Revisiting the “asexuality” activist who does such a sterling job of demonstrating indifference to sexuality.

Her pinned post on twitX:

In other words you don’t dress like that for no reason, or because it’s merely decorative. You dress like that to show off how sexy you are. Being sexy is not the same as being sexual, but if you’re not sexual, why bother to show off how sexy you are?

Maybe to be what’s vulgarly known as a prick-tease? If so, when did that become part of Pride?

Answers on a postcard.

Well thank god there’s so little going on in the world that the BBC has time and space to report on a guy who couldn’t find trans underpants. Sadly it doesn’t have time to explain why it’s telling us this. The lede:

A trans man said he locked himself away every month when he menstruated because he could not access trans-friendly underwear.

What does the BBC mean “said”? Said when, where, to whom? What a bizarre amateurish way to begin a news story – “somebody said something.”

It goes on in the same dopy amateurish way, with a series of “said”s minus any context.

Jay-Harley Rees, 28, from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, said there were not enough spaces where trans and non-binary people felt safe in small towns and rural areas.

He said he had to put on a “fake deeper voice and pretend to be a lad just to go to the shop”.

Rhi Kemp-Davies, a non-binary therapist, said changing your appearance as a trans person to “pass” was often done to avoid violence.

What do you mean “said”??? Is this an interview, or something overheard on a bus, or what?

It’s a very long piece by BBC standards, full of glurge about packing and binders and living authentic lives.

I said that.

One can see Elon Musk in every word.

The email, sent from President Trump’s Office of Personnel Management to employees across the sprawling federal government, arrived just before 8:30 p.m. Thursday — almost exactly 24 hours after an air crash in Washington that killed 67 people. The message reiterated an offer earlier this week from the administration encouraging federal employees to seek new jobs in the private sector — and did so in terms that appeared to denigrate their contributions, if not cast them as lazy.

“The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector,” stated the email, which was reviewed by The New York Times.

Like that. “Productivity” isn’t always the relevant criterion, to put it mildly. Human needs and making a profit don’t always seamlessly mesh. Making widgets isn’t all there is.

“There are so many public servants working in government because they want to serve the public — that is what motivates them,” said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes best practices in government. “This series of hammer blows that federal employees have experienced has created fear and disorientation and distraction, and shows the administration has not read the room at all.”

Well you see serving the public isn’t “productive” enough.

Mr. Trump’s repeated degradations of federal workers also may not have the intended effect. Some workers said on Friday that they were increasingly motivated to keep their jobs to ensure government services would be delivered to citizens.

Uh oh – citizens? That’s subversive. It’s consumers you’re supposed to be delivering to.

A new depth plumbed by Newsweek.

Nearly 18 years after killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two young daughters during a home invasion in Connecticut, the murderer formerly known as Steven Joseph Hayes says she’s now at peace — though still haunted by the killings she regrets.

Well he shouldn’t be at peace. Killing three people for giggles is not something anyone should be at peace with.

Hayes — now Linda Mai Lee after finalizing a name change this month — and accomplice Joshua Komisarjevsky, now 44, were sentenced to death for the attack, which included sexual assaults of Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter. The pair, who previously met at a halfway house, doused the family’s home with gasoline and set it ablaze. Hayley Petit, 17, and her younger sister, Michaela, died of smoke inhalation, while Hawke-Petit was strangled by Lee after they returned from a bank where she was forced to withdrawal $15,000.

Not killing alone; killing by torture plus sexual assault. Peace should be way out of reach.

In exclusive comments to Newsweek, Lee, 61, said her former anger had been fueled by the question of her gender identity. Now, she said she finally felt comfortable living as a woman in the Oregon State Penitentiary, where she is serving six life sentences for the killings of Hawke-Petit, 48, Hayley Petit, 17, and 11-year-old Michaela Rose Petit in Cheshire on July 23, 2007.

“For the first time in my life I am happy to be alive and do not want to die,” Lee told Newsweek via email on Jan. 15, adding she intends to resume hormone replacement therapy shortly.

Why is Newsweek shoving this putrid pile of excrement in our faces?

It’s a man who wrote it – one Joshua Rhett Miller, “chief investigative reporter.” This isn’t investigation, it’s ass-kissing – and the ass belongs to a man who murdered three female people. Newsweek thinks this is good stuff? It doesn’t notice anything insulting to women about it?

