How on earth does one go about sifting through a sea of red tape?
Beware of those intrusive apostrophes, too. There is no apostrophe in the plural phrase “my partners”. See also:
my hats
my books
my intentions
my horrified stares
No apostrophes there. They don’t belong.
Hampstead Heath’s chiefs are recommending the Ladies’ and Men’s ponds remain trans-inclusive alongside a series of upgrades to the existing facilities.
And by “trans-inclusive” they mean “women-exclusionary”.
The City of London Corporation’s much-anticipated report into its access policy follows a consultation which received overwhelming support for the existing arrangements. The ongoing management of the ponds as trans-inclusive spaces after last year’s landmark Supreme Court judgement has however come under scrutiny with a legal challenge launched by Sex Matters ongoing.
That’s because “trans-inclusive” in this context means the women’s pond is no longer a women’s pond. It was a women’s pond, until men started using it. There are plenty of places where swimming is not sex-specific, including at the Hampstead ponds themselves, but there are also the two sex-specific ponds. Men who pretend to be women could just leave it that way, but noooooo, they have to take the women’s pond away from the women who want it, because women must not be allowed to say no. Ever.
Hampstead Heath has three ponds: the Kenwood Ladies’, Highgate Men’s and a mixed area. The existing arrangements for the Ladies’ pond dictate that it is available for use by biological and trans women, with the reverse true for the Men’s.
The Corporation said this has been the case since at least 2017 and that it was consistent with the previous interpretation of the Equality Act 2010.
Equality does not translate to pretending men are women on demand.
Officers wrote: “In circumstances where: (a) there is overwhelming opposition to this option amongst users; (b) the current arrangements have worked well and continue to receive very strong support from users; (c) the Men’s Pond and the Ladies’ Pond have operated without any substantiated incidents since at least 2017, if not before; and (d) the privacy of changing, shower and toilet facilities is to be improved, it is difficult to see how a policy of strict segregation on the basis of biological sex could be justified.”
Then why did it have the men’s and women’s ponds in the first place?
Surely it’s because there are three ponds, so why not make it one for everyone, and the other two for people who prefer that? Suppose, for instance, that sometimes the mixed pond gets too crowded and/or rowdy and on those occasions some women are glad the women’s pond is an option. It’s not just about “ooh I’m squeamish”; it’s also about differences in strength, speed, noise, energy, and so on. My guess is it’s a lot more about the latter than the former. If the women’s pond becomes a second mixed pond then women won’t have that option any more.
But heyho, what men who pretend to be women want is always more important than what women want.
When all else fails just stall. Drag your feet like a whining toddler. “I don’t want to, I can’t, it’s too big, I don’t want to, it hurts, I can’t, I’m tired, I want a cookie, I can’t.”
The reply was full of the usual nonsense and obfuscation. It is “very complicated” (no it isn’t). The debate has been “very toxic.” (Whose fault is that? And what does it matter? The longer the delay, the more irritated people get). There has been no delay, the govt spokesman continues.
(Someone points out that the Empire State Building was built in just over a year.)
Then the hapless govt spokesman dares to suggest they need the EHRC guidance. No they don’t – it doesn’t apply to employers – such as the government.
Finally he resorts to saying the guidance (which would help service providers and associations) can’t be laid because of the purdah rules – a transparently false excuse that Baroness Kishwer Falkner dismisses with ill-disguised contempt.
What a shambles this government is.
For the billionth time I wonder what it is about this particular pseudo-rights campaign that makes it so impossible to ignore.
Hm. Which is more brain-tweaking, Buddhism or cannabis?
22 Buddhist monks arrested at airport after record drug bust
Aren’t Buddhists supposed to get their mellowness from being Buddhist as opposed to drugs? Am I wrong?
Twenty-two Sri Lankan monks returning from Thailand were arrested on Sunday at the main international airport with a record 242 pounds of powerful cannabis, officials said.
A Sri Lanka Customs spokesman said the group, returning home after a four-day vacation in the Thai capital, had Kush — a potent, plant-based strain of cannabis — hidden in their luggage.
“Each carried about five kilos of the narcotic concealed within false walls in their luggage,” the spokesman said, adding that the monks had been handed over to police.
Hidden. No pretending it was an innocent mistake then.
The latest arrests aren’t the first time monks have run afoul of drug laws.
In 2022, every single monk at a Buddhist temple in central Thailand was defrocked after they tested positive for methamphetamine. The monks were sent to a health clinic to undergo drug rehabilitation.
On the one hand cannabis, on the other hand meth. Mellow, or hopped up. What are the goals here, and where does the Buddhism come in?
In 2017, police said a Buddhist monk was arrested in Myanmar after authorities found more than 4 million meth pills in his car and in his monastery.
Ommmmmmmm.
