When it becomes too obvious that climate change is real, the thing to do is say we can’t do anything about it.

The world is facing a new form of climate denial – not the dismissal of climate science, but a concerted attack on the idea that the economy can be reorganised to fight the crisis, the president of global climate talks has warned.

André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian diplomat who will direct this year’s UN summit, Cop30, believes his biggest job will be to counter the attempt from some vested interests to prevent climate policies aimed at shifting the global economy to a low-carbon footing.

Sort of the way you want to prevent firefighters from fighting the fire.

As the climate crisis has gathered pace, temperatures have risen and the effects of extreme weather have become more obvious, scientists have been able to draw ever more clearly the links between greenhouse gas emissions and our impacts on the planet. So the argument has shifted, Corrêa do Lago believes, from undermining or misrepresenting the science to attempts to counter climate policy.

“It is not possible to have [scientific] denialism at this stage, after everything that has happened in recent years. So there is a migration from scientific denial to a denial that economic measures against climate change can be good for the economy and for people.”

The rise of populist politicians around the world has fuelled a backlash against climate policy, most clearly seen in the presidency of Donald Trump in the US, where he has set about cancelling policies intended to boost renewable energy and cut greenhouse gases, and dismantling all forms of government-sponsored climate-related institutions, including scientific research labs.

It’s not his problem, it’s his grandchildren’s problem, so why should he care?

Bad Kennedy informs us that all the scientific journals are “corrupt” and it’s only the fake ones that are any good, so he’ll be the all-fake boss of Medicare and the rest of it.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that he may bar government scientists from publishing in the world’s leading medical journals, instead proposing the creation of “in-house” publications by his agency —the latest in the Trump administration’s attacks on scientific institutions.

“We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals because they’re all corrupt,” Kennedy said during an appearance on the “Ultimate Human” podcast. He also described the journals as being under the control of pharmaceutical companies.

The three journals he named, all established in the 1800s, publish original, peer-reviewed research and play a central role in disseminating medical findings worldwide. JAMA, published by the American Medical Association, and the Lancet each say they receive more than 30 million annual visits to their sites, while the New England Journal of Medicine says it is read in print and online by more than 1 million people each week.

Well exactly, that why we have to ignore them and instead turn to Bad Kennedy’s chosen quacks.

The podcast episode was released soon after Kennedy bypassed the CDC and declared that his department would stop recommending the coronavirus vaccine for healthy pregnant women and children.

Last week, the administration released what it called a “MAHA report” that challenged mainstream medical consensus on issues such as vaccines. Medical experts said some of the report’s suggestions stretched the limits of science, The Washington Post reported, while several sections of the report offered misleading representations of findings in scientific papers.

Science-based medicine is too elitist, is that it? Good medicine is the medicine endorsed by rich brainless monsters like Kennedy and his bloated puppet-master.

Men in women’s toilets: yes or no?

Murdo Fraser sees lawsuits in the future.

The announcement last week from the author JK Rowling that she has established a women’s fund to support legal cases for women who wish to protect their sex-based rights should be causing sleepless nights for Scottish Government ministers, and for the finance directors of public bodies such as local authorities and NHS boards.

All these organisations are now at risk of litigation which could see extensive payouts of taxpayers’ cash to women whose rights have been denied. Rowling’s generosity is entirely in character with her robust stance in speaking up for women who have suffered discrimination because of their gender-critical views.

This latest initiative will mean that those, like NHS Fife nurse Sandie Peggie, who have lost out simply because they refused to quietly share spaces with biological men, will now be able to access funds to help them stand up to authorities who have endless sums of taxpayers’ money to defend legal cases.

All this just to get back to the normal state of things where men didn’t go into women’s toilets unless they felt like risking arrest.

One body which moved quickly, and appropriately, to ensure that the law was complied with was the Scottish Parliament itself. Earlier this month the Presiding Officer, Alison Johnstone MSP, set out an interim position in response to the court ruling, making it clear that toilets designated as male or female only are to be interpreted as meaning biological sex, whilst ensuring that there will be gender-neutral facilities available to everyone, including members of the trans community.

