If there’s anything movie stars should not be doing, it’s giving medical advice on Covid. Naturally that’s exactly what Gwyneth Paltrow is doing.

Paltrow recently wrote on her blog that contracting Covid-19 had left her with “some long-tail fatigue and brain fog”.

She said a “functional medicine practitioner” had recommended an “intuitive fasting” healing regime.

But NHS England’s Prof Stephen Powis said some of her methods were “really not the solutions we’d recommend”.

As part of her recovery, the Hollywood-star-turned-lifestyle-guru said she was on a mainly “keto[genic] and plant-based” diet, with no sugar or alcohol. She fasts until 11:00 every day and takes infrared saunas.

A “lifestyle guru” shouldn’t be guruing on medical subjects, especially this one.

Prof Powis, who is national medical director for NHS England, said “serious science” should be applied.

…

“In the last few days I see Gwyneth Paltrow is unfortunately suffering from the effects of Covid. We wish her well, but some of the solutions she’s recommending are really not the solutions we’d recommend in the NHS. “We need to take long Covid seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty of care around that.”

Because long Covid isn’t a “lifestyle” and Paltrow is not medically trained. This isn’t complicated.

Wtf? The BBC reports:

Amnesty International has stripped the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny of his “prisoner of conscience” status after it says it was “bombarded” with complaints highlighting xenophobic comments that he has made in the past and not renounced.

A spokesman for the human rights organisation in Moscow told the BBC that he believed the wave of requests to “de-list” Navalny was part of an “orchestrated campaign” to discredit Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic and “impede” Amnesty’s calls for his release from custody.

But on review, Amnesty International concluded that comments made by Navalny some 15 years ago, including a video which appears to compare immigrants to cockroaches, amounted to “hate speech” which was incompatible with the label “prisoner of conscience”.

So that whole being poisoned almost to death by Putin thing doesn’t count any more?

“We had too many requests; we couldn’t ignore them,” spokesman Alexander Artemev told the BBC, explaining that the team initially discounted Navalny’s previous statements – which he has not repeated – as “not relevant” in the light of his current, political persecution.

Amnesty’s offices worldwide, including that of the secretary general, were then hit with complaints from “so-called concerned citizens”, Mr Artemev says, in an apparently co-ordinated move.

Some of the calls to revoke Navalny’s prisoner of conscience status quoted a Twitter thread by Katya Kazbek, a freelance columnist published by the pro-Kremlin channel RT amongst others. She reposted Navalny’s controversial videos after his arrest in January, describing him as an “avowed racist” and accusing supporters of “whitewashing” his nationalism.

That seems like quite a good reason to ignore the complaints, rather than to act on them and say you couldn’t ignore them.

Oh boy, a game. The NY Times has a what dialect are you game, not paywalled. I got New York, which is dead-on in a way, since I grew up in Princeton, but I thought some of my answers were probably because my parents were from Iowa and Missouri, and some might have been because I’ve lived in Seattle since Charles I became king…but nope.

To be more precise, I got New York, Yonkers, and Baltimore. Yonkers??? I’ve never even been there apart from passing through, and the same goes for Baltimore. Plus Yonkers has a dialect different from New York? A bit puzzling but no matter, it’s interesting.

Now the UK police are not just shouting at us about the “rights” of trans women, they’re also threatening us if we talk back.

The police are doing this.

The police are telling women we have to let men who say they are women into our sports, and they are reporting us if we say that’s an injustice.

The police are taunting women over the loss of their rights and then punishing us when we talk back.

The police are doing this.

But…it’s the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill. It’s a bill about maternity. What can it possibly have to do with men who call themselves women? Men can call themselves women until they run out of breath but it will never make them able to get pregnant. Why is a man talking about a maternity bill in terms of “defamation” of trans women?

Naomi Wolf has been reckless with other people’s lives before. Back in 2014 she was peddling conspiracy theories about the ISIS beheadings of journalists and others.

Author and former Democratic political consultant Naomi Wolf published a series of Facebook posts on Saturday in which she questioned the veracity of the ISIS videos showing the murders and beheadings of two Americans and two Britons, strongly implying that the videos had been staged by the US government and that the victims and their parents were actors.