Is it more repulsive than hilarious or more hilarious than repulsive? Hard to decide.
It’s a nice touch that the subject is declaring yourself something, and feeling like an imposter, and how easy it is to declare yourself something. Mmmmyes, good point, it is very easy to declare yourself something. What does that remind me of?
More seriously, it’s also repulsive, and not all that hilarious, that he drones on and on about claiming to be something and how maybe you shouldn’t claim to be something if you haven’t really earned it. Yeah, bro, you haven’t earned being a woman by putting on that ludicrous gigantic prosthetic Set Of Massive Tits. Also your beard is vomitous.
The Beeb also reports on the “trans murderer” we read about yesterday.
Trans prisoner charged with sexual assault in women’s jail
Not a trans prisoner, a real prisoner. A male real prisoner, in a women’s prison. BBC always so careful to hide the truth as long as it can. A very dishonest way to report news.
A transgender prisoner serving a sentence for murder has been charged with the sexual assault of a fellow inmate at a women’s prison.
Alexandra Stewart, previously known as Alan Baker, allegedly attacked the woman at HMP Greenock.
Now why was he previously known as Alan do you suppose? Just a freak accident? Someone’s hand shook on the birth certificate?
Stewart – a biological male who identifies as a woman – was jailed for the murder of John Weir in 2013 and has been held in a women’s unit in the prison since 2016.
Oh there it is. Finally. In the third paragraph. Better late than never?
Stewart – thought to be one of two trans women in the female prison estate – was jailed for life after murdering Weir, 36, by stabbing him 16 times at his home in Bonhill, West Dunbartonshire.
But that’s no reason to refer to him as a man, now is it.
Trump fires another batch of science people.
Multiple scientists who serve on an independent board established to guide the nation’s nearly $9 billion basic science funding agency were terminated from their positions Friday by President Donald Trump.
Members of the National Science Board, which helps govern the National Science Foundation, were dismissed in a message from the Presidential Personnel Office thanking them for their service, according to screenshots shared with The Washington Post: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I’m writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately.”
The National Science Board was establishedin 1950 to guide the governance of the National Science Foundation, in an unusual structure within the federal government that echoes the setup of a company board in the private sector. It helps guide an agency that operates Antarctic research stations, telescopes, a fleet of research vessels and supports basic science research in laboratories across the United States.
The NSF has a long history of supporting technology and research that powers many innovations the world relies on today. The agency helped language-learning app Duolingo get its start. NSF research has also helped evolve technology used in MRIs, cellphones and LASIK eye surgery.
Blah blah blah ya fiyed. Guy from Queens knows best.
It’s unclear how many members of the board were dismissed and whether they will be replaced. A National Science Foundation spokesman referred questions to the White House. The White House did not immediately respond to inquiries about why the members were terminated.
It did not immediately respond because it doesn’t have a clue. Trump does whatever he wants and the flunkies who answer mail chase after him trying to sweep up the broken glass.
Keivan Stassun, a physicist and astronomer at Vanderbilt University, who has been a board member since 2022 said he had personally received confirmation from a third of the board members that they had been terminated by the boilerplate emails, which provided no reason.
He said the board exists to hold the agency to the highest scientific standards, “for how rigorous, intellectual, scientific decisions should be made.” It also approves large funding decisions, such as whether to build a new Antarctic research vessel.
Well that’s no good. We can’t hold agencies to the highest standards. We have to hold them to the trumpiest standards. Getcher priorities straight.
He noted that without a director over the last year, the board has played a major role in advising Congress of the agency’s role in the nation’s investment in science. In the president’s budget request last year, there was a proposed 55 percent cut to NSF’s budget. Congress rejected those cuts.
What’s science ever done for us???
The stupidity of these people is mindblowing.
Oh look, Zoe Lofgren sees it the way I do.
“This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (California), the ranking Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. “The NSB is apolitical. It advises the president on the future of NSF. It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation.”
Does he hate it simply because they are all vastly more intelligent than he is? Any bets?
The shake up on the board is the latest turmoil for the agency that is supposed to help keep U.S. science at the leading edge. Last year NSF had to cancel more than 1,000 active research grants.
…
The shake up on the National Science Board is similar to changes seen on other science-related advisory boards in the federal government since Trump took office for his second term.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. completely dismissed all 17 members of the federal vaccine committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He replaced them with several people who have criticized vaccines.
R Kennedy Jr being someone with no scientific training at all.
Huh. So even his bosses are embarrassed, but not enough to tell him to stop.
Who is Matt Rattley and why is his photo missing? Surely one of these would have done?
Yesterday I learned it’s a thing you can buy. On some of the photos you can see the collar at the bottom of his neck.
Remember this guy?
Mr Rattley is the embodiment of good taste in comparison.