Why call them “members of the trans community”? Why not just “trans people”? Why do they get that extra bit of cuddling? He didn’t say “members of the male community” or “members of the female community” so why the trans one? Why do people keep on giving them extra hugs of this kind?

This ruling has now been challenged by some 17 MSPs from the SNP, Green, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties (no Scottish Conservatives were daft enough to sign up) in an open letter expressing “deep concern” about the decision, which they claim risks exposing trans and non-binary individuals to humiliation, harassment or worse.

What about the risks of exposing women to humiliation, harassment or worse? Why is that risk totally acceptable while the putative risk to men in skirts is not? Why are there still two sets of laws and norms and concerns, one for those tiresome people known as women and the other for members of the communniny communniny?

The letter has been written on the basis of legal advice from the ironically titled Good Law Project, headed up by the one-time fox-killer Jolyon Maugham KC, currently involved in an online spat with Rowling which might well end up with him being on the wrong end of a writ for defamation.

Far better lawyers than either I or the Good Law Project have been clear that the EHRC’s interim guidance accurately interprets the Supreme Court judgment, and it is disappointing to see this group of MSPs relying upon such poor-quality legal advice.

I would choose a stronger word than “disappointing.”

NPR is suing.

National Public Radio on Tuesday sued President Donald Trump over his executive order to cease all federal funding for the nonprofit broadcaster.

Trump’s May 1 order violates the First Amendment’s protections of speech and the press and steps on Congress’ authority, NPR and three other public radio stations wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.

The order “also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information,” according to the legal complaint against Trump and a handful of top officials and federal agencies.

NPR and three of its member stations — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio — want Trump’s order permanently blocked and declared unconstitutional.

It “expressly aims to punish and control Plaintiffs’ news coverage and other speech the Administration deems ‘biased,'” attorneys for the news outlets wrote. “It cannot stand.”

Unless the whole system is already so hamstrung by Trump that he can do whatever he wants no matter how unconstitutional it is.

It’s odd to see a human rights lawyer admitting that it didn’t occur to him to think about the trans issue from the point of view of a woman.

I am a human rights lawyer and professor at King’s College London. Until 2018, I supported all the demands of the transgender-rights movement. But since then, I have changed my mind.

Why? Because I finally understood that some demands conflict with the rights of women and are therefore unreasonable.

That’s quite the admission – that it took him a long time to realize that some trans demands conflict with women’s rights. It’s not as if we’re a tiny niche demographic, like Shaker biracial left-handed Indigenous lesbians or something. Women are quite noticeable in the population, and yet still men forget to look at things from our point of view.

I assumed that whatever the transgender community demanded must be reasonable.

They knew what they needed. It did not occur to me, as a man, to put myself in the shoes of a woman, encountering a “legal woman” with male genitals in a women-only space.

That’s so odd. It’s good that he admits it, but it remains very odd. Why are we so invisible? How do even human rights lawyers forget to take our views into account?

All the same bad stuff only much worse this time.

In President Trump’s first term, the Pentagon opposed his desire for a military parade in Washington, wanting to keep the armed forces out of politics.

But in Mr. Trump’s second term, that guardrail has vanished. There will be a parade this year, and on the president’s 79th birthday, no less.

The current plan involves a tremendous scene in the center of Washington: 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks (at 70 tons each for the heaviest in service); 28 Stryker armored personnel carriers; more than 100 other vehicles; a World War II-era B-25 bomber; 6,700 soldiers; 50 helicopters; 34 horses; two mules; and a dog.

Yay! The dictator gets to parade the toys this time! There’s nothing like a Stalinist military display to make us all feel safe.

The Army estimates the cost at $25 million to $45 million. But it could be higher because the Army has promised to fix any city streets that the parade damages, plus the cost of cleanup and police are not yet part of the estimate. While $45 million is a tiny fraction of Mr. Trump’s proposed Pentagon budget of $1.01 trillion for fiscal year 2026, it comes as the administration seeks to slash funding for education, health and public assistance.

Not to mention its shutting down of USAID.