Wolf published a separate Facebook post, also on Saturday, suggesting that the US was sending troops to West Africa not to assist with Ebola treatment but to bring Ebola back to the US to justify a military takeover of American society. She also suggested that the Scottish independence referendum, in which Scots voted to remain in the United Kingdom, had been faked.

Lots of people peddle conspiracy theories, but it’s worse and more dangerous when people with some claims to intellectual respectability do it.

despite Wolf’s turn into conspiracy theory, she is still more widely known for her earlier and much-respected work on feminism, as well as her political consulting for the 1996 Bill Clinton and 2000 Al Gore presidential campaigns on reaching female voters. I was taught parts of Wolf’s 1990 book “The Beauty Myth” in school and admit that, until researching her more recent views more fully for this post, still mostly associated her with this and other well-respected work. In other words, I was carrying the assumption that Wolf is a respected and authoritative figure to be taken seriously. I can only assume that I was not alone in this.

I would replace the word “authoritative” with “reliable,” but I agree with the basic point. You don’t expect people who can write respected books to spout dopey (but dangerous) conspiracy theories. You expect people like Trump to do that, not people who can write books.

Her initial posts on ISIS repeatedly stated that confirmation of the authenticity of their beheading videos “has not happened yet.” Wolf said that the media was ignoring “journalistic red flags” in that the sole source of the videos had been “SITE, which is run by an anti-Muslim activist with half a million dollars in US funding in 2004.” (In fact, the videos were widely distributed on open-source jihadist online outlets. Maryland-based nonprofit SITE monitors extremist social media.) She also detailed an alleged incident, which I was not able to confirm, of a website “based in Doha, address registered at a private intelligence firm in the UK” that she said had spread news of a Canadian journalist, who turned out not to exist, taken hostage in Syria.

This culminated in a now-deleted post, reproduced below, suggesting that the ISIS beheading videos had been staged, as had the initial abductions of the two American journalists and two British aid workers killed on camera. She hints that she believes this was done by the US military.

Now she’s sowing doubt about vaccination on Twitter and Fox News.

I don’t know what gets into people, I really don’t.

Naomi Wolf is giving us the benefit of her multi-disciplinary expertise again.

No it isn’t. We know people have immune systems, but immune systems can’t knock out a novel virus all by themselves.

Ah yes, the sinister conspiracy to slow and stop a lethal pandemic by vaccinating people. Bill Gates should be building luxury golf resorts instead!

The landing.

TRANSPHOBIA DEFINITION

Transphobia describes discriminatory or prejudiced language or actions, relating to actual or perceived gender identity, including denying or refusing to accept gender identity.

So there you have it. It’s “transphobia” – which is obviously very wicked indeed – to refuse to accept the new, stupid, dishonest, fantasy-based concept of “gender identity.” We’re not allowed to go on understanding reality on this particular subject, on pain of being accused and convicted of “transphobia.”

We have to agree that men are women if they say they are – always, no matter what, with no exception, no questions allowed – on pain of shunning at best and firing at worst.

We have to accept the new ideology no matter how seriously and energetically we explain that we don’t believe it and can’t believe it, for the simple reason that it’s obviously not true. We can’t not see a man when we do see a man, no matter how thick the makeup is or how frilly the dress is. All we can do is lie, and we’re at a loss to understand why we should be forced to lie about this subject.

Oh it’s a syndrome now is it, not a murderous hatred of women but a nice literary syndrome with the prestige of Shakespeare behind it.

A man was experiencing “Othello syndrome”, the baseless belief that his wife was having an affair, when he stabbed her to death on the grounds of a hospital in Sydney’s east, a court has heard.

That’s not a syndrome, it’s misogyny crossed with jealousy and dominance.

Mourad Kerollos is on trial by judge alone in the NSW Supreme Court accused of murdering his wife Gihan Kerollos – known as Gigi – as she left work at Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick about 8.30pm on May 18, 2019.