Trump big mad at those people on the other side of the big water.
A sulking Donald Trump has lashed out at the British prime minister for not speaking to him nicely. The president, 79, has made it known that he’s unhappy with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for his refusal to back the war in Iran and assist with a U.S. Navy blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.
In his latest tantrum, Trump criticized the U.K. for failing to make “at least a minimal effort” and use “at least nicer words,” according to the BBC’s North America editor, Sarah Smith, who reported the remarks.
Ooh yes, nicer words, like the ones Trump invariably uses, on account of how it’s such a minimal effort and all.
The president added that “many people from the U.K.” had told his administration it was “incredibly bad a decision” for the NATO member to stay out of the war.
Oh yeah? What people? What “people from the UK” does he talk to? What people from the UK have any desire to talk to him? There are plenty of right-wingers in the UK, but are there plenty of right-wingers with a taste for US-style rudeness and ignorance and vulgarity? I think they prefer their own style.
The president warned in an interview with the Financial Times that rebuffing his calls to help secure the strait “will be very bad for the future of NATO.”
…
The president told the publication that a four-day state visit from King Charles III and Queen Camilla next week could improve bilateral relations.
“Absolutely. He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutel,y the answer is yes,” Trump said of Charles. “I know him well, I’ve known him for years. He’s a brave man, and he’s a great man. They would absolutely be a positive.”
Oh yes sure, he’s known him for years. Choss was right there when Trump bragged about grabbing them by the pussy – he larfed his royal arse off, you can be sure.
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Not altogether persuasive.
Ah, for the good old days before Trump and genderism. How refreshingly quaint this post feels in the midst of our current Orwellian/Kafkaesque nightmare.
But what is “God”? It still hasn’t been defined, which surely makes it laughably easy to “believe” in it without having to give any reasons at all.
Good luck with that. Even with a definition, they still have to make god “work” within the world. Einstein built on Newton, and accounted for the special cases where Newtonian mechanics breaks down. Gods don’t build on anything. The “gaps” they have been relegated to filling are getting smaller and smaller; most have disappeared altogether. Leplace got it right two centuries ago: we have no need of that hypothesis. Gods aren’t needed for special cases, but they do require special pleading.
If you’re going to claim that a god or gods exist, it can’t come down to “personal experience” or “revelation” that might be as easily explained as the result of “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.” Or just plain old fraud and confidence tricks. You can “believe” whatever you like, but if you want to prove your diety exists, it has to show up. “Faith” is just the excuse that’s trotted out when it doesn’t. A being that is supposed to actually exist should be discernible and discoverable by means of neutral, impartial investigation. Real phenomena exist whether anyone “believes” in them or not. “Belief” or “faith” alone doesn’t do the trick either. You can’t even rely on the placebo effect to dig a hole or fly an airplane. You have to roll up your sleeves and get a shovel; you have to climb aboard the plane, start the engines, and pilot the aircraft. Faith doesn’t do it. Wishing doesn’t do it. You have to do the actual work, or nothing happens. So does a purported god. If you want to your say god did something, you have to be able to explain exactly what and how. You have to catch it in the act. It has to be observed. It can’t cheat. It has to pass convincing tests. You can’t make excuses for it, otherwise your “god” is like the cheeseburger that a Breatharian scarfs down when nobody’s looking.
Not only that. Calling on the god hypothesis has to explain things better than explanations not relying on it. Occam’s Razor cuts very close. Used properly, there is no stubble for gods to hide behind.
Holy books are no good, because they all beg the question. You could burn all the physics texts in the world, and the phenomena they explain and demonstrate are all still there to be studied, allowing the books to be rewritten. Burn all the “holy books” and the gods burn with them. Gods are more like unique (but still strictly human) literary and artistic creations, than they are observable facts about the universe. Their distribution and “footprint” on the world, unlike, say the operation of gravity or optics, is patchy and parochial, mapping closely with particular languages and cultures, which suggests a cultural origin rather than a discovery about the facts of the world. If there actually was a class of beings like the hypothesized gods, they should be there for the finding, no books required. You have to run the experiment. You have to find the bits of reality that betray the existence of these entities. Where are the divine footprints, figerprints, and DNA evidence showing that gods exist and act in the world? A nice sunset, or a bunch of whirling leaves in the wind is awfully thin gruel.
Long before we get to the “Problem of Evil,” proving that gods exist still leaves a huge amount of work to do. You can’t stop once you’ve been able to count the number of angels dancing on the head of that pin, you also have to go into the details of their costume and choreography. You still have to distinguish between monotheism and polytheism, or even pantheism. So, gods exist. How do you know exactly who you think you’ve been praying to, and show that it was actually these beings answering these prayers, or not, as the case may be?
