Now they tell us they knew all along.

But although the break between Musk and Trump only exploded into public view on Thursday, cracks in the alliance began to appear much earlier. As Musk’s “move fast and break things” bravado complicated the White House’s ambitions to remake American society, the billionaire alienated key members of the White House staff, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and quarreled with Cabinet members, physically coming to blows with one.

…

Trump on Truth Social has called for public scrutiny of Musk’s government contracts, potentially imperiling his business empire. Republicans, meanwhile, are wary of how the world’s richest man could use his deep coffers to retaliate against them, especially as he floats the launch of a third political party.

…

The first signs of trouble emerged in February, when an email landed in inboxes throughout the government directing federal employees to describe their five accomplishments over the past week.

Cabinet officials and other agency leaders weren’t given advance notice of the memo, causing consternation at the highest levels of Trump’s administration. When officials learned the email had gone out to some federal district judges, who are not part of the executive branch, and others who handle confidential information, the feeling grew that Musk fundamentally misunderstood the federal government or did not have the dexterity to maneuver through it.

Gosh, ya think? Too bad they didn’t notice that before giving him all that power.

The threats have started.

President Donald Trump on Saturday said there would be “serious consequences” if tech mogul Elon Musk funds Democratic candidates to run against Republicans who vote in favor of the GOP’s sweeping budget bill.

“If he does, he’ll have to pay the consequences for that,” Trump told NBC News in a phone interview, but declined to share what those consequences would be.

“He’ll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that,” he added.

Hahahahahaha that “he added” is hilarious. What they mean is he said the same thing twice, as he so often does, because his brain can’t think different thoughts without a lot of time to make the switch. He repeats himself repeats himself because he’s not bright not bright.

Trump said he has no plans to speak with Musk anytime soon. “I’m too busy doing other things,” he said, adding, “I have no intention of speaking to him.”

There it is again: tactful veiling of the fact that he said the same thing twice. He’s not a guy who can come up with a lot of interesting varied words at a moment’s notice. His speech patterns are exceptionally impoverished.

“That’s called ‘old news,’ that’s been old news, that has been talked about for years,” Trump said on Saturday. “Even Epstein’s lawyer said I had nothing to do with it. It’s old news.”

Sir, would you say it’s old news, or no?

Trump on Thursday also responded with his own posts on Truth Social. In one post, he wrote, “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,” suggesting that Musk knew what was in the bill before it was passed.

Well I can agree with that certainly. Musk should have turned against Trump months ago, well before the election. To put it clearly, he should never have turned for him.

He also wrote on Thursday, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” referring to federal contracts with SpaceX. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

So why didn’t you do it?

It turns out women should be helping men take over their sports.

Olympic gymnastics champion Simone Biles has called former US swimmer and activist Riley Gaines “sick” over online comments about a transgender woman softball player.

Gaines, who has regularly spoken out about transgender women athletes competing in women’s sport, mocked Minnesota State High School League for removing comments on their post about the Chaplin Park girls’ team celebrating the State Championship. Chaplin Park’s team includes a transgender woman player.

“You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser,” Biles wrote on X.

Not straight up at all. That’s the whole point. It’s not straight up for male people to be allowed to compete in women’s sports, because male people possess a whole raft of physical advantages over female people.

“You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports,” continued Biles.

Why? The trans communniny does one hell of a lot of “uplifting” of itself already, so why should anyone else be helping them? Especially when what’s being “uplifted” is so counter-factual and so destructive? Why are women supposed to “uplift” the trans communniny instead of uplifting women?

They broke up over a guy.

President Trump was peeved.

Just minutes before he walked into the Oval Office for a televised send-off for Elon Musk, an aide had handed him a file.

The papers in that file showed that Mr. Trump’s nominee to run NASA — a close associate of Mr. Musk’s — had donated to prominent Democrats in recent years, including some who Mr. Trump was learning about for the first time.

That slut!!

Mr. Musk, who was sporting a black eye, which he blamed on a tussle with his young son, tried to explain. He said his friend Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who was set to become the next NASA administrator, cared about getting things done. Yes, he had donated to Democrats, but so had a lot of people. Maybe it’s a good thing, Mr. Musk told the president — it shows that you’re willing to hire people of all stripes.

But Mr. Trump was unmoved. He said that people don’t change. These are the types of people who will turn, he said, and it won’t end up being good for us.