The vast majority of inmates in Oregon State Penitentiary are men, but Lee said she is able to wear makeup, eye shadow, foundation, eyeliner and even lipstick on occasion. She also cherishes her jewelry, including rings and necklaces, as well as bras, panties and what she called a “slightly feminized” uniform. 

Panties??? Wtf? Is this whole disgusting story a pretext for some dude to drivel about bras and “panties”? Insult women and infantilize them in the same breath – while rejoicing that their murderer feels happy now.

Had Lee accepted herself earlier, Hawke-Petit and her daughters may still be alive, she said.

“I think about them every day and regret my part in what happened and all the pain I caused,” Lee said.

Jesus christ. His part? In what happened? Murderer says “excuse me” for “his part” in murdering three people while rejoicing at how happy he now is playacting being a woman.

There’s a whole lot more of this garbage. I hope Joshua Rhett Miller is very sorry he wrote it.

Nyah nyah, you don’t get the nice corner office any more.

The Trump administration’s program to shake up media representation at official briefings and press calls in Washington is set to affect the Pentagon, with credentialed media being rotated out of assigned workspaces for media newcomers.

The conservative-leaning One America News Network is set to replace NBC News, Breitbart will be given space held by National Public Radio, the New York Post has been offered the New York Times’ workspace and HuffPost will replace Politico.

The changes are set to take place on 14 February in what the Pentagon calls a new “annual media rotation program”, according to an internal memo seen by CNN.

The moves are largely symbolic as outlets are not losing access to Pentagon briefings, but are in keeping with the Trump administration’s plans to mix the access of traditional news outlets with a cohort of non-traditional news outlets, including podcasters, bloggers and TikTokers.

Well you can call it “non-traditional” if you like but it’s a euphemism. What these outlets are is amateur. It’s not a crime to be an amateur, I’m an amateur, but I sure as hell don’t think I should be up front at Pentagon press briefings.

A spokesperson for the New York Times said the move to expel the paper and other independent news outlets from the Pentagon’s press spaces was “a concerning development”.

“The Department of Defense has the largest discretionary budget in the government, millions of Americans in uniform under its direction and control of a vast arsenal funded by taxpayers. The Times is committed to covering the Pentagon fully and fairly. Steps designed to impede access are clearly not in the public interest,” the paper added in an email statement.

…

Kevin Baron, a former vice-president of the Pentagon Press Association, called the changes “the erasure of journalism at the Pentagon” in a series of posts on X.

Baron said the existing outlets were being “replaced with fake news partisans like Breitbart, OANN, and NY Post. And HuffPo (they still exist?) for fake balance. Trump/MAGA’s fascist takeover of media coverage of the regime continues.”

And this is only week two. 206 left to go.

King’s College London has a page for Yasmin Benoit, but doesn’t really explain what her research will be or why KCL thought she would be a good visiting researcher.

Yasmin Benoit is a British model, multi-award-winning asexual activist, writer, speaker, media consultant and researcher.

What’s an asexual activist? How do you activist a negative? How do you activist being asexual?

Starting her career as a model and advocate for diversity in the fashion industry, Yasmin was described as the “unlikely face of asexuality” by Cosmopolitan Magazine after publicly coming out as asexual in 2017. She started the #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike movement for diverse representation and visibility, co-founded International Asexuality Day (April 6), and is a board member of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.

This is all…nothing. It’s just stuff you can do by typing for a few minutes. It doesn’t mean anything. How can an academic institution be this gullible?

In 2022, she launched Stonewall x Yasmin Benoit Ace Project – the UK’s first asexual rights initiative with Stonewall – and won ‘Campaigner/Influencer of the Year’ at the Rainbow Honours. The following year, they released the ‘Ace in the UK’ report into asexual experiences and discrimination, which is being used to inform workplace, healthcare and public policy. Yasmin was the first asexual person to open NYC Pride and to lead Pride in London in 2023 and 2024 respectively. She has also taken her activism to Serbia, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

Taken her activism there and done what with it?

Asexual babe shares her tits with an enthralled public.

If she really is “asexual” why does she choose to pose for photos looking so exaggeratedly sexual? It’s like saying you hate country music while regularly posing for photos playing a banjo.

Also, what research? If she’s a visiting research fellow then what’s her research going to be? Hair twiddling 101? Wearing a bra instead of a shirt? Attention seeking in adulthood?