Theists have to be able to prove the existence of their particular god, and then prove the links to the particular holy book they claim is its product. Maybe gods exist, but haven’t “written” anything. The writings themselves do not prove any authorship beyond human ones, as their content does not include any “advanced” knowledge of the world inconsistent with the level of knowledge available to humans at the time they were first set down.
And what about the avenues not taken? Truly omnipotent, omnibenevolent gods would be able to prove their existence in a flash, avoiding all the bloodshed of religious wars, removing all doubt for all. A nice, large-type text saying ‘I AM THAT I AM” spelled out clearly in stars, visible to all, would do the trick nicely. If gods really want us to believe in them, why place obscure ads in the minds and scribblings of backwater goat herders? I would think that a nice, big, celestial billboard would be in their budget. Why not do that? Why make people guess, or worse, make shit up? In the stories told about them gods show themselves. Regularly. Convincingly. Gods aren’t afraid to mess with laws of nature in the stories told about them, so why not mess with them in the material of the Universe itself? “Free will” my ass. The demand for “faith” seems to be a wasteful, pointless digression, when a deity of the capabilities imputed to it could produce evidence of its existence without breaking a sweat, metaphorical or otherwise. What does it mean for “theology” when a schlub like me can come up with an idea that so easily shoots down the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god? How much “sophisticated” argument has been expended in order to handwave away this fatal objection? What does it say about the god in which they profess to believe, that they would saddle/credit it with such shoddy alibis? “It’s a mystery!. Goddamn right it’s a “mystery.”
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that lawyers funded by the Justice Centre are representing Canadian journalist Barbara Kay in response to multiple human rights complaints filed by Jessica Simpson (formerly known as Jonathan Yaniv) with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
Ms. Kay, an award-winning columnist and writer for the National Post, Epoch Times, and Post Millennial, has received two individual complaints and one retaliation complaint arising from her social media posts and public commentary. The complaints allege discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression and sex.
There’s no such thing as genner idenniny. What genner expression is could be anything or nothing. None of this piffle should be the basis of a discrimination complaint. We are allowed to know the difference between women and men.
The first complaint arises from Ms. Kay’s social media posts in March 2025. It alleges that her use of a prior name, male pronouns, and commentary on gender identity constitutes discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression and sex, and that these statements caused reputational harm and psychological distress.
In other words discussing the very public activities of Jonathan Yaniv is wicked because it insults his sacred genner idenniny. Yaniv himself is quite the prolific insulter and abuser of other people.
The second complaint, filed the following day, alleges retaliation. It claims that Ms. Kay’s public response to the initial complaint—including her characterization of it as trivial and her continued use of male pronouns and a prior name—was intended to undermine and discourage the complainant from pursuing legal action.
But it’s the truth. It’s true that he’s male, and it’s true that he has done bad things to other people under his “prior” name.
The third complaint relates to a March 30, 2026 interview and published content featuring Ms. Kay. It alleges that her statements rejecting the complainant’s gender identity and her refusal to use preferred pronouns amount to discrimination, and that these views contributed to stigma, reputational harm, and emotional distress.
The complaints form part of a broader pattern of litigation. Jessica Simpson has previously been described by courts as a “prolific litigant” and has been involved in numerous unsuccessful human rights and civil proceedings.
Ms. Kay defended her position, stating, “I would never give credence to something as a reality when it is not a reality.”
And the legal system shouldn’t try to force us to.
Constitutional lawyer Marty Moore said, “Compelling people to affirm one’s own identity rather than reality is a gross violation of the Charter guarantee for freedom of expression. Solutions for societal debates, including about the appropriate protections for women and girls, require that people be able to speak honestly and accurately.”
He added, “Sacrificing the integrity of the debate to the subjective feelings of others is unconscionable.”
Yes it is.
There it is again.
We are aware of the Supreme Court ruling blah blah, we get it that people are allowed to have views blah blah, BUT we have managed to come up with a formula that allows us to bypass all that and shun and punish said people (women) anyway. We have decided that the way these views that people are allowed to have are communicated is how we can shun and punish them anyway. You’re allowed to have your precious views, bitch, but you communicated them in a bad womany evil bitchy bad way that we don’t like so we’re shunning and punishing you, goodbye.
We are committed to equality and inclusion.
Yet another refusal to report accurately.
Trans murderer ‘sexually assaulted female inmate in prison’s hair salon’
Wtf is a trans murderer? Someone who pretends to be a murderer but isn’t one?
If you’re already in the know, of course, you can tell from the “female inmate” bit that they mean a male murderer – but why the hell do they not say so? Why obfuscate in the headline?
A transgender murderer housed in a women’s prison has been charged with sexually assaulting a female inmate.
A male transgender murderer. The word “transgender” does not tell us what sex you’re talking about.