…

Mr. Trump decided he would withdraw Mr. Isaacman from consideration to run NASA, dealing a blow to Mr. Musk, who had worked to place a top associate in charge of the agency most important to SpaceX, his rocket business. 

That is, dealing a blow to Mr. Musk who had tried hard to parlay his bizarre role in Trump’s administration into an advantage for his business. Nothing to see here folks, just people using government jobs to boost their own wealth, move along.

By Thursday evening, Mr. Musk signaled he would be open to de-escalating the fight, while the president seemed to have little interest in an immediate reconciliation. White House officials said Mr. Trump had no plans to call Mr. Musk on Friday. A spokeswoman for Mr. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Aw that must have hurt. Is Musk finding out that he needs Trump more than Trump needs him? There must be an app for that.

By Friday morning, White House officials said Mr. Trump was planning to sell the bright red Tesla he said he had purchased in March in a show of support for Mr. Musk.

The party is over.

The rewrite team has been allowed entry at last.

NHS chiefs have been forced to rip up their pro-trans guidance after it was rendered illegal by the Supreme Court ruling.

The NHS Confederation, which represents trusts, has quietly withdrawn guidance telling hospitals that they should allow trans people to use their chosen toilets and changing rooms.

Guidance they should never have issued in the first place. I still, after all this time, cannot understand how adults managed to convince themselves to be so gullible and stupid about this issue.

The group told The Telegraph it had taken the guide down from its website because it had become “dated” since the Supreme Court judgment that the word sex in the Equality Act means biological sex.

Yeah right. What they mean is, the judgment made it untenable to keep lying about what sex people were. It should of course have been untenable all along.

On Thursday night, women’s rights charities demanded that the confederation apologise for the guidance, which they claimed may have led to unfair decisions, such as the case of Darlington nurses who were disciplined for demanding single-sex facilities.

They said that rather than deleting the guidance, the confederation should actively inform all trusts that it was now null and void.

Damn right. The guidance didn’t suddenly become ridiculous, it was ridiculous all along. An apology would be appropriate.

Maya Forstater, the chief executive of Sex Matters, said: “Its guidance encouraged a hostile, humiliating and unsafe environment for NHS workers and patients. It was published with much fanfare but withdrawn by stealth.”

Nailed it.

The confederation’s now-withdrawn guidance stated: “In all types of workplaces, trans and non-binary people should be supported to use the bathrooms they feel most comfortable using. At no time is it appropriate to force staff to use the toilet associated with their assigned sex at birth against their will.”

But of course at all times it is appropriate to force those horrible people who don’t have a luxury gender to use the toilet with the other sex in it against their will. Trans people get to choose; no one else does. That’s fairness.

A spokesman for the confederation said: “We have withdrawn our guide from our website as elements of it were dated following the ruling of the Supreme Court in April and interim guidance from the EHRC.

Mmmmmmno. Not dated. Wrong. Always wrong. Wrong from the outset. Wrong then as now.

“The withdrawal of our guide does not change our explicit commitment to support our members to reduce the unacceptably high levels of bullying, abuse and discrimination at work that trans and non-binary staff and patients face.”

So the NHS continues to ignore the unacceptably high levels of bullying and abuse at work that women face.

Idols toppling in all directions.

Australia’s foremost gender-medicine expert and the lead ­author of the nation’s guidelines on gender-affirming care, Michelle Telfer, was excoriated by a Family Court judge for giving ­misleading evidence in support of a mother who wanted her child to be prescribed puberty blockers, in a judgment that has called into question the integrity of treatment of gender-dysphoric children.

So what exactly is a “gender-medicine expert”? Telfer sounds more like a shill than an expert.

Judge Andrew Strum, who stripped the mother of custody and effectively blocked the 12-year-old from accessing treatment, criticised the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne for failing to give the child a formal gender dysphoria diagnosis until the court proceedings had commenced, despite having treated the child for six years.

The hospital’s chief of medicine, Professor Telfer, he said, cheapened the suffering of victims of Nazism when she suggested a landmark review that recommended limitations on medication for gender-dysphoric ­children formed part of a wave of trans­gender oppression commencing with the Nazis.

Cheapened the suffering of victims of Nazism and expensived the mood swings of children.

Justice Strum also questioned the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for Trans and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents, authored by Professor Telfer, for not recognising children may not be capable of making life-altering medical decisions about their gender identity.