Imagine being an academic and seeing your union shout this:

We know that by “trans rights” they mean not the human rights that everyone has but special invented luxury rights that cancel the rights of other people, especially women. If men who call themselves women have the “right” to go everywhere women can go, then women don’t have some rights we’ve depended on for a long time. If men who call themselves women have the “right” to compete against women in sports then women lose the right to compete against women. If men who call themselves women have the “right” to win prizes for women, then women won’t win prizes any more. And so on. Men can’t idennify themselves into the female category without taking things away from women. Men with a shred of decency wouldn’t want to do that, but trans “activism” attracts men who lack that tiny shred.

Also, academics are supposed to be reasonably clever and thoughtful. Trans ideology is childish nonsense. Make it make sense.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on From the Solfatara crater.

Back in 1980, during my last year of high school, I went on a trip with a number of classmates to the eastern Mediterranean organized and chaperoned by one of our teachers. One of the last stops on the trip was Naples. The original plan was to go to Pompeii, but having arrived on a Monday, the site was closed. Plan B took us to Solfatara, which smelled of rotten eggs and featured many pools of boiling mud. The paths we walked along were roped to keep us from straying off into areas where the thin crust of rock might not have supported our weight, with more boiling mud awaiting the foolish and unwary.

“Super” and “volcano” are not two words you want to see put together. They are a phenomenon best observed from a great distance (like on a planet other than the one you are currently standing on), or from a great time after the fact, (say, a millennium other than the one in which you are currently alive). Here’s why:

The term “supervolcano” implies a volcanic center that has had an eruption of magnitude 8 on the Volcano Explosivity Index (VEI), meaning the measured deposits for that eruption is greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles).

SOURCE: US Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/questions-about-supervolcanoes

Here’s a scary graphic: https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/comparison-eruption-sizes-using-volume-magma-erupted

A Google search tells me that the last eruption of the “supervolcano” class was 27,000 years ago, in what is now New Zealand. This is more than 25,000 years before humans arrived in New Zealand, more than 22,000 years before humans wrote, 20,000 years before there were cities to evacuate, and more than 10,00 years before there were crops to fail. Something like this is completely unprecedented in the experience of human civilizations. Our closest parallels are the estimated effects of a “nuclear winter.”

A supervolcano erupting in Solfatara would mean the end of Naples (snd much of Italy along with it), and millions of immediate refugees (or victims, depending on the amount of lead time the eruption deigns to provide). Such an eruption would make the one that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum look like a Christmas cracker. This would be Bad.

It would be ironic if, instead of being laid low by the combined might of the cascading, multiple disasters we’re currently hurtling towards, human civilization were to crippled or snuffed out by something like this, something we could not have possibly caused, or prevented. It wouldn’t be a frog in a pot of water being brought gradually to a boil, but a frog immolated in a pyroclastic cloud. Not karma, or retribution, but plain, dumb luck.

As destructive as this would be to life as a whole, I think it’s possible that this would, in the longish run, be less disruptive biologically than human induced global warming is likely to be. A supervolcano knocking out civilization before it destroys more than it already has (and more than it probably will) might be “better” for the biosphere than letting us continue on our current path. It might just forestall the continuance of the Anthropocene.* Think of it as The Great Reset, 2.0.

*The motion to officially rename our current geological Epoch the Anthropocene was defeated in 2024 at a vote of the International Union of Geological Sciences, but that doesn’t change the scope or degree of human impact on Earth systems. Unless we change our ways, it might not be too long (geologically speaking) before there is no International Union of Anything left to change this decision, assuming the Phlegraean Fields supervolcano doesn’t beat us to the punch.

Why do I find it hilariously/depressingly predictable that the story linked to in the OP contains (at least when I opened it) a further link to the following clickbait:

Woman shares easy IKEA Hack which turns two product into a chic side table

Do I laugh? Cry? Both? Neither? Who knows, this link could end up being vitally important information to future archaeologists as they try to reconstruct livingroom furnishings when, thousands of years from now, they excavate Naples.

The Guardian tells us women just don’t matter at all.