Alexandria Stewart – previously known as Alan Baker – is accused of attacking a woman in the hairdressing salon of the female-only wing of HMP Greenock.
Stewart has been held as a woman at the prison since 2016. The 38-year-old changed gender after being jailed in 2013 for the knife murder of dad-of-two John Weir.
It’s almost funny at this point. Still adamant refusal to spell out that Stewart is a man. What, do they think they’ll be arrested if they say the violent man is a man? Why do they go along with this dishonest manipulative refusal to call a man a man?
The allegation, first reported by the Daily Record, has put renewed pressure on Scotland’s prison chiefs to rethink their “dangerous” policy of allowing biological men to be housed in women’s jails.
There it is at last. In the fourth paragraph. Don’t bury the lede.
Under current guidelines, transgender women are allowed to be housed in female jails unless they pose an “unacceptable” risk of harm to fellow inmates – even if they have a history of violence against women.
And the Telegraph does its bit to help by going to absurd lengths to avoid calling a man a man…but anyway, it is quite the horror that Scotland’s prison chiefs think it’s ok for women to face an acceptable risk of harm from men in female jails. Acceptable to whom, one wonders. Acceptable in what sense. Acceptable why.
SNP ministers are in court fighting to keep the guidelines after campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) launched a legal challenge arguing the policy was “inconsistent” with the court’s judgment.
Susan Smith, an FWS director, said: “It has been a dangerous and stupid experiment to allow prisons to be mixed sex, and it’s having a severe impact on the human rights of the women in the prisons.
“Maybe now the prison service and the Scottish Government can wake up and realise that what they’ve been doing presents a clear and constant risk of state-sanctioned sexual assault – no matter what the outcome in this case it should sharpen minds to that reality.”
But clearly it won’t, and they’ll go right on allowing prisons to be mixed sex because women just don’t matter.
Julie Burchill at Spiked on smug men v JK Rowling:
But the trouble – and the real fun, the sadistic rather than the sporting kind – happens when a bad writer thinks they can ‘take on’ a good writer. It makes it especially entertaining if the first is a man and the latter a woman, due to the element of ‘mansplaining’, which we will see magnificently quashed.
…
There’s been back and forth on X this week, but it seems increasingly likely at the time of writing that Campbell has retired to lick his wounds. He is humourless, like most dry drunks and all on the ‘progressive’ side (just listen to any Radio 4 ‘comedy’ show), whereas Rowling – who once seemed something of a po-faced swot – has become funnier the more successful she is. An early sign that she was determined to enjoy herself – and hopefully offend haters into the bargain – was when she pictured herself in April last year, drinking a cocktail and smoking a cigar on a yacht with the words, ‘I love it when a plan comes together #SupremeCourt #WomensRights’.
Well yes but an even earlier sign was that first surprise photo of the famous lunch in Hammersmith.
After years of refusing to interact with any of us ‘unkind’ types on the gender-realist team, as is characteristic of people who know that they are doomed to lose any sensible argument, Campbell recently indicated that he and Rory Stewart would be ‘happy’ to welcome JKR to their podcast, The Rest Is Politics, just in case she could use the publicity, one supposes.
Just in case he’s stupid enough to think she would say yes when he has ignored all the non-JKR women who have objected to his daughter’s disgusting insults and mockery. Whaddya know, he is that stupid!
More in sorrow than in anger (the same way he must have punched that journalist who dared to mock Robert Maxwell, his former employer), he added that ‘previous attempts’ to get her on the pod ‘have been rebuffed’.
Why would they not be rebuffed? If Campbell is even 10 percent as obnoxious as his daughter that is reason enough to refuse any invitations for public chat.
A million memes bloomed showing unattractive men pressing their clammy attentions on attractive women who wanted none of it. And then JKR herself landed a sucker-punch: ‘That’s because I wasn’t interested in being used to boost the viewing figures of a pair of exceptionally arrogant men whose understanding of this issue drips with classism and misogyny.’ The three women known as For Women Scotland, who were in London last week marking the anniversary of their legal triumph at the Supreme Court, offered themselves up for a ‘grilling’ on The Rest Is Politics instead. ‘We are still in London’, they said on their X account. ‘He can ask us on the podcast and call us toxic to our faces. If he has the guts.’ Answer came there none.
In short he is a shameless sleb-chaser and a disgusting little toady. No wonder his daughter is a giggling sadist.
Though I continued to attend church as usual, I privately wondered whether the entire enterprise might be rooted in nothing more than a misunderstanding.
This steady diminishing of faith probably would have continued indefinitely, were it not for one brisk autumn afternoon in 2011 when, standing alone at a bus stop, I happened to witness the presence of God.