“It is concerning that an oddly binary approach is adopted in relation to children, especially of the age of the child the subject of these proceedings; that is, to affirm unreservedly those who present with concerns regarding their gender, brooking no questioning thereof,” he wrote in the judgment.

“The case of the mother … is that because the child says so, the child is, and must unquestioningly be affirmed as being, female in gender identity. However, that overlooks the obvious, namely, that the child is still a child and not even, if it matters, a teenager.”

And what does being a child entail? Among other things, a tendency to credulity. Skepticism is a tool that develops with age; children generally believe what they’re told unless it’s very obviously a joke. If children grow up with parents who subscribe to gender ideology, that child will be a gender believer until it reaches the age when parents are wrong about everything.

The judgment, published in April, anonymised Professor Telfer as Associate Professor L and did not name the Royal Children’s Hospital due to statutory prohibitions preventing the identification of witnesses in Family Court proceedings. However, The Australian was on Thursday successful in petitioning the court to name ­Professor Telfer and her place of work, arguing it was in the public interest for the practices of an ­expert healthcare professional and a pre-eminent medical service to be transparent.

Not to be confused with trans-parent.

“Nationwide News submits, and I agree, that the interests of the public are best served by members of the public having access to the entire context of Associate Professor L’s opinion or practice, so that it can be properly assessed,” Justice Strum ruled in approving the application. “Such transparency, including as to that expert’s identity, enables individuals to evaluate critically the validity, reliability and implications of that opinion and practice.”

He said maintaining confidentiality over Professor Telfer’s identity “may well undermine public confidence in the administration of justice”.

If a doctor is out there peddling gender-woo then people need to know who that doctor is.

Oh hey gee what do you know, Khelif is “skipping” a match where he would be tested.

Olympic champion Imane Khelif is skipping the Eindhoven Box Cup in the Netherlands less than a week after World Boxing announced mandatory sex testing for all athletes.

The Algerian boxer, who won gold at the Paris Games last summer amid scrutiny over her eligibility, did not register in time for the event before applications closed on Thursday.

…

The 26-year-old Khelif had intended to return to international competition at the Eindhoven tournament this weekend before World Boxing announced its new sex testing policy last Friday. The governing body specifically mentioned Khelif, saying she’d have to screened to be approved to fight at any upcoming events, including the Eindhoven Box Cup.

The AP and other news organizations really should not be calling Khelif “she”. It’s a lie, and an obvious lie at that. It’s not the job of journalism to lie to us about magic gender.

Eindhoven mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem criticized World Boxing’s decision.

“As far as we are concerned, all athletes are welcome in Eindhoven. Excluding athletes based on controversial ‘gender tests’ certainly does not fit in with that,” Dijsselbloem wrote in a letter addressed to the Dutch Boxing Federation and International Boxing Federation.

That is stupid. Excluding men from women’s competitions fits in perfectly well with welcoming all athletes. Khelif is welcome, just not in the wrong category.

I see I’m not the only one taken aback by that Guardian article – to put it mildly.

Journalism warped by a deranged ideology.

They never had those “rights” in the first place.

Transgender people must accept a perceived reduction in their rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.

Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction”.

Mind you, anyone with a brain should have been able to see that the “rights” in question were not rights.

However, the human rights campaign groups Liberty and Amnesty called on the EHRC to make sure the rights of trans people were properly considered when it draws up guidance for public bodies on how to implement the changed legal landscape.

But Liberty and Amnesty are in the made-up rights faction. There is no “right” to force everyone (or anyone) to agree that you are the sex you are not. There is no right to force people to agree that you’re a Martian or an octopus or a submarine. There is no right to force people to treat you as a Martian or octopus or submarine. Pretending there is such a right is a disaster, not least because it weakens the whole idea of human rights. If putative rights are that ridiculous then it’s a mistake to defend or protect them at all.

Asked by an audience member about worries the ruling could reduce the rights of trans people, another panellist, the barrister Naomi Cunningham, said trans people “will have to give way”, adding: “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

Reindorf, speaking next, agreed: “Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are. It’s like Naomi said – I just can’t say it in a more diplomatic way than that. They have been lied to, and there has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights.”

Genuine rights – the kind that make sense and are workable.