A parliamentary debate last week had a series of backbenchers questioning how the ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, and the subsequent advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that in the light of this, transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets of the gender they live as, squares with the rights of trans constituents.

What rights? There is no such thing as a “right” to use the toilets of the sex you are not. Toilets are divided by sex for reasons of safety. Who is more in need of safety in toilets, men or women? Obviously women; women don’t prey on men in toilets, but some men do prey on women in toilets, especially if doing so is made extremely easy.

(It’s depressing that women don’t but some men do. It’s depressing because of why some men do. It’s because some men are turned on by acts of forcing sex or pseudo-sex on unwilling women. It’s depressing, if you think about it, that some men find that a turn-on. It’s depressing that for some men sex is inextricably tangled up with cruelty and contempt and hatred.)

One senior Labour MP, Meg Hillier, highlighted the plight of a person who has long lived as a woman, uses women’s changing rooms in her job with the ambulance service, and now fears being forced to tell colleagues she is transgender. The supreme court ruling, Hillier argued, “creates a real mess that needs sorting out”.

Why? Why does Meg Hillier do that? Why does this implausible person matter more than women? Why does she think there is such a thing as “living as a woman” and that it is much the same as being a woman and is a reason to let men help themselves to women’s rights? Why does she argue that women’s rights create a real mess?

In private, a number of MPs go further. While they accept the issue is complex, involving the sometimes overlapping and competing rights and needs of trans people and those who require single-sex spaces, they are increasingly frustrated with the way it has been handled.

Wrong. The issue is not complex, or not all that complex. People’s weird fantasies about themselves should not be seen or presented as reasonable rivals of the rights of women. People’s weird fantasies about themselves are their problem, not anyone else’s. Nobody else is obliged to take them seriously, much less destroy women’s rights because of them.

Most cited as a worry is the practical issue of whether transgender people, or even those whose appearance does not conform to gender norms, will now have toilets they can use in many public spaces without being challenged.

Why is that most cited? Why isn’t women’s fear of men in women’s toilets most cited? Why do trans people matter more than women? Why can we not get out of this loop where we keep trampling women’s rights underfoot so that a man who likes to wear dresses feels “validated”?

Roz Savage, the Liberal Democrat MP who organised last week’s debate, has urged ministers to act to prevent what she called “shrinking people’s lives”. She said: “If you don’t have a clear idea how you can go to the toilet without potentially getting into a confrontational situation then you’ll just avoid the situation, which is incredibly limiting.”

Women. Remember women? Women don’t want men in our toilets. That’s incredibly limiting. Why do men who want to be in our toilets matter more than we do? Please explain.

King Choss is dropping in on Canada by way of telling Trump to keep his nasty little hands off.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will arrive in Canada later, for a two-day visit seen as bringing a message of support for the country in the face of threats and taunts from US President Donald Trump. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who recently won a general election on a wave of anti-Trump sentiment, invited the royal couple and will hold a meeting with them during their stay in Ottawa.

The King will read the “Speech from the Throne” to Canada’s Parliament on Tuesday, the first time a monarch has delivered this for almost 50 years. It is expected to include a defence of Canada’s sovereignty and to reject claims it should be taken over by the US.

But the timing of this week’s visit has been seen as a sign of solidarity with Canada, after calls from Trump for the country to become the 51st US state. The US threat has inflamed public opinion with some businesses in Ottawa, as elsewhere in Canada, putting on displays of national identity such as “Proudly Canadian” posters.

Carney, when he visited Trump at the White House earlier this month, stressed that Canada was “not for sale” and that message is likely to be conveyed in the King’s speech which is written on the advice of Canada’s government.

Former Canadian high commissioner to the UK Jeremy Kinsman said this was a message the King will be pleased to deliver. “It’s going to be very affirmative of Canadian sovereignty. And I can say personally that it’s something that King Charles will celebrate saying. I have no doubt,” said Mr Kinsman, who worked as a diplomat with the King when he was Prince of Wales.

Yes I don’t imagine Choss is all that impressed by Trump. I’m not normally all that impressed by Choss either, but when it comes to putting the Queens barbarian in his place I can’t help looking forward to it. Deploy that embarrassingly toff accent to the hilt, Choss; look down on the rapey crooked real estate tycoon and put him firmly in his place.

