it all.

KØN – Gender Museum Denmark, formerly Kvindemuseet (Women’s Museum), is a history museum in Aarhus, Denmark focused on the cultural history of gender and sexuality in Denmark.

Of course it is. It used to be Women’s Museum, but then people came to their senses and remembered that women are worthless and don’t matter, so they changed it to Gender Museum. SO much better. Why anyone ever thought women mattered is a mystery.

There’s a statue of Gender out front.

So the pillow guy said “Prove me wrong and I’ll give you 5 million dollars!” So someone proved him wrong and he hasn’t paid up. He has to pay up.

Mike Lindell has to pay $5 million for losing his “Prove Mike Wrong” 2020 election challenge, an arbitration panel has ruled.

In a decision dated Wednesday, the panel found software developer Robert Zeidman had won Lindell’s 2021 contest challenging experts to prove that data he had was not from the 2020 election, and directed the MyPillow founder to pay him the reward money he’d promised in the next 30 days.

…

The contest took place in August 2021 at a cyber symposium that Lindell — an outspoken election denier and conspiracy theorist — was hosting in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

As part of the symposium, Lindell announced a contest called the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge” in which participants were asked to find proof that his cyber data was not valid data from the November election, the ruling said. The announcement said: “For the people who find the evidence, 5 million is their reward.”

…

Among the attendees at the symposium was Zeidman, a Donald Trump voter who was excited to see the evidence Lindell had turned up.

Zeidman “wanted it to be 2020 election data,” said his attorney, Brian Glasser of Bailey & Glasser LLP. 

Imagine his chagrin when he found otherwise!

Lie down with pillows, get up with feathers.

Daddy instinct.

A bald eagle that went viral after nurturing a rock it thought was an egg has become an adoptive father to an eaglet at a Missouri bird sanctuary.

The 31-year-old bird, Murphy, is flightless due to a permanent wing injury. It was “very protective” of the rock, which it treated like an unhatched egg, and would squawk at other birds and charge at those that came too close.

I have no idea why The Telegraph refers to the male eagle as “it,” especially since his sex adds to the interest of the story. Eagles do share the chick-rearing duties.

While Murphy received nationwide press coverage and hoards of online fans for his seemingly natural, if misdirected, parenting abilities, an orphaned eaglet arrived at the sanctuary after falling from a tree during a storm.

When the sanctuary received Bald Eagle 23-126 on April 1, it was only one to two weeks old. It was the first eaglet to arrive at the sanctuary for eight years.

They probably don’t know the sex of the eaglet, so “it” for her or him makes sense. For Murphy, not so much. It’s not anthropomorphizing. Humans don’t have a monopoly on her/him.

The keepers weren’t going to hand the chick over to Murphy because he’d only ever played daddy to a rock, but they changed their minds because he got more and more protective of dear little Rock.

After a cautious introduction of the two birds using a small, heated cage called a “baby jail”, Bald Eagle 23-126 was brought into Murphy’s enclosure. 

The feathered foster father passed the test when it chopped up a whole fish that it was given by keepers so that its new ward could eat it safely.

Way to go Murphy!

Labour MP Fleur Anderson is very glad to see an organization for women “supporting” men at the expense of women.

It’s not a “common sense statement of women supporting women”; it’s a grotesque statement of an institute for women supporting men who pretend to be women.

It’s both, you know. Both aspects are important. It’s the women aspect but it’s also the truth aspect. It’s the brazen, ridiculous, insulting insistence that “women” no longer means “women” but we don’t get to have a new word that does mean “women,” we have to go on using the same word but submit to men who change it to mean women plus men pretending to be women.” We have to join them in telling the big stupid lie. We have to pretend we don’t know what the truth of the matter is or be treated like evil demonic hate-mongers. It’s way too much to expect and it’s way too much to demand.

Hilarious. LBC announces two new presenters and up pops Inja to yell “what about me????”

Gee why would anybody not want to give Willz a show? Apart from the bad temper, the entitlement, the conceit, the smugness, and the playacting a woman.

Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.

At least 78 people have been killed in a crush at a school in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa, during a charity event for Ramadan, officials say.

…

Poor people made their way to the Maeen School in central Sanaa on Wednesday night after being told that a local merchant would be handing out zakat (alms) to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The head of the Houthis’ Supreme Revolutionary Council, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, posted a photo on Twitter apparently showing hundreds of people queuing outside the school before the crush.

…

A health ministry official said women and children were among the 78 people killed in the crush.

Another 77 people were injured, according to the ministry. Thirteen were in a critical condition in hospital on Thursday, while the rest were discharged after receiving treatment, it added.

Why doesn’t a benevolent god step in to avert this kind of thing?

The WI washes its hands of Threaty McThreatface.

So he never was a member? He was a supporter, not a member? Did they ask him how he identifies?

But he says the WI has rescinded his membership. Just for a bunch of threats to kill women!

Two conflicting stories in one tweet – the WI has canceled his membership, and he won’t be surprised if the WI Labour cancels his membership. Which is it? Who knows.