The NY Times on the coup:

The Trump administration plans to scrutinize thousands of F.B.I. agents involved in Jan. 6 investigations, setting the stage for a possible purge that goes far beyond the bureau’s leaders to target rank-and-file agents, according to internal documents and people familiar with the matter.

The proposal came on a day that more than a dozen prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington who had worked on cases involving the Jan. 6 riot were told that they were being terminated.

In short we’re at the mercy of a criminal. He instigated the January 6 riot in an effort to steal a second term as president, and too many people in too many states were damn fools enough to give him that second term four years later. Now he has the chance to destroy everything, and he’s making the most of it.

The moves were a powerful indication that Mr. Trump has few qualms deploying the colossal might of federal law enforcement to punish perceived political enemies, even as his cabinet nominees offered sober assurances they would abide by the rule of law.

Always the absurd understatement, as if telling the full truth would be bad manners. Few qualms?? Come on. They know perfectly well he has zero; they know perfectly well he wants to do as much bad shit as he possibly can. “Few qualms” indeed – this isn’t a tea party: tell the whole truth.

Forcing out both agents and prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases would amount to a wide-scale assault on the Justice Department.

Ya think??

The acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, also told the acting leadership of the F.B.I. to compile a list of all agents and F.B.I. staff “assigned at any time to investigations and/or prosecutions” relating to the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day a mob of Trump supporters stormed through the halls of Congress.

In issuing his directive, Mr. Bove, who has overseen an opening volley of threats, firings and forced transfers since the inauguration, cited Mr. Trump’s executive order vowing to end “the weaponization of the federal government.”

Oh right, that’s what this is. Trump weaponizes everything.

The moves come just one day after Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the F.B.I., testified before Congress that the bureau would not be targeted for political reasons.

“All F.B.I. employees will be protected against political retribution,” Mr. Patel said during his confirmation hearing on Thursday.

How’s that working out?

We’re faced with both a deadly serious coup and an onslaught of dumbass incompetence.

President Donald Trump declared victory on Friday in his long-running water war with California, boasting he sent billions of gallons south — but local officials say they narrowly prevented him from possibly flooding farms.

“Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons. Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago — There would have been no fire!” he said in a post on his social media site.

Right, and if there’s a shed on fire next door to you the thing to do is flood the entire neighborhood.

Before the Corps ratcheted down its plan, local authorities scrambled to move equipment and warn farms about possible flooding, said Victor Hernandez, who oversees water management on one of the rivers, the Kaweah in Tulare County. He said the Corps gave him one hour notice on Thursday.

“I’ve been here 25 years, and I’ve never been given notice that quick,” Hernandez said. “That was alarming and scary.”

It’s called “move fast and break things.” It’s Muskism. Move faster! Break more things!”

While releasing water from reservoirs before a big storm, like the one expected to hit Northern California this weekend, is standard flood-control procedure to avoid overflowing dams, Hernandez said the Army Corps’ Thursday plan would have released far more water than needed. He said releasing the water at the capacity the Corps had planned to would have flooded both the Kaweah and Tule rivers, where the Corps’ reservoirs are located.

Floods are good! You want floods! They’re the opposite of fires! Bring on the floods: they move fast and break things!

Trump since his first term and during his presidential campaigns has repeatedly vowed to send more water to Central Valley farmers in the state’s conservative heartland. He incorrectly blamed the temporary lack of water in Los Angeles hydrants during wildfires earlier this month on the state’s water management policies, though the state’s reservoirs are at or near historic levels right now and the hydrants went dry because of the high local demand.

Here’s the thing: he’s still doing it. He’s got it all wrong, he’s got his facts wrong, it was all a boneheaded mistake, and yet he keeps right on doing it. It’s like flying a plane into the ground even though your co-pilot and all the instruments are screaming at you that you’re flying the plane into the ground.

Double whammy. A dictatorship, and the dictator is off the charts stupid and stubborn.

Allah hates women.

Hira Anwar, 14, lived in two contrasting worlds in New York, where she was born and raised. Outside her home, she was a typical American teenager, laughing with friends, posting videos on TikTok and dreaming of a boundless future.

Inside the home, her reality was very different. Her parents, Pakistani immigrants who had settled in the United States over two decades ago, expected her to adhere to their cultural and religious values, which demanded modesty from women. 