Uh oh

The Phlegraean Fields supervolcano near Naples, Italy, has recently sparked serious concern among scientists due to alarming increases in gas emissions. Experts from Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology have documented a significant surge in carbon dioxide release from the Solfatara crater, with daily emissions reaching between 4,000 and 5,000 tons. This troubling development has raised questions about whether magma is rising toward the surface, potentially signaling a catastrophic awakening of this geological giant that could have global consequences.

The Phlegraean Fields’ increasing activity has scientists on high alert as they monitor the dramatic rise in gas emissions. Research led by Gianmarco Buono reveals that up to 80% of the carbon dioxide currently escaping from Solfatara crater originates directly from magma beneath the surface. The remaining emissions result from interactions between hot underground fluids and calcite-rich rocks, creating a complex volcanic system that’s becoming increasingly unstable.

…

What makes the Phlegraean Fields particularly concerning is its classification as a supervolcano—capable of eruptions exponentially more powerful than conventional volcanoes. The region’s violent history includes a devastating eruption approximately 40,000 years ago that released massive ash clouds and gases into the atmosphere, significantly altering global climate patterns.

If a major eruption were to occur today, the consequences would extend far beyond Italy’s borders. Ash clouds could envelope much of Europe, disrupting air travel, agriculture, and power generation. More critically, volcanic gases would likely trigger worldwide climate disruptions, potentially leading to years of cooler temperatures and altered weather patterns affecting food production globally.

Yes but how will this affect the trans communniny?

They just won’t give an inch.

Nearly 50 MSPs and their staff have signed a letter to the governing body of the Scottish parliament expressing “deep concern” about its decision to ban trans people from using the toilets of their lived gender in the building.

Allow me to express my “deep concern” about the nearly 50 MSPs and their staff who are ignoring the obvious implications of allowing trans people to use the toilets of their “lived” (i.e. fake) gender.

Which should we be more “deeply concerned” about – men who want to invade women’s toilets, or women who want men to stay out of women’s toilets?

Nearly 50 MSPs think the answer is that we should ignore the needs of women and focus only on the aggressive demands of men in lipstick.

Alison Johnstone, Holyrood’s presiding officer and chair of the Scottish parliament’s corporate body, set out the interim position earlier this month in response to the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.

Toilets designated as male- or female-only are now to be interpreted as meaning biological sex, Johnstone said, while the parliament will increase its existing provision of gender-neutral facilities which will be open to anyone, in an effort to ensure “confidence, privacy and dignity” for staff and visitors.

But the letter, based on legal advice from the Good Law Project, argues that Holyrood has misinterpreted the supreme court judgment.

Ah well there’s your problem. The Good Law Project is Jolyon Maugham, and Jolyon Maugham is absolutely determined to obliterate women’s rights in favor of coddling and cuddling men who pretend to be women. He’s also jaw-droppingly narcissistic, which makes him a tad unreliable.

It looks as if Jolyon Maugham actually wants to be sued for libel. Strange thing to want.

So he wants to get sued for libel? And lose?

Why?

And there’s also all the influence of financial interests and mergers and terrorist lawsuits to make everything even worse. Trump punishes journalism for reporting the truth about him, and much of journalism says “Yes sir yes sir” because it doesn’t want to lose that sweet deal it has with _____.

CBS News and Stations CEO Wendy McMahon is leaving the network, the latest casualty as its parent company tries to broker a truce with Donald Trump.

McMahon alluded to the network’s battles with the president in a memo to staff on Monday, less than 24 hours after 60 Minutes aired its season finale, and admitted “the past few months have been challenging.”

Her exit comes as CBS’ parent company Paramount Global negotiates a settlement to Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against the network over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Controlling shareholder Shari Redstone is hoping for a quick settlement so as to not provide a roadblock to Paramount’s merger with Skydance.

Lawyers for Trump and Paramount entered into settlement talks last month.

It’s just blatant hijacking. Trump sues and everybody dives for cover.