Chiara Capraro, head of gender justice at Amnesty International UK, said: “The EHRC has the duty to uphold the rights of everyone, including all with protected characteristics. We are concerned that it is failing to do so and is unhelpfully pitting the rights of women and trans people against each other.”

Wrong. It’s trans ideology that does that, not the EHRC. Pretending that men have a right to be in women’s spaces and take jobs reserved for women and win awards intended for women and compete as women in Olympic boxing is what pits the rights of women and the fake rights of trans people against each other.

Oops.

A gynecologist has misgivings.

I performed my first hysterectomy for gender confirmation in 2019. I was so delighted to help out my own LGBT community. I took immense pride in being my local LGBT clinic’s official gynecologist. What greater joy is there in medicine than providing great care to a vulnerable, underserved community, all with the support of your administration? It was how the world should be.

Six years later, I wonder.

The hysterectomies went well. They were uncomplicated. Even the one patient who came back to see me for well woman care after detransitioning didn’t tell me she regretted her surgery. I hope that all those patients are still happy not to have their uteri. But in terms of the clinic overall, staffed by earnest, well-meaning clinicians as it was – were we doing the right thing?

In some cases, I don’t think we were.

…

I was on board and ready to support my community. Sure, there were uncomfortable questions – hadn’t we learned in medical school that most pediatric gender dysphoria resolves by adulthood? If so, did it make sense for young adolescents to transition to the opposite sex? Was it really plausible that transgender female athletes didn’t have a biological advantage over cis girls and women? The accepted answers seemed counterintuitive – however, I assumed that the experts had carefully weighed the evidence, had done plenty of research, and had reached a scientifically-based consensus before making their recommendations regarding gender medicine.

What experts though? Trans ideology isn’t based on a whole lot of expertise. It’s mostly based on threats and abuse.

For a few years, I essentially became the go-to gynecologist in my community for gender-affirming hysterectomy referrals. I enjoyed taking care of my transmasculine patients. Some of them drove hundreds of miles from their homes in rural Iowa to receive their care in our LGBT clinic. I felt good about providing such a much-needed service. As I would joke to my assistant, a gender affirming hysterectomy referral was “my easiest consult of the day.” They came in knowing what they wanted: a hysterectomy. Unless they had a major contraindication to surgery, like uncontrolled diabetes, it was an easy decision to book it. Unlike hysterectomies for abnormal bleeding or pelvic pain, there was no need to document prior attempts at treatment, failures, and impact on the patient’s life for the insurance companies to authorize these hysterectomies. “Gender dysphoria” always got approved (with the requisite two letters, one from a mental health professional and one from a PCP).

That comes as a shock to me, I have to say. The medical kind of hysterectomy had to withstand a lot of questions, while the sad mood kind was waved right on through.

As the years went by, I couldn’t help but notice some troubling trends. The transmasculine patients who came to me had more and more poorly controlled mental health comorbidities. I also started seeing a fair percentage of them who were really quite feminine – not much different in their gender presentation than my cis patients.

I started to be a little more uneasy that hysterectomy was the right thing for this new group of transmasculine patients, but if they didn’t have any contraindications per se, I couldn’t really say no. After all, according to ACOG Committee Opinion #823, Health Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals, “Hysterectomy with or without bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy is medically necessary for patients with gender dysphoria who desire this procedure.”

Medically necessary, even though “gender dysphoria” is not medical. I cannot make sense of that.

As a medical system, for better or worse, we make our traditional gynecologic patients with miserable periods jump through quite a few hoops before they are approved for hysterectomy. Generally, they have to have a full workup for any reversible medical reason for their miserable periods and try some sort of medical management of their heavy periods, because it is such a grave decision to take a patient for a major surgery like hysterectomy with all the accompanying risk (death, bowel injury requiring lifelong colostomy, urologic injury requiring lifelong urostomy, chronic debilitating surgical pain, vaginal cuff dehiscence with evisceration, massive blood loss, stroke, etc.)

By contrast, according to medical guidelines currently in play, a uterus-having person need only walk into a gynecologist’s office, declare themselves to have a nonbinary or male gender identity, and endorse dysphoria from the presence of their uterus to qualify for hysterectomy.

I can make even less sense of that. It’s insane.

Still wondering how best to take care of my patients, I went to a private forum for Ob/Gyns to ask about how others addressed nonbinary individuals who requested gender affirming hysterectomy. I was told my question was “transphobic.”

What is the scientific medical term for transphobia?