The unevenly paved lane where I waited was a quiet one-way street tucked away in a clutch of trees. I gazed down the road, preoccupied with other things—midterm exams, campus-club minutiae—and expecting the bus to trundle around the bend. A sudden icy wind tore around the corner instead, sweeping into gray branches and climbing ivy to send a spray of golden birch leaves spiraling into the sky, taking my breath along with them. And I knew that my soul was bared to something indescribably majestic and bracing—something that overwhelmed me with the unmistakable sensation of eye contact. What I saw, I felt, also saw me.
Hmm. Gonna hafta question that “unmistakable” there. I think the sensation was indeed mistakable. Don’t get me wrong, I think the sensation itself is glorious, it’s just interpreting that form of glorious as unmistakable eye contact that I dispute. Be cautious when people sneak in an “unmistakable” where it doesn’t belong.
But that’s not my real issue with this piece.
The latest evidence suggests that God most likely exists, argues a big recent book by Michel-Yves Bolloré, a computer engineer, and Olivier Bonnassies, a Catholic author. Tracts that aim to prove the reality of God are hardly novel. What makes this endeavor unique, say the French writers behind God, The Science, the Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution, is the scientific nature of their work. Medieval monks toiling away at poetic meditations on the divine have their place, the authors allow, but their own arguments are meant to surpass mere abstract justifications for belief. Instead they assert that cutting-edge empirical proof observable in the natural world makes a firm case for God.
But what is God? How is that short word being defined?
Many sentences later:
The route to durable faith in God often runs not through logical proofs or the sciences, but through awe, wonder, and an attunement to the beauty and poetry of the world, natural and otherwise.
But what is “God”? It still hasn’t been defined, which surely makes it laughably easy to “believe” in it without having to give any reasons at all.
After that brisk autumn afternoon, life went on unremarkably, though I continued to mull over what the experience could mean. That it meant something at all was another strong intuition that I could not entirely account for. There were plenty of ordinary and dismissive explanations for what had happened, all related to the vagaries of the brain. Surely I had just been tired, bleary-eyed, suggestible, available—highly sensitized, in other words, to typical seasonal splendor. That made sense to me, but I didn’t believe it. The natural beauty wasn’t the cause of what I had felt, but rather an invitation to pay attention to what I felt.
But what does that have to do with “God”? What, exactly, is this God? A person who drifts around the planet shaking trees as invitations to other people to…pay attention to what they feel?
It’s nicely written enough but it’s piffle.
The Australian on the new adventures of Doctor Upton:
Australia’s medical regulator has registered as “female” the transgender doctor at the centre of a landmark UK legal dispute over women’s spaces, allowing the emergency medic to work in two NSW hospitals.
Beth Upton, 30, who began transitioning from male to female in 2022, gave sworn evidence to the UK Employment Tribunal of an intention to treat patients who had specifically requested a female doctor.
Under oath, the medic also described the concept of biological sex as a “nebulous dog whistle”, claiming to be “biologically female” on the basis that “I’m not a robot, so I am biological and my identity is female”.
But idenniny isn’t the relevant category. Idenniny can be anything or everything, but reality is more stringent than that. He can believe he feels like a woman all he wants, but in the real world the reality is that he’s a man.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency registered Dr Elisabeth Ruth Annikki Upton as an unaccredited emergency medicine trainee on April 9, listing the medic’s sex as “female”.
AHPRA defines a “female” as any individual “whose biological sex is that of a female” and anyone whose “gender identity or gender expression is that of a female”.
So what kind of regulation is that? You’d think a regulation agency would seek to be reality-based, wouldn’t you?
The Australian has put questions to AHPRA over whether the regulator believes it is appropriate to register biologically male medical practitioners as female, and allow them to treat potentially vulnerable patients who have specifically requested a female doctor.
This masthead has also asked, given the relevance of biological sex to the treatment of many medical conditions, whether AHPRA believes it is appropriate to register a medical doctor who claims the concept of biological sex is a “nebulous dog whistle”.
I get the feeling AHPRA hasn’t answered.
AHPRA and the Medical Board of Australia in March effectively gagged Queensland psychiatrist Andrew Amos, banning him from making online statements about gender medicine and barring him from having direct clinical contact with any patients.
Fellow Queensland child psychiatrist Jillian Spencer is also being investigated by the regulator for sharing on social media an article from The Australian that quoted her concerns about gender-affirming medical treatment for children.
Is it the fox has taken over the henhouse or the lunatics have taken over the asylum? Or is it, tragically, both?
Women’s Forum Australia CEO Rachael Wong said it was “deeply alarming” that AHPRA had registered Dr Upton as “female”.
“(It) raises serious and unresolved questions about the protection of women’s sex-based rights in Australia, particularly in healthcare,” Ms Wong said.