So laughing with friends, posting on TikTok, and dreaming of a future=not modest? She should be friendless, silent and invisible, hopeless?

That’s not modesty, it’s annihilation.

Hira was fatally shot by her father and an uncle on Monday night, several days after arriving in Pakistan on what she had been told was a family vacation, the police said. The authorities called her death an “honor killing.”

In a chilling confession in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Hira’s father, Anwar ul-Haq, said she had brought shame to the family by posting what he called inappropriate videos online, the police said.

And so he murdered her.

Is there any room for affection in Islam? For jokes, chat, frivolity, laughter, exploration, friendship, interests, learning? Are women just tubes for the production of terrorized submissive girls or terrorizing domineering boys?

The dictator purges law enforcement:

The Trump administration is set to expand a purge of career law enforcement officials, with dozens of FBI agents who worked on January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack and Trump-related investigations as well as some supervisors being evaluated for possible removal as soon as the end of Friday, according to people briefed on the matter.

This is, already, a dictatorship. Purging law enforcement officials because they enforced the law=dictatorship. If laws don’t apply to Trump, then nothing can stop him, and that’s a dictatorship. At the rate we’re going he’ll be eating people on camera in a week or two.

Agents who worked the investigation of Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, and those who investigated the roughly 1,600 rioters charged or convicted connected to the violent Capitol attack have been concerned they could face retribution for doing work they were assigned to do.

The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.

According to communications obtained by CNN, more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases had their employment terminated by the Justice Department Friday.

Justice shmustice.

None of this is by the book.

Federal employees are receiving additional communications that appear designed to entice them to accept the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” resignation offer, despite mounting questions about whether the offer is legal.

While the initial offer to federal employees to resign by Feb. 6 and retain their pay and benefits through Sept. 30 came directly from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), some of the latest guidance is coming from agency leaders, further sowing confusion over what’s to be believed.

Employment attorneys and union representatives emphasize that OPM, which handles many human resource matters for federal workers, lacks the authority to promise paid leave for government employees other than its own.

Oh. Interesting. So they’re promising money they can’t deliver. How con artist-like – how trumpish.

Moreover, agency budgets are controlled by Congress, not OPM, and many agencies will run out of money on March 14 if Congress doesn’t approve a new budget or pass another continuing resolution.

What?? You mean Congress has actual powers? Powers that Trump doesn’t have? How is that even possible? The president is supposed to be an absolute monarch, isn’t he? (Never she, obvs.)

In a blog post, Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, urged federal workers to reject the resignation offer, tying it directly to billionaire Elon Musk, who is seen as the architect of the “Fork in the Road” deal.

“Don’t accept Elon’s offer,” he wrote. “Congress could declare the entire offer illegal — which it is. Then where would you be?”

In the cold.

Meanwhile Trump hires who are running these agencies are telling their people the opposite, because of course they are.

Additionally, the emails from agency leaders tell employees that except in rare cases, those who resign can take a second, nongovernment job “during the deferred resignation period,” a claim also made in the FAQ posted to OPM’s website and shared with employees by multiple agencies.

“We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” the FAQ reads. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

Elon? Is that you? It is, isn’t it.

The subhead gets at the essence of the matter.

President Trump at moments of national tragedy has always been more comfortable finding fault than providing comfort or expressing empathy.

In fact you can omit the “at moments of national tragedy” part. Trump just in general has always loved to attack and sneer and jeer rather than doing the other thing. He’s the guy who jeered at the very idea that he would take his own kids to the park.

In the wake of this week’s midair collision near Washington, Mr. Trump was more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together. After declaring it to be an “hour of anguish for our nation,” Mr. Trump just five minutes later let anguish give way to aggression as he blamed diversity policies promoted by Mr. Obama and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for the crash, which killed 67 people.

…

His decision to use the bully pulpit of the White House on Thursday to assign responsibility for the crash to his political rivals by name without offering a shred of evidence was, even for Mr. Trump, a striking performance. And it was no off-the-cuff comment. He followed up by signing an order directing a review of “problematic and likely illegal decisions” by Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden.

…

It was not the first time Mr. Trump has exhibited what even his own former aides have called an “empathy gap.” Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with thousands of Americans dying every day at its peak, Mr. Trump rarely paused long enough to dwell on the human toll and never sponsored any memorial to the fallen. Instead, he focused his public messages on finding others to fault, whether it be China, Mr. Obama, Democratic governors, the World Health Organization, federal regulators or his own scientific advisers.