To sum up: medicine is shockingly captive.

Ok this is just plain hilarious.

The alliance between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk spectacularly imploded Thursday as the world’s most prominent bromance collapsed into mutual public trolling.

…

The public unraveling began in the Oval Office, where Trump spoke to reporters at the start of a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“Elon and I had a great relationship,” he said. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”

Oh I know. Did you hear what Sally said to Lucy about it? It’s like all over the school.

The quarrel escalated rapidly from there, with the two men blasting out angry posts on their respective social media platforms.

Which I cannot help laughing at. We knew how childish they are but still – it is hilarious that they’re that helpless at ass-covering. I think we have a good chance of seeing them pulling each other’s hair and screaming on live tv.

By late afternoon, Musk was writing on X that he agreed Trump should be impeached and replaced with Vice President JD Vance. 

That sentence caused me to laugh loudly enough to wake all the neighborhood dogs – genuine unforced shriek of laughter.

He further signaled his estrangement from Trump’s orbit by “unfollowing” Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s top aides, whose wife has been working for Musk.

Er ner, nert ernferlering!! The ultimate tragic end of a beautiful friendship.

Musk volleyed back, declaring it was “time to drop the really big bomb” that Trump “is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day DJT!”

When dickheads fall out.

The unraveling “happened faster than I thought,” said one Musk ally, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject. “What Elon really wanted is to be president, I think.”

Hahahahahaha yes that is quite a hasty unraveling.

Was Elon thinking Trump would make him president?

Tesla investors braced themselves as they watched Musk’s relationship with the president go up in flames. “Can someone please take the phone away from him! wtf! tesla is getting destroyed,” investor Ross Gerber, a onetime Musk booster, posted on X.

Oops! Bad business move was it? How sad oh well never mind.

H/t What a Maroon

Trump is fine with women dying rather than having emergency abortions.

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would revoke guidance to the nation’s hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions for women when they are necessary to stabilize their medical condition.

Easy for him. He’s not going to die of septicemia because the hospital refuses to meddle with his pregnancy.

That guidance was issued to hospitals in 2022, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upended national abortion rights in the U.S. It was an effort by the Biden administration to preserve abortion access for extreme cases in which women were experiencing medical emergencies and needed an abortion to prevent organ loss or severe hemorrhaging, among other serious complications.

Serious complications that cause death.

The move prompted concerns from some doctors and abortion rights advocates that women will not get emergency abortions in states with strict bans.

“The Trump Administration would rather women die in emergency rooms than receive life-saving abortions,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “In pulling back guidance, this administration is feeding the fear and confusion that already exists at hospitals in every state where abortion is banned. Hospitals need more guidance, not less, to stop them from turning away patients experiencing pregnancy crises.”

But that takes much of the fun out of it. These people want to see women die of pregnancy crises.

Aw gee, their great love lasted only three months.

President Trump and Elon Musk’s alliance dissolved into open acrimony on Thursday, as the two men hurled personal attacks at each other after the billionaire had unleashed broadsides against the president’s signature domestic policy bill.

While meeting with Friedrich Merz, Germany’s new chancellor, in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump broke days of uncharacteristic silence and unloaded on Mr. Musk, who until last week was a top presidential adviser.

“I’m very disappointed in Elon,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

As the president criticized Mr. Musk, the billionaire responded in real time on X, the social media platform he owns.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Mr. Musk wrote.

“Such ingratitude,” he added, taking credit for Mr. Trump’s election in a way that he never has before.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless Donald.

Mr. Musk had been careful in recent days to train his ire on Republicans in Congress, not Mr. Trump himself. But he discarded that caution on Thursday, ridiculing the president in a pattern familiar to the many previous Trump advisers who have fallen by the wayside.

I wonder why that is. It’s very puzzling. Let’s put our thinking caps on. Hmm…could it be…is it possibly because he is exactly what he appears to be but these fools refuse to get it until he does it to them?

What started as simply a fight over the domestic policy bill sharply escalated in just a few hours. Within minutes of one another, Mr. Trump was making fun of Mr. Musk’s unwillingness to wear makeup to cover a recent black eye, and Mr. Musk was raising questions about Mr. Trump’s competency as president.

Gee, Elon, it would have been great if you had grasped this obvious point BEFORE YOU HELPED HIM WIN THE ELECTION AND SET ABOUT DESTROYING THE WORLD.