“This exact scenario has already caused serious conflict, distress and legal action in the UK, including a finding that a female nurse was harassed by the NHS after being forced to share a female changing room with Dr Upton. It is extraordinary that AHPRA appears to be importing the same risks into Australia.
Yes but it harms mostly women, so it’s ok.
Ms Wong said Dr Upton was “not only male, he is a male who has openly disregarded women’s boundaries, privacy and consent”.
“He refused to respect his female colleagues’ privacy in their own changing room, and gave sworn evidence that he would treat female patients who had specifically requested a female doctor,” she said. “That is a direct threat to the dignity and wellbeing of the women he will now work alongside and treat in Australia.”
It’s what they want. Who are women to argue?
Ms Wong accused AHPRA of having been “captured” by gender ideology.
“In addition to its ongoing witch-hunt of doctors speaking out about the harms of youth gender medicine, the regulator – whose core job is protecting patient safety – has prioritised a man’s belief about himself over the truthful information women need to give informed consent. That is not regulation. That is coercion dressed up as inclusion,” she said.
That’s a good point. What about informed consent you absolute fiends???
Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at UK sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, said: “Male doctors should never practise as female and medical organisations should never, under any circumstances, record doctors as the sex they are not.”
“Doing so sets the scene for patients’ rights to be breached, since some patients may consent to a procedure only if it is carried out by someone of the same sex as them, or require a chaperone of their own sex if they are seen by a doctor of the other sex,” Dr Joyce said.
Doctoring is all about bodies – real bodies, not imagined ones. Doctoring is absolutely not the place for fantasy to run riot. Will these fools ever grow up?
From Kezia Dugdale, incoming Chair of Stonewall:
“In my first interview as incoming Chair of Stonewall, I was asked a question about JK Rowling. In answering, I should have been absolutely unequivocal that I would never condone behaviour from anyone that seeks to or causes harm to anyone in our community. That is a red line for me and should be for all of us. I understand the interview has caused worry, anger and upset and I am truly sorry about that.
In a world that is increasingly polarised and in which trans people have been under continuous attack for the last decade or more, I was excited to be appointed Chair of Stonewall. I applied for the role because Stonewall works for the whole LGBTQ+ community. I would not have applied or have wanted to lead a charity that was not inclusive of the whole community because my feminism is and has always been trans inclusive.”
Wait wait wait. Slow down. If you’re going to put out a statement, make it a clear statement. What is this “community” you’re talking about? What is “the whole LGBTQ+community”? What makes it a community? What are the criteria? What are the borders? How do people know? How do members know, how do outsiders know? How is it decided?
All of that needs to be clear before you talk about “a charity that was not inclusive of the whole community” in a way that’s obviously disapproving and hostile.
In other words, the issue here is of course that a lot of people who are normally part of the community in question do not agree that trans people are part of that community. A lot of lesbians and gay men do not agree that trans people belong in groups for lesbians and gay men, not to be mean but because lesbians and gay men need groups for lesbians and gay men. Do you see what I’m getting at? The short version is of course “forced teaming”.
You’re putting a very heavy thumb on the scale by simply assuming that “the community” always and everywhere covers trans people as well as lesbians and gay men, when that assumption is not correct. And it’s no good trying to paper it over by saying “the whole community” as if that were universally agreed. You’re not going to change the minds of people who consider trans ideology a different thing from same-sex attraction by waving “the whole community” in their faces.
Inclusion is a buzzword, but we don’t always want or need inclusion. Labor unions don’t need to be inclusive of bosses, and women don’t need to be inclusive of men. It’s pretty simple once you pay attention.
Trans inclusion is at the heart of Stonewall’s strategy, published last year. That will not change. My term as Chair starts in September. Over the coming months, along with the current Chair Ayla Holdom, the CEO Simon Blake and the rest of the team I look forward to having conversations with as many of you as I can. Together, we want to seek new ways to make progress and push for equality, building on progressive dialogue and starting – always – from a place of inclusion.
But inclusion of what? Straight people? Homophobes? Members of Trump’s cabinet?
You can’t do both. You can’t organize and persuade and campaign as a particular group and include everyone in that group; you have to pick one.
Originally a comment by Arty Morty on Time’s up.
Ugh, here’s the Alliance Defending Freedom again, putting itself at the centre of the gender-critical arena, because no one’s pushing it out. For those who don’t remember, the ADF is the theocratic, Christian Nationalist hate group that, among other odious doings, lobbies to criminalize and imprison gays and lesbians around the world. They work tirelessly across continents to stop governments from decriminalizing homosexuality or tolerating us in any way.
The gender mess on the left is doing catastrophic damage to the causes that need the left’s protection from the nastiest goons on the right. Because it’s alienating so many erstwhile allies, they’re all joining ranks with the goons.