The news rankled staff on Monday, with some pinning the departure on CBS CEO George Cheeks for letting top leaders leave to appease the parent company. “I think people are very disappointed” in Cheeks, one CBS staffer told the Daily Beast. “He is letting some truly amazing people walk out the door.”

Because Trump. And money.

Trump sued the network, initially for $10 billion last year, after CBS promoted a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris in October that included a clip on Face the Nation that featured one part of an answer on Israel’s war in Gaza. But when the episode aired the next day as part of a special edition of 60 Minutes—one Trump refused to participate in—it featured a different part of the answer.

Trump claimed the network engaged in a form of news distortion, though CBS News said its interview followed standard journalistic practice and defended its interview on First Amendment grounds. Trump upped the lawsuit to $20 billion earlier this year. Incidentally, the Harris interview was subsequently nominated for an Emmy Award in the Best Editing category.

Still, despite legal experts’ opinions that the lawsuit is flawed, Paramount Global entered into settlement talks with Trump’s legal team last month as controlling shareholder Shari Redstone seeks to merge the company with David Ellison’s Skydance, which would net her a $2.4 billion payout for her family’s share.

Redstone’s aggressive pursuit of securing the Trump administration’s blessing included demanding Cheeks notify her about negative Trump stories last month, according to Bloomberg.

It came after Trump rebuked 60 Minutes over an episode that covered his pursuit to take Greenland and featured an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 60 Minutes never amended any of its programs, and it aired a story last month that examined Trump’s attacks on law firms.

CBS staffers have chastised Redstone both publicly and privately.

Bill Owens, 60 Minutes’ executive producer, told staff in his exit announcement he lost his ability “to make independent decisions” on the show’s programming after he refused to apologize for the Harris interview.

He praised McMahon for her leadership, and she said in her memo on his departure that it was “an easy decision” to stand by Owens despite company pressures.

So Trump is the boss of 60 Minutes now. Brilliant.

Trump is still noisily raging at Harvard, clueless as to how obvious he’s making his jealousy and resentment.

In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said the home countries of some of Harvard’s international students are “not at all friendly to the United States” and “pay NOTHING toward their student’s education.”

He added that the administration wants to “to know who those foreign students are” and that “Harvard isn’t exactly forthcoming.”

That’s not how any of this works.

Trump’s latest attack against Harvard comes two days after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the administration from being able to revoke the university’s ability to enroll international students.

The university had argued that the Trump administration’s revocation was a “blatant violation of the First Amendment” and punished the school for rejecting “the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”

I suppose the reality is that Trump has literally no idea what the boundaries of his job are. I suppose the reality is that he sees himself as the CEO of us which translates to the absolute boss of us which entails no limit whatsoever on what he can demand and order and require. He thinks he has all the powers of a dictator or absolute monarch.

He doesn’t.

That won’t stop him acting as if he does though.

I mentioned a few days ago in a comment that a bonehead error a lot of people make is confusing “minority” with “oppressed” when the two are not the same at all. Here’s Hamza Yousaf making that exact mistake.

“The way we handled that, it clearly was a mistake.”

Humza Yousaf concedes that the way the SNP handled self-ID was a “mistake” but making life easier for trans people was “the right thing to do.” @AdamBoultonTABB | @HumzaYousaf | #TimesRadio pic.twitter.com/PZBzjEXKPo

— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) May 25, 2025

…advancing people’s rights, I think that’s really important, I never demured [he means demurred] from that view, I’m a passionate advocate for minority rights, being a minority myself, but – I mean all minorities, whether sexual minorities, people who are transgender, whoever…

Spot the problem? Women are not a minority. “People who are transgender” are a tiny minority, but that does not mean they are necessarily at a disadvantage in relation to women. It’s not the case that women are the powerful privileged oppressors in relation to men who make themselves into parodies of women and take women’s jobs and awards and organizations. The word “minority” is not a magic excuse-all.

Even federal disaster relief is not safe from Trump.

Public officials have started pleading with the Trump administration for help in recovering from deadly disasters as President Donald Trump triggers frustration in states struck by tornadoes, floods and storms by taking no action on requests for aid.