Yes why do these silly people get so angry about the tank driven through women’s rights, the children and teenagers with ruined bodies, the fanatical belief in a nonsensical creed, the endless ferocious bullying – what is there that’s even slightly annoying about any of that? Who can possibly figure it out?

Peak majority/minority who is the most minorityized confusion achieved.

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled in favor of a straight woman who twice lost positions to gay workers, saying an appeals court had been wrong to require her to meet a heightened burden in seeking to prove workplace discrimination because she was a member of a majority group.

Because what? Because she was a member of what?

News flash: women are not the dominant aka preferred aka privileged sex. Women are the sex seen as weak and stupid and not as good as the alternative sex. It’s not about majority or minority, it’s about being perceived as inferior. The two are not the same, and people in a “majority” can be perceived as inferior. Slaves were very often the majority on plantations, but that didn’t make them more powerful or privileged or rewarded, now did it.

The decision came two years after the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs in higher education and amid the Trump administration’s fierce efforts to root out programs that promote diversity and could make it easier for white people, men and other members of majority groups to pursue claims of employment discrimination.

What mean “other members of majority groups”? Men aren’t members of majority groups, men are roughly half. The power differential between women and men isn’t about more v fewer, it’s about which sex can punch harder. It’s also about a lot more than that – who gestates, for a start – but my point is that the issue here is that journalism should stop using “majority” as a synonym for “dominant” or similar. It just confuses things.

Ms. Ames sued under a federal civil rights law that forbids employment discrimination based on, among other characteristics, sex. (The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination for purposes of the civil rights law.)

The text of the law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, does not draw distinctions based on whether the person claiming discrimination is a member of a majority group. But some courts have required plaintiffs from majority groups to prove an additional element if they lack direct evidence of discrimination: “background circumstances that support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”

But it’s not unusual. It’s not unusual for employers to discriminate against women. “Majority” is not what you mean here! If even Supreme Court rulings can’t get it right what hope is there? And it’s not just a picky word-freak item, either, because it obviously matters. It seems to be the very subject of the ruling, and yet nobody can say so.

Lower courts ruled against Ms. Ames on those grounds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, said she could have satisfied the “background circumstances” requirement by showing that decisions about her employment were made by “a member of the relevant minority group (here, gay people)” or with statistical evidence. But the appeals court said Ms. Ames had provided neither kind of proof.

So it has to be a literal minority group in this one case? So which sex is the minority sex? Please inform.

Wait who did the tampering?

Dang. That’s so the opposite of an accurate definition. It’s like saying flying is crawling through mud, or a daffodil is a mound of bear shit, or India Willoughby is thoughtful and reasonable.

Rules about where the different sexes go to pee are human inventions, and thus the very opposite of instinctive.

Oddly enough, this also applies to the word “Ladies.” It also applies to the women’s section in the shop.

I suppose she means automatically, or without having to think about it, as a result of habit. But that’s not the same thing. At all.

She’s really not sharp, is she.

No reason. Just because.

Does the BBC hire its reporters from kindergartens these days?

National Trust covers artwork referencing JK Rowling after tampering

[Too many ings for one headline, Beeb. Clumsy. Work on your aesthetics.]

The National Trust has covered up a piece of art featuring the name of author JK Rowling, after it was tampered with by a member of the public.

Between April and November 2024 visitors to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire were invited to stitch names of women they felt should be celebrated on to a textile display called Virtuous Woman. During this time, a participant stitched over the Harry Potter author’s name. Last week, this covering was removed by feminist campaigner Jean Hatchet.

So here’s the problem: which “tampered with” are you talking about?

I guess we have to come down on the side of the removal. Note the language. The person who stitched over JKR’s name is “a participant” while Jean Hatchet is “feminist campaigner” – so we’re nudged to conclude that the stitching over was all part of the fun while undoing the stitching over was disgusting feminist campaigning.

But what about the “participant” who stitched in Rowling in the first place? Why is it participation to cross that out but naughty feminism to restore it?

The National Trust, who manage the property, said: “The artwork was open to contributions for eight months and closed in November when the piece was finished and put on public display.”

“We ask visitors not to tamper with any art on display,” they added. “The piece has been taken off display while we investigate the damage caused and consider next steps.”

The damage caused ffs. What about the damage caused by the stitching over in the first place?

The snide little piece ends with the snide remark that JKR declined to comment.