It really doesn’t make the “gender critical” movement look good, that virtually everyone within it is turning a blind eye to the kinds of people who are jumping into the fray and aligning their brands (and the ideologies behind them) to this issue, no matter how much money these dubious organizations have to pour into the battle.
I wonder, if it were the Ku Klux Klan that filed these threatening legal letters rather than the ADF, would they have garnered the same endorsements from Davies and Edwards? Would Women’s Sport Union have been so quick to team up with them? Or would people have realized much sooner that no matter how much they may agree about the gender issue, their differences are far too grave, and some bedfellows are just not worth having at any cost? That it might have been better to tell the ADF to buzz off and stay out of it?
This looks to me like an obvious and terrible strategic mistake. But I’ve seen so, so, so, so many people’s politics turn to the dark side over this issue, it’s just another in a long line of sorrowful disappointments.
PS: and I can never repeat this enough times: the ADF are the ones who succeeded in killing Roe v. Wade.
Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible bedfellows. Arrgh, wake up, people! *screams into pillow*
Douglas Murray at the Spectator:
People who do not follow the dementing debate about the meeting point of trans rights and women’s rights may not be aware of the name Grace Campbell. For anyone not in the know, she is the daughter of the celebrated podcaster and lunatic Alastair Campbell. Inevitably enough, she has a podcast of her own, a clip of which has resurfaced this week. It made some impact online thanks to a riff – alongside a male-to-female trans guest – in which Campbell ridiculed J.K. Rowling and other feminists. The two had a grand old time explaining that the women who disagree with them (many of whom happen to be older than them) are – on top of all their thought-crimes – also ugly.
Well it was more than that. Worse than that. They both gleefully shouted “ugly ugly ugly!!!” at each other, in a frenzy of malice and mistaken hilarity. It was a truly nauseating display. Maybe you have to be a woman to really get the intended sadism.
It is not possible to provide a transcript of the conversation because it would test my sanity to type it out. But the gist of it was that these women were not the sort of people younger, cooler women should aspire to be. The two agreed, among other things, that their feminist opponents had bad hair. Adding a nice dose of misogyny as well as ageism into the mix, Campbell’s trans guest chose to argue that if the hair on top of the women’s heads was dry and ugly, imagine what it was like ‘down there’.
Add that to “ugly ugly ugly!!!” and you’ve got yourself a picnic.
President Trump has claimed that he has secured discounts of 400 to 1,500 percent on prescription drugs. A price discount cannot be more than 100 percent because that would lower the price to zero.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended President Trump’s frequent incorrect calculations of percentages when talking about discounts on prescription drug prices, arguing on Wednesday that the president “has a different way of calculating.”
“If you have a $600 drug, and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600 percent reduction,” Mr. Kennedy said during a congressional hearing.
Hahahahaha no it’s not.
Mr. Kennedy is mathematically incorrect. A price reduction from $600 to $10 would be a discount of more than 98 percent. A price discount cannot be more than 100 percent, because that would lower the price to zero — or suggest that the company was giving you money for buying the product.
Which they don’t do. That’s not math or arithmetic, but it’s true anyway.
The remark came while Mr. Kennedy was testifying before the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, had asked Mr. Kennedy about the price of Protonix, a prescription drug available on the federally run TrumpRx website, compared with the price of the generic version of the drug at Costco. Ms. Warren pointed out one of many cases in which Americans using the TrumpRx service were still paying much more for drugs.
Ms. Warren took a jab at Mr. Trump’s frequent hyperbolic and mathematically impossible claims that the TrumpRx website offered prescription drugs at discounts of 400 to 1,500 percent.
Listen, Trump got a PhD when he was in first grade, so he missed percentages. He got it from his genius uncle who taught radiator repair at MIT.
Mr. Trump has been making mathematically impossible claims about drug pricing for as long as he has been promoting the TrumpRx service, which began with deals announced last year with pharmaceutical companies to reduce some drug prices. He soon lashed out at the media for not repeating the claims or for pointing out that the claims were impossible. “I got the biggest price reduction in history on drugs, pharmaceutical, and I can’t get these guys to talk about it,” he said in January.
Eventually, Mr. Trump began to insert some uncertainty into his claims, saying that the discount depended “on how you want to calculate it.”
“You could say it’s an 80 percent reduction,” Mr. Trump said in January. “Or you could say it’s a 1,000 percent reduction. You could say whatever you want.”
That’s not so much “injecting uncertainty” as it is blithering nonsense.
“We have lowered the price of drugs by 50, 60, 70 and 80 and 90 percent,” Mr. Trump said. “And there’s another way of figuring, you could also say, depending on the way you phrased the statement, 400, 500, 600, 700 percent. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
Indeed Nobody ever has.