It’s the people who object to murder threats who are cruel and heartless. Wah.

This is all fine.

Now trans activist who boasts of her violence joins Women’s Institute: Self-professed ‘violent and cruel’ martial arts champion signs up to organisation amid row over policy to allow transgender members

That’s the headline. They do long headlines, the Daily Mail.

A transgender activist who claimed she was drawing up a kill list of ‘Nazi’ opponents says she has just joined the Women’s Institute.

Shanu Varma, who has described herself as ‘violent and cruel’ and purports to be a martial arts champion, said she had signed up to the organisation amid a row over whether or not it should allow transgender members.

No, the row is over whether it should allow men who are trans. It’s not about being trans, it’s about being men, because the Women’s Institute is for women.

She posted on social media a screenshot of the WI website thanking her for a ‘one-off purchase of WI Supporter Plus’ membership and added the caption: ‘Fantastic news, now a Women’s Institute member.’

But other Twitter users highlighted her recent warnings that she had drawn up a list of dozens of critics of gender ideology to help friends who wanted to murder them – although last night she claimed the messages had not been meant seriously.

…

Ms Varma, who lives in Greater Manchester and claims to have recently joined the Labour Party, uses two Twitter accounts.

Using one account, under the name DJ Miss Gripper, she has also boasted about her love of fighting. In one message last month she wrote: ‘I’ve permanently paralysed nine people from the neck down. 

‘Am a gold medal holder shao’lin kung fu champion. Be careful who you threaten, I can make one phone call, call a favour in and end of troll.’

It’s extraordinary how many times the Daily Mail endorses this guy’s ridiculous claim to be a woman, even while underlining how ridiculous it is and how dangerous he is.

In another she said: ‘I am very violent and cruel when I fight and have never lost in 320 fights in 40 years.’ And in a series of other tweets, also now deleted but widely shared online, she spoke of drawing up a kill list of gender critics, known as ‘terfs’.

She said two friends were ‘going to murder the top 50 prominent terf’ if being trans was made illegal in the UK and had been ‘making a snuff list’.

Last night on her other account, under the name Dr Shanu Varma, she claimed the kill list messages had been a sting operation. She wrote that she had ‘published some disinformation yesterday only to delete this morning as I wanted to see who would out themselves’.

And she said that she removed the tweets ‘as the onslaught was horrible’, with ‘thousands and thousands of nasty’ messages, which she has given to Greater Manchester Police.

Aw diddums did the mean women say mean things to you just for saying you’re going to put a lot of women on a hit list?

Ok, so this guy is promising to kill any woman who objects to a man in the women’s toilets. “It will be the last mistake you ever make,” he says smugly.

One, man charged with punching woman in the face.

Police have charged a 20-year-old man with allegedly assaulting an elderly woman at an Auckland anti-transgender rally last month.

The charges arise from the heated clashes at the speaking engagement for activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, who goes by the alias Posie Parker, at Albert Park.

Videos online show both supporters of Keen-Minshull and protesters clashing, with one showing a man hitting a woman twice in the face.

Two, he got to hide his name.

A man charged with assaulting an elderly woman during a protest against an anti-transgender speaker has received name suppression.

The man appeared in the Auckland District Court on Thursday morning, where he was given name suppression and remanded on bail.

He was ordered not to associate with the complainant and not to act violently towards anyone or anything.

Why should he get to hide his name? It’s not a parking ticket – he punched a woman in the face, hard, twice. He fractured her eye socket. Why should he get to hide his violent assault?

H/t Rob

Wikipedia sheds light on what is is about Thank You, Jeeves that would make a publisher anxious.

The book uses the dated and now derogatory term “nigger minstrels” which was once a common term for white performers in blackface. Blackface minstrels were a staple of British seaside resorts until World War II.^[19] The term “nigger minstrels” was historically used to differentiate blackface minstrels from “colored minstrels” who were actually black performers.^[20]

Blackface performances, widely considered offensive today, were popular at the time Wodehouse was writing this novel. During this period, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby and Shirley Temple were among the many actors who performed in blackface.^[21]

What’s a publisher to do?

Maybe there’s no answer to that question; maybe there’s no good option.

Guess who hasn’t been reporting on the Fox News-Dominion settlement…

Fox News’s last-minute settlement with Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday earned banner coverage on every television news network but one: Fox News.

The $787.5 million settlement was covered only three times by Fox News in about four hours after the settlement became public, amounting to about six minutes of coverage. For most of the day, including during the network’s prime-time shows, hosts appeared to be focusing on other issues, like illegal immigration and Covid-19’s possible origins.

Sorry, we’re busy here, very very very busy, we’ve got breaking stories about immigration and Covid.

Anyway. The settlement is a record-breaker.

The $787.5 million that Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems to settle the lawsuit against the cable network appears to be one of the largest settlements in a defamation case in U.S. history.

While the terms of out-of-court settlements are not always revealed, the Fox-Dominion deal immediately enters the upper echelon of publicly disclosed damages and other payouts in defamation cases.