He has responded similarly to natural disasters by going on the attack. Just this month, Mr. Trump reacted to the devastating wildfires in greater Los Angeles by blasting Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, calling him “Newscum.”

After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, he engaged in a war of words with San Juan’s mayor and, when he finally visited the island, memorably tossed paper towels to people who had been left without food, water or power. Angry at criticism of his handling of the calamity, he later suggested to aides that the United States sell or trade away Puerto Rico.

In short he’s a bad mean hostile person, who provides a horrible role model for his many deluded fans. It’s depressing living in his world.

George Mason University shouts Breaking Barriers for Menstruators:

Menstrual equity has been a prevalent topic that is kept behind closed doors for centuries, even though it requires more attention and recognition in our society.

Wut?

Wtf is a “prevalent topic”? How do you keep any kind of topic “behind closed doors”? What centuries are we talking about? Was there a time before all those centuries when “menstrual equity” was front and center?

Menstrual equity can be referred to as the idea that 

Wait wait wait – you mean “defined as.” Not “referred to” but “defined as.”

Why is a barely literate adolescent allowed to write rules and regulations for a university?

Period poverty is a kind of poverty that is least talked about, but it is also the kind of poverty that affects menstruators all around the world. It may seem like I am heavily trying to focus on the term “menstruator”, because this is a neutral and impartial term that we all must try to use.

Why did George Mason University see fit to include this execrably written drivel on its official website?

Menstruation should not be associated with certain genders only as this biological phenomenon is experienced by individuals belonging to diverse gender identities.

Wrong. Exactly wrong. The thing you claim is the opposite of the truth.

An individual does not have to be a menstruator in order to empower menstrual equity around us. I come from a developing country, Bangladesh, where only 15% of the menstruating population has the privilege to afford proper period products- and this is the reality of many other regions around the world as well. 

Ok well that explains the clumsy wording, so I withdraw the part about the barely literate adolescent. (I comment as I read, rather than reading the whole thing before commenting. Risky, but I want to pin down first reactions.) But what a tragedy that someone from Bangladesh of all places has been befuddled by this trendy luxury ideology that’s bad for women.

So what’s he supposed to do? Where, exactly, does he put the speculum?

Reduxx reports:

A French gynecologist has been sanctioned by medical authorities after a trans activist group reported him to the Minister of Equality for comments which they deemed to be “transphobic.” Dr. Victor Acharian, who operates in the Pau region, has been prohibited from practicing medicine for five months, with an additional one-month probationary period.

In August 2023, a trans-identified male and his partner visited Dr. Acharian’s office in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. After a few minutes of waiting, the secretary told the man that the doctor had refused to see him.

“I told her that I’m not competent, but I can guide you. I can refer you to services that can take better care of you. But after I said that, things went south,” gynaecologist Victor Acharian told Euronews, while referring to the trans-identified male with feminine pronouns.

Result: lots of free publicity for the enterprising tranz laydee, lots of pestering and nagging and suspension from work for the naughty gynecologist.

The question remains unanswered; just exactly what did the tranz laydee expect the gynecologist to do?

TIME magazine:

The Trump Administration is facing its first major test after a passenger jet and Army helicopter collided mid-air in the Washington, D.C. area on Wednesday night, in what officials are calling the most fatal aviation disaster on U.S. soil in more than two decades.

The collision quickly raised concerns about the state of air traffic control and oversight and sparked questions about recent leadership changes within the federal agencies charged with regulating air travel.

Just days before the crash, President Donald Trump enacted a sweeping shake-up of the federal agencies responsible for aviation oversight, removing the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), David Pekoske, and eliminating all the members of a key aviation security advisory group. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates airlines and aircraft manufacturers and manages the nation’s airspace, was also without permanent leadership at the time of the crash, as its top official, Michael Whitaker, stepped down ahead of the new administration’s transition after clashing with Trump ally Elon Musk.

Ok but still. It seems like a huge stretch to think that any of that actually caused the helicopter pilots to crash into the plane. It seems like a huge stretch to think that there were already fewer controllers at that extremely busy and crucial airport and that that’s why the helicopter failed to avoid the plane. Things aren’t that simple, even when they’re Trump things.

Um.

Now that he mentions it I remember flinching at that ATC hiring freeze. Really we’re gonna economize on that? Penny wise and pound foolish at all?