Trump has left states, counties and tribes in limbo as he delays making decisions on formal requests for millions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. Some areas that are still reeling from extreme weather are unable to start cleanup.

“We’re at a standstill and waiting on a declaration from FEMA,” said Royce McKee, emergency management director in Walthall County, Mississippi, which was hit by tornadoes in mid-March.

You’d think tornadoes would be apolitical, but apparently not.

The county of 13,000 people can’t afford to clean up acres of debris, McKee said, and is waiting for Trump to act on a disaster request that was submitted by Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, on April 1 after the tornadoes killed seven people, destroyed or damaged 671 homes, and caused $18.2 million in public damage.

Sorry, Trump is too busy talking to Fox News and shutting down whole departments to pay attention to some dreary county in Mississippi.

The frustration over Trump’s handling of disasters is the latest upheaval involving FEMA. Trump recently canceled two FEMA grant programs that gave states billions of dollars a year to pay for protective measures against disasters. The move drew protests from Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

On May 8, Trump fired FEMA leader Cameron Hamilton and replaced him with David Richardson, a former Marine Corps officer who has no experience in emergency management.

…

Eleven of the 17 pending disaster requests were sent to Trump more than a month ago.

“This looks to me like, until FEMA’s role is clarified, then we’re just going to sit on it,” said a former senior FEMA official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Trump has indicated that he wants to shrink the agency, which distributes about $45 billion in disaster aid a year, helps with as many as 100 disasters at a time and, he said, “has been a very big disappointment.”

“It’s very bureaucratic and very slow,” Trump said in January during a visit to disaster-stricken western North Carolina.

So the solution is to make it even slower until it grinds to a halt.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the administration wants state and local governments “to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes, making response less urgent and recovery less prolonged.”

And his way of making this happen is just to ignore requests for help. He’s such a sweetie.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on What makes them experts?

It points to a problem in the ruling, however. Maybe it could be exploited. I don’t know.

Activists are claiming the ruling is unclear/flawed/wrong anyway, so the heel-dragging and nose-thumbing is happening without reference to the ruling in any case. They need no reason or excuse. They’re still following Stonewall Law and its unlawful guidance, which was made up to suit what activists claimed and wanted despite the original intent of the Acts it was supposedly embodying. They’ve never argued their case; why would they feel the need to start now?

If a woman is fool enough to make herself look convincingly male, that’s not anyone else’s problem to fix.

While I see women trying to escape the demands and expectations of an increasingly sexualized, patriarchal femininity as a completely different and unrelated demographic from the AGP males who have roped them into the chimerical “trans community” by way of forced teaming, they chose this path for themselves, and shouldn’t expect or demand the rest of the world to go along with their delusional beliefs, just as secular society cannot be forced to follow the rules and strictures of a particular religion or denomination thereof.

My alma mater, Western University, has an “inclusive” washroom policy, featuring the following incoherent and gaslighting sticker on many washroom doors:

“Western respects everyone’s right to choose a washroom appropriate for them. Trust the person using this space belongs here”.

The first sentence is vitiated by the second. Resistance to this policy is characterized as “gender policing”:

Gender policing is where someone imposes or enforces normative gender expressions – i.e., the narrow definitions of what a man or a woman should do or look like – on an individual who they perceive as not adequately performing, through appearance or behaviour, the sex that was assigned to them at birth.

Gender policing a washroom is inappropriate and is contrary to Western’s policy on non-discrimination and harassment.

It is up to the individual to decide what washroom they wish to use based on their lived identity.

It is not up to anyone else to decide who can use, or who should use, any particular washroom facility.

[Read it and rage here: https://www.uwo.ca/hro/doc/inclusive_washrooms.pdf ]

Of course the activists who foisted this policy on us have to do this, because if they admitted that segregation of facilities by sex is the whole point of separate toilets, it would halt the whole gender project before it got out of the gate. Washroom segregation is not a way of enforcing “normative gender expressions”, or punishing “inadequate gender performance” but an attempt to KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN”S BATHROOMS. They see “gender inclusivity” as a continuation of efforts at accommodating people with disabilities and facilities with change tables for family use. But these are vastly different “inclusivities”. “Gender inclusivity” in anything other than single-user washrooms is potentially open season for women, with the guiding ethos of “trusting” the judgement of the person entering a (nominally) women’s washroom, supporting male aggressors invading female spaces, rather than women’s safety and privacy.