Fox makes a lot of $$$$. By destroying everything.

Wait a second.

Willoughby is very grumpy here, but the thing is – he says two trans women are not trans. Starting at 1:28 he says it. He goes on to say they’re not pretty enough. “They both look terrible, they look like a bag of spanners” – so it’s all about what one looks like? Not the soul? I thought it was the soul.

Moving past the headline…

The Women’s Institute will continue to “celebrate” the lives of the transgender women enriching its membership, the head of the organisation said on Tuesday, following reports that it was facing a bid to overturn inclusive policy.

Why should the WI, or any such organization, have an “inclusive policy” that entails being “inclusive” of people who are explicitly and inherently not part of that organization’s constituency? Why is the WI expected to be “inclusive” of men at all? Should peace organizations be “inclusive” of people who promote war? Should labor unions be “inclusive” of the bosses? Should atheist organizations be “inclusive” of Catholic priests and nuns?

And, second question, in what sense does a man “enrich” the membership of the Women’s Institute? Why aren’t women enrichment enough? Is it because women just aren’t that valuable on their own? They have to be beefed up a little by adding some men? Is the WI really going with that? Why?

Melissa Green, CEO of the the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI), said the organisation did not want to enter into a “toxic and divisive” row that sought to sow discord among women, but instead foster sensible discourse and reflect the lives of all its members – including those that are transgender.

Well that’s stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. The “row” doesn’t “seek to sow discord among women,” it seeks to continue to be the Women’s Institute as opposed to the Women’s and Some Men’s Institute. The discord is inside the house.

“Being part of the WI is about the experience of being a woman, and that is a combination of both biology and lived experience,” she said in an interview with the Guardian. 

Yes, lived experience of being a woman.

“I know from speaking to so many of our members that they feel that we are enriched by that, that we learn something about being a woman through the eyes of transgender women.”

They learn that women can’t have anything that’s just for women, that’s what they learn.

The Guardian exclaims

Women’s Institute will ‘continue to celebrate’ transgender women amid inclusivity row

Women’s Institute will continue to celebrate men as women object to letting men join the Women’s Institute on account of how they’re not women.

Women’s Institute will continue to celebrate men as women object to being told, even by institutions that are specifically and explicitly for women, that we must be “inclusive” of men in everything that’s ours, even in things that actually say “Women” on the door or label or title.

Women’s Institute will continue to celebrate men while women struggle furiously to keep what’s ours.

Women’s Institute will continue to gloat about celebrating men and to sneer at women for objecting to this campaign to give everything that belongs to women to the set of people who are not women.

Women’s Institute will continue to sneer at women and celebrate women while still calling itself the Women’s Institute.

And that’s just the headline…

Fox settled with Dominion.

Fox News and its parent company Fox Corp. have struck a deal averting a trial in the blockbuster defamation suit filed by the election tech company Dominion Voting Systems over spurious claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential race.

Judge Eric Davis of the Delaware Superior Court announced the settlement from the bench on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the trial’s scheduled start.

The parties settled for $787,500,000 — about half of Dominion’s original $1.6 billion ask.

The amount “represents vindication and accountability,” said Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson. “Lies have consequences.”

Dominion CEO John Poulos told reporters, “Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees and the customers that we serve. Nothing can ever make up for that. Throughout this process, we have sought accountability,” he said. “Truthful reporting in the media is essential to our democracy.”

Fox is a liar and everybody knows it.

Did Caroline Nokes mean “basic bitch” when she said ““Well I think that that’s a really basic and to be quite frank insulting way to regard trans women, to keep harping back to calling them biological men”? I don’t know, but it’s certainly possible, so I decided to learn more about the epithet.

“Basic“^[1] is a slang term in American popular culture used pejoratively to describe people who are perceived to prefer mainstream products, trends, and music. “Basic bitch” originated in hip hop culture and rose in popularity through rap music, songs, blogs, and videos from 2011 to 2014.^[2][3] Their male counterparts are usually termed “bros“.^[4][5][6]

The Urban Dictionary has more colorful detail.

Someone who is unflinchingly upholding of the status quo and stereotypes of their gender without even realizing it. She engages in typical, unoriginal behaviors, modes of dress, speech, and likes. She is tragically/laughably unaware of her utter lack of specialness and intrigue. She believers herself to be unique, fly, amazing, and a complete catch, when really she is boring, painfully normal, and par. She believes her experiences to be crazy, wild, and different or somehow more special than everything that everybody else is doing, when really, almost everyone is doing or has done the exact same thing. She is typical and a dime a dozen. 

Interesting. I’m familiar with that kind of “oh I’m so zany/interesting/nonconformist/original” type, always commenting on her/himself as if we were planning to write a review. I didn’t know that’s what “basic” means.

I’m still not sure that’s what Caroline Nokes meant by it. The way she used it is compatible with meaning “that’s such a basic [crude, limited, literal] definition when we now know there are nuances.” I could be wrong though.