Trump says it’s all the fault of the women and other worthless kinds of human.

President Trump blamed diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration and his two Democratic predecessors for the midair collision over the Potomac River on Wednesday night, saying that standards for air traffic controllers had been too lax. Mr. Trump cited no evidence, and even admitted when pressed that the investigation had only just begun.

Moments later, he blamed the pilots of the Army helicopter that appeared to fly into a passenger jet that was on final approach to Reagan National Airport, across the river from the capital.

Mr. Trump went back and forth between blaming diversity goals that he said were created by President Barack Obama and President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and then saying that an investigation was necessary.

Aka he made a display of his own stupidity. Well, he can’t do anything else, can he. If he could fake being not stupid, he would.

His instant focus on diversity reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens, whether the facts fit or not.

It is something he has done before: After a terrorist attack in New Orleans a month ago, he blamed illegal immigration, even though the attacker was a U.S. citizen born in Texas.

When asked how he could say that diversity hiring was to blame for the crash even though basic facts about the midair collision were still being sought by investigators, he said, “Because I have common sense.”

“For some jobs, we need the highest level of genius,” he said.

Right. Will you be leaving today, or first thing tomorrow?

Mr. Trump appeared in the White House briefing room with Vice President JD Vance; the newly sworn-in transportation secretary, Sean Duffy; and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. All three men began their comments by praising Mr. Trump’s leadership and repeating that they would eliminate diversity requirements and focus on competence.

Do they know competence when they see it?

Oh well, he’s exceptionally gifted, so that’s ok then.

A teenage boy who used his phone to film young girls undressed in a changing area at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin has been spared a custodial sentence and a criminal record.

The 17-year-old “exceptionally gifted student”, who cannot be named because he is a minor, had pleaded guilty to two offences under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act for knowingly possessing two videos on his mobile phone at the centre in Blanchardstown on a date in 2022. He was aged 14 at the time.

Garda James Grogan had said the teen used his phone, which was placed on a kiosk floor, to film girls aged five and nine as they were undressed, and breast and vagina areas were visible. One of them was not identified.

He pleaded guilty to possession of the photos but not to making them? Possession is bad enough but jeezus h christ putting his phone on the floor so that little girls age five and nine would stand over it and he would get photos of their genitals is horrific.

If this nasty piece of work is really all that “gifted” he should be able to figure that out for himself.

Judge Kelly highlighted how the teenager had engaged fully with the Probation Service, which confirmed that he excelled academically.

He has been barred from swimming due to the offence, and the judge expressed hope that would give some comfort to the victim.

Oh yes, I’m sure that’s hugely comforting. Anyway he’s not “barred from swimming”; he’s barred from swimming at the centre in Blanchardstown and maybe centres in other places, but a judge can’t bar him from swimming in local rivers and ponds and similar.

In a mitigation plea, defence counsel Doireann McDonagh told the court her client, who had moved to Ireland a few years before the incident, had experienced bullying and separation from one of his parents due to Covid.

Therefore, he had to sneak photos of little girls’ crotches. He was bullied, so his recourse was to harm and shame little girls.

What it was like on the inside:

Security agents escorted the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture out of her office on Monday after she refused to comply with her firing by the Trump administration, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, had earlier told colleagues that she intended to stay after the White House terminated her Friday, saying that she didn’t believe the administration had followed proper protocols, the sources said.

In an email to colleagues on Saturday, reviewed by Reuters, she said the independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency “has taken the position that these termination notices do not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are not effective at this time.”

Which means Trump is doing what dictators do, which means Trump is a dictator.

The White House defended the firing of Fong and the other inspectors general, saying “these rogue, partisan bureaucrats… have been relieved of their duties in order to make room for qualified individuals who will uphold the rule of law and protect Democracy.”

Which is what a dictator would say.

The USDA inspector general has a broad mandate, pursuing consumer food safety, audits and investigations of the Agriculture Department as well as violations of animal welfare laws. The USDA has been at the heart of concerns about bird flu, which has spread among cattle and chickens and killed a person in Louisiana.

In 2022, the inspector general’s office launched an investigation of Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink, which remains ongoing, sources said.

Brain implant startup????

The dismissals, handed out less than a week after Trump took office for his second term, appeared to violate federal law, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency said in a letter to the White House on Friday.

Dictators do that.