…

A forensic psychiatrist, Dr Kerri Eagle, examined Mr Kerollos in May 2020 and is expected to tell the trial that he had a major depressive disorder at the time of the stabbing, or a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

“He had delusional beliefs, he had referential ideation, he had auditory hallucinations, and he had a systematised belief associated with morbid jealousy – in the absence of any apparent proof – that his wife was acting as a sex worker and having affairs,” Mr Barrett said.

It’s interesting though how such delusional beliefs track familiar patterns of jealous controlling male behavior toward women they think of as their property.

The Guardian is underlining what a loser that guy is.

He lost the presidential election, lost more than 60 legal challenges to the result, lost his bid to overturn the electoral college, lost control of the Senate and lost an impeachment trial 43-57, though he was spared conviction on a technicality. On Monday, Trump lost yet again – with potentially far-reaching consequences.

The supreme court rejected an attempt by his lawyers to block Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney (DA) in New York, from enforcing a subpoena to obtain eight years of his personal and corporate tax records.

And why does the Manhattan DA want those tax records?

The DA has said little about why he wants Trump’s records but, in a court filing last year, prosecutors said they were justified in seeking them because of public reports of “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” – Trump’s family business empire – thought to include bank, tax and insurance fraud.

Ok so maybe they just wanted to make the point. Maybe they don’t really care about the reports of criminal conduct in Trump’s outfit.

Now that investigation is gathering momentum. Vance, who earlier this month hired a lawyer with extensive experience in white-collar and organised crime cases, will be able to find out whether the public reports were accurate by studying actual financial records, spreadsheets and email correspondence between the Trump Organization and accounting firm Mazars USA.

Ok fine, whatever, but he’s busy. He probably won’t have time to show up in court.

On Sunday he is due to make his first speech since leaving office at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, reasserting his command of the Republican party and teasing a new run for president in 2024.

Nobody can expect him to interrupt all that just because some local DA wants to prosecute him.

Woman’s Place UK has an open letter protesting the violent threat against Carmen Calvo.

WPUK has joined with 13 other organisations to call on all the major political party leaders in the UK to condemn the violent threat made against the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Carmen Calvo.

An effigy of Calvo was found suspended from a tree in the Plaza 8 de Marzo in Santiago de Compostela. The location is significant because of its connection with International Women’s Day. It was reported in a newspaper article that she was targeted because of her criticism of  proposed new legislation known as ‘Trans Law’.

This latest incident marks an escalation in the targeting of high-profile Spanish feminists who dare to defend sex-based rights, such as Amelia Valcarcel, Lidia Falcon and Angeles Alvares.

I wonder if that’s why Sally Hines made this incorrect assertion:

Trump is very mad about the Supreme Court ruling. He’s so mad that he put out a “statement,” as if that’s going to change anything. Nobody has to do what he says any more, so his statements are just so much hot air.

Donald Trump’s yearslong quest to prevent the public, Congress, or law-enforcement officials from seeing his tax statements came to a resounding end with a unanimous Supreme Court ruling. He did not take the defeat in stride. Instead, the former president released a statement that, even by Trumpian standards, brims with anger.

Trump’s response bears every hallmark of an authentically Trump-authored text, as opposed to the knockoff versions produced by his aides. It is meandering, filled with run-on sentences, gratuitous insults, and exclamation points. Trump’s position on the tax returns rests on a series of assertions, ranging from his false claim that Robert Mueller found “No Collusion” to his insistence that he actually won the 2020 election to his extremely ironic complaint that prosecutors targeting their political opponents is “fascism, not justice.” (Trump, of course, spent his presidency publicly demanding his Attorneys General investigate his political rivals.)

It was MAGA when he did it, it’s fascism when anyone else does it (to him).

His outpouring of rage that Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance will finally have access to his financial documents suggests the only plausible reason for Trump’s evident dismay: He is very scared of being charged with crimes.

I do hope he goes to prison.

This is good!

If you don’t have 9 minutes to spare, start at 2 minutes.

At 4 minutes he cites the work of Jane Clare Jones.

I can’t stop. The hilarity is too.

Yes please please please tell me I’m valid.

But just wanting to exist doesn’t need a week. Presumably we all want to exist, except the suicidal among us. Or if it does need a week, it should be I Want To Exist Week.