Someone who decides to go into a bank wearing a mask and carrying a realistic looking toy gun should not expect to feel welcomed by the staff, other customers, or bank security. Someone dressing like a bank robber is going to get treated as a bank robber, because the stakes are too high to offer anyone the benefit of the doubt. Bank robbing is a thing. Similarly, women can’t be expected to second guess whether or not a trans identified female is actually male or not. Predatory males assaulting women in washrooms is a thing. The safest course of action is to assume that a “male presenting” individual is male. This might not be the kind of “passing” TiFs want, but it’s a matter of safeguarding, not out of any respect for the TiF’s “identity”. Women’s safety should always come first. Trans activism has never admitted or accepted this, demanding women sacrifice their own wellbeing for the sake of validating gender cosplay. If some TiFs get caught in this as “false positives”, like sheep in wolves’ clothing, that’s not women’s problem. In situations where women are vulnerable, disguises that conceal or alarm are warning flags. “This person is not to be trusted,” stickers be damned. Women shouldn’t be forced to risk their safety for women pretending to be men, any more than they should be doing so for men pretending to be women. Your precious “identities” aren’t worth it.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Jam tomorrow.

Women are just an annoying little faction, and can safely be ignored.

Strange how Labour (or much too large a chunk of it) is deathly afraid of that 0.1% of “women with penises” and their friends, as opposed to brushing off half the population. This minority has that power over them because Labour gave it to them. Labour might feel it’s gone too far to step away from this parasitical “alliance”, but doing so would probably win them more support than it would cost. It’s too bad they can’t see this. If they don’t, their statements in support of genderism over the last few years are going to be held up as examples of lunacy and extremism for decades to come. Forget the “wrong side of history”; how about the wrong side of reality. Ironic that this stance completely guts any pretense that Labour really supports women’s rights, handing this issue to Tories on a silver platter, like Democrats and Republicans in the US.

Trans activism has been much more successful at selling itself as a “progressive” movement, than it has at convincing people that men can be women, as many seem to go along with the former in order to “be kind” (or to avoid the attentions of gender goblins), who nevertheless reject the latter. Its “progressive” status is taken as a given, despite the evidence of its inherent misogyny, homophobia, and its reliance on lies, bullying, and intimidation.

However it managed to work its way into the progressive platform, the real question is how do we get it out? It is a blight and cancer that needs to be excised. Genderism as it is exemplified in its current form, is a drain of resources, and a distraction from more important matters. It forces women to needlessly re-fight battles that had just barely been won, while adding this additional burden of invasive, predatory, trans activism to their already ongoing struggles. How do we shut down this shit show?

Found it. Found these women-hating fuckers. Home page:

Formerly known as the Women, Influence & Power in Law UK Awards, the newly reimagined Leadership, Influence & Inclusivity in Law Awards reflect the evolving legal landscape—where values-led leadership, collective impact, and cultural transformation are more important than ever.

And where women are not. It was an award for women, and now it’s not, because it reflects the evolving legal landscape where women just aren’t worth mentioning, let alone giving awards.

These awards honour individuals and teams across the legal profession who are driving meaningful change—whether through visionary leadership, inclusive culture-building, groundbreaking client work, or community-focused initiatives.

We continue to celebrate the legacy of women who have shaped the profession, while now recognising a broader community of changemakers committed to creating a more progressive, accessible, and equitable legal industry.

No they don’t. It was an award for women and now it’s not; that is not “continuing to celebrate the legacy of women” blah blah blah. It’s that other thing. It’s studiously concealing the legacy of women, and patting themselves on the back for doing it. It’s saying women don’t get to have awards just for women, because women don’t matter enough. Women are too narrow, and we’re all about the broader community.