And then of course the replies. Always the replies.

Amatonormativity!

Hey, I don’t like peanut butter cookies, do I get a week?

They’re really doing this? It’s not a joke? I saw a mention of it earlier today but thought it was a joke. I guess it’s not a joke?

Really?

Tips? Support? Ally? Community?

They’re not joking?

Come on…

The Beeb gave the job of “analysis” on that Brighton NHS gendoo newtwoo wangwidge article to, of all people, Ben Hunte, their “LGBT correspondent” who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about women.

The hospital is currently receiving a huge amount of backlash following several misleading news reports and lots of misinformation on social media.

On Twitter, some have called the changes “misogynistic” or “an erasure of women”, and many have labelled them “ridiculous”.

Good start. Scare-quotes on misogyny; that’s Ben Hunte for you.

However, while some reports have stated that Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is entirely replacing any language related to womanhood, this is not the case.

We know, it’s women and blah blah blah, but we still object to that, because it is in fact women and only women. We get to object to being redefined as well as being erased.

One trans man told me he is “disappointed” that language meant to include him is so divisive, as “adding others should not subtract”.

Poor Ben Hunte, he couldn’t persuade more than one trans man to tell him that?

What are they putting in the drinking water in Brighton?

An NHS trust is to use “gender inclusive language” for its maternity services, including terms such as “chestfeeding” and “birthing parent”.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust is thought to be first in the UK to adopt the language in its internal communications and meetings.

Let’s hope it’s also the last, and that it changes its mind.

The trust said it recognised “challenges” gender identity can have on pregnancy, birth and feeding.

It recognized what? You mean it recognized the challenges “gender identity” can present for pregnant women and mothers?

Let’s assume that’s what they mean. So what’s the point? That women who have delusions of being men find it painful or disconcerting to experience pregnancy and giving birth and nursing a baby, and that therefore there is a need to change the language used by everyone so that women will be erased even from that whole creating human beings thing that is why women are so policed. A very small number of women with socially-fostered delusions, and bam, it’s time to pretend anyone of any sex can push out a baby.

Don’t worry, women, we’ll still mention you, but we’ll also pretend that people other than women can push out babies.

A document on the trust’s website lists new terms such as “breast/chestfeeding”, “mothers and birthing parents” and “father or second biological parent”.

And all of Brighton joins hands and dances together.

Ominous headline:

Scottish misogyny law must protect all women, says Helena Kennedy

On the one hand, duh, obviously it must. But this being now, of course on the other hand are we using “all women” to mean “including men”? We are, aren’t we. It wouldn’t be a news story otherwise.

There should be no limits of the types of women protected from hate crime says Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, as she begins her consideration of whether Scotland requires a standalone offence to tackle misogynist abuse.

Of course that’s right…unless by “types of women” you mean “especially men who call themselves women.” A man isn’t a type of woman. There are many types of rabbit, but a dog isn’t a type of rabbit. There are many types of tree, but a daffodil isn’t a tree.

Kennedy is immediately clear on how she would define the scope of specific protection she is charged with: “This is about hatred. Trans women, gay women, journalists, parliamentarians, all women get a whole lot of horrible stuff slung at them – disproportionately – and I’m not narrowing down those who receive it.”

Cute, but no. Trans women are men, and it’s not “narrowing down” the category “women” to say men are not women.

Describing it as an ambitious project to protect women, Kennedy and her six-person panel – “hand-picked by me” – have a year to resolve whether the creation of a standalone offence or adding sex to the list of other protected characteristics, such as race and religion, would better tackle misogynist abuse.

Why isn’t sex already a protected characteristic? I’ve never understood that.

The Scottish government’s own hate crime bill has attracted a huge amount of controversy and, while it was always the intention to examine this standalone option, the timing is far from ideal. As it stands, the bill that is passing through Holyrood criminalises, among other things, the stirring up of hatred against cross-dressing people, thereby protecting men who dress as women, but not the stirring up of hatred against women, while the decision on protections for women won’t be made until Kennedy’s working group reports back in 12 months’ time.

That’s how we know we’re women: we’re always an afterthought.